[EM] Electoral College

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 10:32 AM 5/5/2006, Steve Eppley wrote:
>And then, of course, there's the question of whether 5 Supreme Court 
>justices would
>interpret it when ruling on this scheme.

Supreme Law of the Land would appear to be the Supreme Court. There 
is a higher court, but those who sit on it are fast asleep. 2000 
showed that. Consider the Ukraine. Possible election fraud, the 
people were in the streets and the government fell. However, maybe 
the higher court is not *entirely* asleep and some are dreaming, with 
some connection to reality....

>I posted a similar scheme here several years ago, one which would 
>have an effect much
>sooner, not waiting until states containing a majority of the 
>Electoral College agreed.
>Suppose a state passed a law that would require it to include in its 
>count of voters'
>votes for President the votes of all voters in all states that 
>passed the same law?  It
>could grow like a crystal, similarly to the way that the bloc of 
>primary elections on
>Super Tuesday grew: The states that join in might receive increased 
>attention from the
>Presidential candidates due to their combined weight.  The more 
>states that joined, the
>greater would be the incentive for the remaining states to join.

Actually, my own proposal, which I think also appeared here, required 
the state to act, in the interim condition before it was more widely 
adopted, to award all electors as necessary to balance out the 
college toward the popular vote (or, more accurately, to an overall 
assignment of electors according to what it would be if the college 
were elected by proportional representation -- possibly including the 
small state edge, possibly not).

This would more quickly bring the College to proportionality, and 
would be more flexible than the movement that is actually hitting 
legislatures, which leaves the College as a rubber-stamp. Remember, a 
majority on the electoral college is required, not a plurality. Get 
some third-party electors in there and 2000 might have looked very 
different. Doesn't have to be many.

We have no process, though, for broadly debating reforms like these. 
What happens, essentially, is that somebody with money gets fired up 
and starts a PAC, which follows the ideas of the funder. That's fine, 
as far as it goes, but we need a broader process that isn't about money. Ahem.

>Imagine that California adopted this law, by passing a citizens' 
>initiative.  California
>at the moment is "safe" for mainstream Democrat candidates.  Small 
>"unsafe" states having
>Democratic-controlled legislatures would then have an incentive to 
>join with California.

My point has been that there are conditions where the reform is 
possible, if it is designed so that it can be implemented 
state-by-state. This is actually using the system that created the 
inequity in the first place, against it.

Eleven states, simple majorities in each. That is a lot less than 
what I've heard for years would be necessary!

The devil is in the details. I haven't read the exact legislation 
yet. What I've heard about it makes it into an even more effective 
shut-out of third parties. Does this mean I'd oppose it? Probably 
not. There is another way that third parties can become powerful, 
mostly by not being so stupid to as actually field candidates unless 
the time is ripe. Smaller parties can be far more effective as PACs 
that are about money *and* votes *and volunteers. What if a Green 
party in a state offered to work for the election of, say, a 
Democratic candidate, providing funds and people and votes. In 
exchange for access and influence over the selection of candidates -- 
not control, just influence -- and platforms. Some parties in some 
states essentially run one of the major candidates as theirs. This 
gives them ballot position, but their votes don't spoil the results. 
That one may take legislation allowing more than one party to list 
the same candidate. Simple. Initiatives like this expose who is 
actually in favor of democracy and who is not....

FA/DP is, in my view, the way to do it, to organize these movements 
and make them effective. Outside of government, no changes in law required.

http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org