Stephen Schwalbe, American Public University – Should The Electoral College Be Abolished?
Should the Electoral College be abolished?
Stephen Schwalbe, Program Director of Political Science at American Public University, details why that might not be the best course of action.
Dr. Schwalbe, Program Director of Political Science at American Public University, retired from the Air Force in 2007 as a colonel after 30 years of active duty service. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the Air Force Academy; a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Golden Gate University; a Master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School; a Master’s degree from the Naval War College; and, a PhD from Auburn University in Public Policy.
Should The Electoral College Be Abolished?
Today’s popular vote in a presidential election can be tallied quickly and easily. As such, many people wonder why the Electoral College is not abolished. Critics cite bias towards smaller states, the power of the two-party system, and failure to protect the democratic principle of popular sovereignty.
However, complete abolishment of the College would necessitate a constitutional amendment, requiring approval by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths ratification by state legislatures. In the College, when a candidate does not win by at least 270 electoral votes, as in the election of 1800, then the House selects the president, and the Senate, the vice president.
The electors in each state equal the number of representatives that state has in Congress, resulting in at least three electors per state, regardless of population. The Constitution states the guidelines for electors in casting their vote for president and vice president.
However, not all electoral votes are equal. According to the 2000 census, in California, with over 33 million residents, one electoral vote represents around 600,000 residents. in contrast, in Wyoming, with less than half a million, one electoral vote represents just over 150,000 people. This means the votes of some citizens carry more weight than those of others, violating the concept of equal representation.
One significant problem with eliminating the College is that a popular vote would encourage candidates to campaign only in the more populous areas. More than half of Americans live in only nine states, while 25 of the least populated states comprise less than a sixth of the total population. This would truly not represent the will of the American people.
The College evenly distributes the candidates’ focus on both majority and minority interests nationwide, while contributing to national cohesiveness by requiring all voters to unite in electing the candidate who best represents their collective interests.
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Having the national popular vote determine the election would NOT encourage candidates to campaign only in the more populous areas.
A nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren’t so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation’s votes!
A presidential candidate could lose while winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 states.
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five “red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six “blue” states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective,
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .
In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory.
One analyst is predicting two million voters in seven counties are going to determine who wins the presidency in 2016.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of three-quarters of all Americans is now finished for the presidential election.
In the 2016 general election campaign
As of Sept 23, half (77 of 153) of the presidential and vice-presidential campaign events between the nominating conventions and the first debate were in just 4 states (Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio).
88% of the events (135 of the 153) were in the 11 states identified as closely divided “battleground” states by Politico and The Hill. 29 states have been totally ignored.
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states..
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
Issues of importance to non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.
By 2020, the National Popular Vote bill could guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes.
No more handful of ‘battleground’ states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support among voters) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
The bill was approved this year by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
The bill has passed 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Should the direct vote be adopted, this would kill the vote in the smaller states which was the argument during the creation of the constitution. If indeed it is truly to met by fairness to all states, the vote by the populous should reflect the wishes of the state, but not by multiple electoral votes. Each states speaks through their popular electorate but should only represent 1 state, 1 vote. thus 50 votes, so a split 25 -25 would then go to the Senate not the House. In that way each state has as much as any other; currently should a candidate take 11 of the largest states, those 11 states determine the election, not the 50 states. A 1 state 1 electoral vote scenario would make all states important in the process.