Popular vote vs. Electoral College

Yep, even though Mr. Obama won by a “landslide” the same debate over popular vote vs. Electoral College has made its quadrennial appearance. The same old arguments for and against are making their way into the media and bar conversations albeit with a little less fervor than in 2000.

So this year I decided to make my same argument for the Electoral College, but in writing for the entire world to see. I’ll try to be brief, but it is a complicated issue.

Popular Vote

Most folks who do not understand the Electoral College (and some that do) believe that it should just simply be a popular vote by all Americans. I mean, who could argue. We certainly have the technology to count that high that fast, if we didn’t Simon Cowell would not be as rich as he is. So why don’t we just let the voices be heard? But let’s look at what that means.

This is where it gets complicated. Politicians are… well… politicians which means they are a self serving breed that will do whatever it takes to get into office and once there stay in office. We all know that today the candidates concentrate their money in the few places they believe they can win. This should be evident to everyone by the now house hold term “Red States/Blue States”. Once in office, they do the same thing, they work hardest to keep the “majority” of the people happy. Sounds great right? Let’s look at what the majority means.

We all know (I know, big assumption) that there are 50 states plus D.C. that vote to elect the President. But did you know that the majority of the population is centered in just 9 states?¹ OK you probably figured that out, but I bet you didn’t know that it was only 9 and when you look at the percentage of the total it means that just under 18% of the states could decide what is best for 82% of the country. But let’s look at it bit deeper. A politician would only need to worry about the most populous metropolitan areas to get the votes needed to win. So how many mero areas is that? Would you believe that only 34 cities could decide who is elected? ²

Yes I know that would mean that every citizen in all 34 metro areas would not only have to vote, but vote for the same person. But the concept is what is important. The fact is that our country is concentrated in the big cities and utilizing a popular vote would give undue influence in those cities. Imagine if there were a government program designed specifically to garnish votes (hard to imagine isn’t it?). That program would not need to be made available to everyone, just the 34 or so most populous cities, leaving the rest of the country without. But more than that, it just isn’t fair. The fine folks in Wausau, WI and South-De Ridder, LA should still be represented. I think we all agree that problems in those places are not the same as problems in Los Angeles and New York.

Electoral College

So, the popular vote doesn’t really seem all that fair if you want to represent everyone? But is the EC any better? A little, but not much, for instance it takes a minimum of 11 states to win the necessary 270 EC votes. However, if you look at the most populous metro areas necessary to win those states, you will see that those metro areas’ populations spread into 33 states. And while states such as California and New York can be won by just campaigning in just 1 or 2 cities, other states such as Florida and Ohio would need multiple metro areas spreading the influence into the smaller communities.

But really what it boils down to is the way our government was set up. We are a group of states that have a federal system designed to do what is necessary to keep those states united. Without going into if that is a bad thing or a good thing here, it means that the States have rights granted to it by the Constitution. It was set up that way because the folks that settled in Delaware didn’t really agree with the folks that settled in Georgia. This holds pretty true today. The folks in Montana certainly have different values than the folks in Rhode Island. Our form of government means that for the most part, the folks in Montana can hunt their elk and fish their trout without having to worry about a law passed in Rhode Island prohibiting guns or fishing from ditches. Personally I think this works. So our very smart Founding Fathers gave it their best shot and came up with a way for the small states have a little more influence than their population would reflect. For example California has over 36 million people and 55 EC votes which is 664,604 people per electoral vote. Oklahoma has just 3.6 million and has 7 EC votes giving it 516,759 people per vote. This means that a person in Oklahoma has roughly the same amount of influence as the person in California. But it also means is that Oklahomans don’t need to worry about the wacked out laws that Californians tend to enact.

OK, I know it is still not perfect and it doesn’t really matter. Since it would take an amendment to the Constitution to change it, the likelihood that it will ever change is just about zero. So how do we make it better? More fair?

Part of the whole States Rights thing is the ability to decide how to “elect” the Electoral College. OK for those of you that don’t know, when you vote for President you are not actually voting for that person. You are voting to select a person who has pledged to vote for the candidate you favor. But the states get to decide how those folks are selected. Most states (48) have laws that select the entire allocation of EC representatives that a pledged to the candidate that receives a majority or a plurality of the popular vote of that state. However there are 2 states, Nebraska and Maine, that have a system that awards the EC votes based on congressional districts with two votes (representing the Senators) as a state wide vote. For example, Maine has 4 electoral votes. Two of those go to the candidate who wins the popular vote state wide. The other two go to the candidate who wins the popular vote within the congressional district they represent.³

To me, this is the way to go. So a congressional district in a Red state whose beliefs are more Blue are now represented in the selection of the President and of course vice versa. This means that the candidates would have to pay attention to just about every state and every area of the country. The Republicans would show up in New York and the Democrats would actually visit Texas. This to me seems the best and it would simply take a law change in the states to accomplish this. And as a bonus, a third party candidate might actually have a chance to make an impact as well.

¹ http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html
² http://www.census.gov/popest/metro/index.html
³ http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html