[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Steve Eppley <SEppley at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> One widespread argument against the EC is that presidential candidates
> ignore the voters in states where a candidate has a big lead.  I don't
> accept that.  It seems more reasonable that the candidate with the big lead
> has it because s/he has NOT ignored the preferences of the voters in that
> state.

There are 2 kinds of preference, policy preference and 'pork'
preferences.  A state which is solidly behind a candidate's policy
ends up with less 'pork'.

> Furthermore, the interests of voters in the close states are similar to the
> interests of the voters supposedly being ignored.

Only on the policy axis.

> A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates
> could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to
> appeal to swing voters in a few close states.

Hmm, it would make every vote count.

In a NPV election, the swing voters would still likely hold balance of
power.  Your base would vote for you (almost) no matter what and you
need to get the swing voters on side to actually win.

> A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for campaign
> money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states that are
> close.  That would make them more beholden to wealthy special interests.

This may be true.  Alternatively, they may just spread the money they
have more evenly.  NPV would certainly be harder on the candidates.

> A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a close
> election.  The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states.

This is a reasonable issue.

One option here would be to allocate the EC votes proportionally
rather than actually using NPV.  This would almost certainly give the
same result anyway.

However, most states wouldn't be near the cutoff points.  If a State
has 10 seats, then it would on average require a 2.5% swing for a
candidate to get another EC vote.

> For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of
> the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the
> EC.

If a State has 10 seats, then it would be 0.2% per seat.

However, I would agree, in most cases, there wouldn't be an issue, as
it would require 2 things to happen at once.  First, there would need
to be an extremely close national election and also an extremely close
State vote.