Here we go again with the debate on how to elect the President of the Uhited States of America! Can you believe there are people who actually believe that the President should be chosen based on a direct vote of the people with the candidate receiving the most votes nationwide? What does that really mean? Could someone be elected with a plurality vote as opposed to a majority vote? Would a direct vote by the people be a vote by an informed electorate? Would the most populous states or a region of states decide the fate of the election for the entire country?
The Founding Fathers of the United States put much thought and deliberation into deciding the best method of selecting the President of the United States of America. While not of unanimous opinion, the majority consensus of our country's Founding Fathers was to elect the President by means of the Electoral College system. The majority of the Founding Founders ruled out the method of the House of Representatives selecting the President basically because it was thought that a President selected in such a manner would be too dependent and beholden to the legislative branch of the national government. A majority of the Founders argued against the people directly electing the President for two reasons; one, it was felt that too many of the "common" people were ill-informed and easily manipulated; and two, that a tyrannous President could very well be the result of direct popular election. Consequently, the Electoral College was devised with independent electors to be selected by the legislature of each state. The majority consensus also appeased concerns of the small states, meaning the less populous states, in devising the formula used in creating the number of Electors for the Electoral College that guaranteed states with small populations more of an equal weight in the presidential election.
You might want to read the interesting article Why was the Electoral College Created? by Marc Schulman. Another interesting reading comes from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. If you wish, go on over to read The Electoral College: The Issue: Why did the framers choose the method that they did for electing presidents? Should the Electoral College be abolished or modified?
Would an election of the President by a direct vote of the people nationwide be nothing more than a popularity contest? Turning election into popularity race is an article in the Chicago Tribune that I suggest you read.
Could the American people be hoodwinked? Or, are Americans now smarter than the perception the Founding Fathers had of their contemporaries? Tell me we're ready to make a well-informed decision in the interests of all Americans.
Ohio has long had a pivotal role in Presidential elections under the Electoral College process. Would that still be the case if we were to go to a nationwide direct election of President of the United States of America?
A tangental question: Are the proponents of direct nationwide popular election of the President also in favor of changing our state/national federalism form of government into a unitary national government and thereby eliminate state governments?
12 comments:
Roland,
While the Founding Fathers may be prescient in saying that too many voters are ill-informed and easily manipulated, I think you have struck to the heart of the matter. It was always the design of the Founders to create a fairly weak federal government, seeking to leave power with the individual states. In the 20th century especially, we made a move to a stronger federal government. This kind of move would be another move in this direction.
This, along with the recent strengthening of the Executive branch of the government could prove extremely dangerous to the balance of power that has been successful for over 200 years.
First:
The reality now is that the small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.
Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).
Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York's use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming—both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.
The people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.
So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is not about whether there will be "mob rule" in presidential elections, but whether the "mob" in a handful closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored. Candidates in 2004 spent over two thirds of their visits and two-thirds of their money in just 6 states and 99% of their money in just 16 states, while ignoring the rest of the country.
The concern about "mob rule" incorrectly suggests that the current system provides some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
To answer your question,
The proponents of direct nationwide popular election of the President ARE NOT also in favor of changing our state/national federalism form of government into a unitary national government and thereby eliminate state governments.
The National Popular Vote bill simply would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill would make every vote politically relevant in a presidential election. It would make every vote equal.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 20 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
The National Popular Vote is intentionally "minimalist" in the sense that it does not attempt to solve "problems" that the current system does not address or where there is no public consensus that there is a "problem."
Under the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than a plurality of the popular votes in order to receive all of the state’s electoral votes.
Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation’s 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.
Yes, Ohio would of course lose influence if we went to a popular vote.
I am fine with the way things are now. Swing states will come and go. In 50 years Ohio might be certain for one party and North Dakota and New Jersey could be the major states the candidates are concentrating on. You never know.
When I think of the electoral college, I see a system which could be tweaked slightly to be really awesome.
The Founders, I think, inherently liked parliamentary style government--the leader of said government is chosen by parliament. But, in order to maintain a balance of power, they essentially created a mini-parliament (the electoral college) whose purpose is to elect the president. They were clearly very uncomfortable with direct elections, and I think we have 200 years of history to prove their concerns justified.
Except it never ended up working that way. Part of the reason is that the electoral college never meets in person and nominate/vote candidates in an assembly.
However, if they did, that would allow us to vote directly for people on the electoral college. Instead of choosing the individual for president, we could choose the the electoral college slate itself.
This could be done...
a.) via voting for an entire slate. I imagine there would be things like the "Progressive Slate" and the "Center-right slate" and such. And when all those different slates are chosen, they go to Washington and nominate candidates and duel it out until a winner emerges.
b.) A slight variation of the above, instead of voting for the slate statewide, the slate could be broken into districts and people in each district elect an electoral college representative.
Either way would be an improvement of what we have now.
If'n it ain't broke(n). . .
200+ years of our founding father's wisdom and forethought is nothing to mess with.
Tim Higgins, Ben, and Hooda Thunkit,
I share your sentiments.
I also agree somewhat with Kadim, with a slight difference on two points; 1) The Founders specifically ruled out a parliamentary form of government and @) we do vote on a slate of electors, not for the canditate directly.
Roland--they specifically ruled it out? What do you mean?
Yes, we do vote for the slate, but that slate now is committed to a particular candidate. I suggest we untie the two.
Kadim,
The Founding Fathers purposely chose to have a Presidential Government as opposed to a Parliamentary Government.
I will place two links to a couple very short readings for you to take a quick look here and here.
I do not disagree with you regarding the relationship between slates of candidate pledged to specific candidates. However, it is still possible, though highly improbable, for electors to vote for someone other than the candidate for whom they are pledged. What you suggest is, by the way, the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution; the Founding Fathers envisioned and intended that electors exercise independent judgement in the election of the President.
Roland...I think I was quibbling a bit with the term "specifically ruled it out." I never thought of our system as being diametrically opposed to the Westminster system, more of a variant of it. (Arguably, the founding fathers wanted a powerful backbench and a weak PM which was not elected by that backbench.)
I appreciate the gridlock our system creates. On the other hand, I thought it was stupid to copy it to the states as well, where I think a parliamentary style system would be the way to go.
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