Degrees of Democracy
WELLS, DAVID I.
Rethinking the Electoral College Degrees of Democracy By David I. Wells OFTHE 51 Presidential elections since 1804, when the present system went into effect, in four...
...House of Representatives and state legislatures...
...As established in Article II of the Constitution and subsequently modified by the 12th and 23rd Amendments, every state now receives as many electoral votes as it has members in Congress...
...The number of House seats for each state beyond the initial one is determined by a complex formula that also fixes a state's electoral vote beyond the automatic three...
...Direct popular election alone can accomplish this...
...Our political apparatus should be structured so that our only nationally elected officeholder truly reflects the nation's collective will...
...There are currently 538 electoral votes: 100 to match the Senate, 435 for the House, plus an additional three for the District of Columbia as specified by the 23rd Amendment...
...Elections pivoting on so narrow a base practically invite tampering...
...Tinkering with it would only make it worse...
...IT should be noted, however, that besides the politicians, commentators on the Left and the Right have raised objections to the seemingly unobjectionable...
...Why not head straight for direct election...
...With upward of 120 million voters turning out, though, stealing enough votes to win nationally is far more daunting a task than using foul play to shift a tiny number in a critical state...
...David I. Wells, former associate director of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union political department, is a specialist on reapportionment...
...A referendum to adopt a proportional system for Colorado was defeated on November 2. Had it been adopted, the change would only have applied to Colorado...
...Failing that, it should be kept as is...
...It is less crucial today, but it can still tip the balance, if only slightly, to voters in states where many stay away on Election Day...
...Cumulatively, California's 35 million people are outvoted 59-55 in the Electoral College by the combined votes of the 16 least populous states, with a total population of only 17 million...
...Aware of the sway it grants their constituents, politicians from these smaller states are consistently resistant to proposals for change...
...Yet a third less widely recognized aspect of the system gives a special advantage to a different group of states, depending on their voter turnout...
...A special commission eventually decided in Hayes' favor...
...The underlying purpose of democratic elections is to translate public opinion into public policy as accurately as possible...
...We know this because precisely the same pattern has applied in statewide races for Governor and Senator where direct election has long been in use...
...But so far critics who recognize at least some of the undemocratic aspects of the present setup have weighed in with proposals that would merely tinker with the Electoral College...
...But the disposition of electoral votes is currently governed by state, not Federal, law...
...Furthermore, if district boundaries were not deliberately carved for political advantage, the uneven distribution of the candidates' voting strength within a state could still distort the results...
...But it is noteworthy that in all four contests where the Electoral College chose a candidate with fewer popular votes than his opponent, the more conservative nominee (in the context of the times) was the beneficiary: John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson, RutherfordB...
...Because the existing scheme encompasses advantages and disadvantages for different states, modifyingjust one undemocratic facet would result in a more unbalanced situation...
...Since every state, regardless of population, has two Senators and at least one Representative, each begins with at least three electoral votes...
...One approach would even add a new danger...
...Over the years, the total number of votes in the Electoral College increased in tandem with the size of the House of Representatives—until 1912 when the size of the House was fixed at 435...
...Congress last seriously examined the Electoral College more than 25 years ago, but lately we have begun to hear from various quarters about how the Presidential election process might be made "more democratic...
...We cannot definitively say which of these advantages is most significant—it depends on how a particular election plays out...
...Maine and Nebraska already do this...
...Second, defenders of the Electoral College hold dear the boost it affords them without considering its countervailing consequences...
...There were widely reported charges of vote fraud in Illinois in 1960, with some historians believing that John F. Kennedy owed his victory over Richard M. Nixon to vote-padding by Mayor Richard J. Daley's machine in Chicago...
...A proportional system would do away with the edge enjoyed by the more populous states, leaving untouched the numerical upper hand of small states and those with low voter turnout...
...This proportion is substantial, yet by 2000 most Americans were only dimly aware that such an outcome was possible, let alone that it had happened before...
...The arguments one hears cited most often are that direct election would encourage "splinter parties" and "spoiler" candidacies in Presidential races and would increase the chances of vote fraud...
...Their impact has been restricted to contests where they managed to deprive one or both of the leading competitors in a tight race of electoral votes...
...The recent gerrymandering of Texas' Congressional districts brought big GOP gains in the House this year...
...In 1876 chicanery was so widespread in several close states that Tilden's popular vote plurality and Hayes' Electoral College majority were subject to doubt...
...The other oft-touted proposal is a "district system...
...Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George C. Wallace in 1968 won several in the South...
...Allowing easily manipulated Congressional district lines to play a role in the election of Presidents is an appalling prospect...
...But we are now a venerable nation...
...indeed, most of its proponents stipulate a runoff between the two top candidates if no one wins 40 per cent of the total vote, absolutely guaranteeing that the President is the choice of the majority...
...Over the years, of course, scores of contestants have emerged from outside the two major parties with various motivations...
...The danger of vote fraud, on the other hand, would likely be reduced under direct election...
...A few third-party nominees have been strong enough in one geographic area to win states...
...In the most basic sense, this is undemocratic because it can put the loser of the popular vote in the Oval Office...
...In the past, this constituted a huge advantage for Southern states where blacks were excluded from voting...
...Well, to begin with, that would require amending the Constitution, and advocates despair that with so many states favoring the status quo for their own selfserving reasons, such an amendment would never come to pass...
...As we have seen time and again of late, increasingly precise computer-assisted gerrymandering profoundly affects the political composition of the U.S...
...Had 2004 produced a second consecutive election with a popular winner who was also an electoral loser, the issue would undoubtedly have generated fierce public debate...
...The Electoral College should be abolished...
...For instance, President George W. Bush's 537-vote edge in Florida four years ago got him all 25 crucial electoral votes...
...During the 19th century, many states split their electoral votes in different ways, but for the last century states have almost uniformly operated under a "unit rule" that assigns all of their respective electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state plurality, regardless of how large or small that margin is...
...Georgia did have a somewhat similar way of filling statewide offices until the 1960s, but its "county unit system" was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court...
...Meanwhile, the three-vote minimum provides a quantifiable boon to the states with the fewest people...
...That would simply shift the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College from the state level to the districts...
...The winner-take-all feature benefits large states—California, New York, Texas, etc.—because candidates know that even the slimmest popular vote edge there will bring them a treasure trove of electoral votes...
...Thus candidates often take positions with those states in mind and spend heavily on them in time and money, especially if they are perceived to be winnable "swing states...
...The Electoral College incorporates a set of advantages and disadvantages— or "countervailing inequities"—for particular states...
...To eliminate all the special advantages that obtain in the case of the Presidency, we would have to abolish the Electoral College altogether and switch to the same direct popular system we use for other elective offices...
...Perhaps if they understood how the present system victimizes voters practically everywhere in one way oranother, direct election, which would make every vote everywhere in the country count equally, would be achievable...
...Such irregularities have constituted a threat because efforts to steal an election can focus on one or just a few closely contested states—hence the concern about Florida in 2000...
...Until then, no fiddling with the Electoral College can ensure that the winner of the popular vote will occupy the White House...
...Though apparently contradictory, both views have a solid grounding in fact...
...After all, it is the most purely democratic option, and polls have consistently shown that, when asked, an overwhelming majority of Americans prefer it...
...A contender with small pluralities in many districts could defeat a rival with large pluralities in a few districts despite the latter's capturing a statewide plurality...
...It would assign one electoral vote to the winner of each Congressional district, and would award two "atlarge" votes to the statewide winner...
...at the same time, the three-vote rrrinimum provides disproportionate leverage to voters in sparsely populated states...
...In this year's contest Wyoming had one electoral vote for every 216,000 residents, while Texas had one for every 651,000, giving Wyoming voters a better than 3:1 advantage...
...the closest ever was James A. Garfield's 7,000 in 1880...
...A district system would have a similar impact, and would add another undemocratic feature: the risk of gerrymandering...
...A state enjoys the same number of electoral votes whether 9 or 90 per cent of voters show up on Election Day...
...Direct popular election would discourage vote fraud because the results for the entire country— not merely a state or two—would have to be tipped to change the outcome...
...Rethinking the Electoral College Degrees of Democracy By David I. Wells OFTHE 51 Presidential elections since 1804, when the present system went into effect, in four contests—1824,1876,1888, and 2000—the winning candidate didnot have the largest number of popular votes...
...Over the past century six elections— 1916,1948,1960,1968,1976,and2000— have been tight enough that a tiny shift of votes in one or two close states would have yielded a different President...
...That is not true of any other system of election for any major office in the United States today...
...In 2000 Ralph Nader tilted enough states away from Gore to throw the election to Bush...
...The Electoral College made sense to the founders, who worried whether 13 formerly separate colonies could stand together...
...The plan most frequently put forward is the so-called "proportional system," which would uniformly apportion each state's electoral votes according to its popular vote...
...This favors those in states with low participation who do cast their votes...
...The tightest popular vote margin during the past century was JFK's 119,000 in 1960...
...Hayes over Samuel J. Tilden, Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland, and George W. Bush over Al Gore...
...The two most common criticisms of the Electoral College are by now familiar: Its winner-take-all method cedes major influence to heavily populated states...
...The present system is an impediment that has too often prevented that from happening...
...The fewer the voters, the more political leverage they have...
...Though that did not come to pass on November 2, the 8 per cent of elections that have produced a President who received fewer popular votes than his opponent—and several near misses—are indicative of a deeply flawed system that merits more attention than it has received...
...The allocation of electoral votes to states beyond the first three "automatic" ones is set according to a state's total population, without consideration for the number of people who go to the polls...
...Unfortunately, the two most frequently advanced proposals to make the system "fairer" would actually make it less democratic...
...With direct election, the potential of third-party candidates would be no different than what it is now...
Vol. 87 • November 2004 • No. 6
