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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Nov 6, 2008, at 6:58 AM, Steve Eppley wrote:

> Greg Nisbet wrote on 10/18/08:
> -snip-
>> The Electoral College:
>> This is generally regarded as a bad thing. No one really appears to
>> support it except as an adhoc version of asset voting.
> -snip-
>
> I don't believe the EC is generally accepted as a bad thing. (I  
> picked the Subject line above to cite a book by the same name.)   
> Although I may have been the person who came up with the idea for  
> how to get rid of the EC without a constitutional amendment (posted  
> in EM many years ago), I later concluded the EC is better than a  
> national popular vote.
>
> 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.
> Furthermore, the interests of voters in the close states are similar  
> to the interests of the voters supposedly being ignored.  The main  
> difference between the two types of states is in the ratio of each  
> type of voter.  California has a higher ratio of Democrat-leaning  
> voters to Republican-leaning voters than Ohio has, but Democrat- 
> leaning voters in California and Democrat-leaning voters in Ohio  
> have similar interests, and Republican-leaning voters in California  
> and Republican-leaning voters in Ohio have similar interests.  A  
> candidate who pays attention to the Democrat-leaning voters in Ohio  
> is also paying attention to Democrat-leaning voters in the other  
> states.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> I favor a slight refinement of the winner-takes-all formula used by  
> most states to allocate their EC delegates.  The formula can be  
> refined so a recount is unlikely to change the outcome by more than  
> 1 or 2 EC delegates in any recounted state, rarely enough to affect  
> the overall outcome, yet still preserve the basic desirable winner- 
> takes-all property.  Allocate all of the state's EC delegates to a  
> single candidate only when that candidate has a sizable win.  By  
> sizable, let's say at least a 2% lead over the candidate who  
> finishes 2nd in that state. (A candidate who receives at least 51%  
> will win all of the state's delegates, since the candidate who  
> finishes 2nd will receive at most 49%.  When there are 3 or more  
> candidates, the leader might win all with less than 51%.)  Here's  
> the proposed formula:
>
>   Call v1 the number of votes won by the candidate who led in the  
> state, and
>   call v2 the number of votes won by the candidate who finished 2nd  
> in the state.
>   Set W = 2% of v1+v2.
>
>   When v1 - v2 is at least W, the leader wins all.
>
>   When v1 - v2 is less than W, award (W+v1-v2)/2W of the state's  
> delegates to
>   the leader (rounding to the nearest integer) and award the rest to  
> the candidate
>   who finished 2nd in the state.
>
> 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.

You're ignoring the biggest problem with the EC, that voters in states  
like CA, NY, WY, UT are effectively disenfranchised. I'm in CA, and I  
could be entirely assured that my vote made no difference whatsoever  
in the presidential election. Are my interests the same as the voters  
in Ohio that Obama and McCain were appealing to? I don't think so, and  
I'm certainly not prepared to, effectively, grant them my proxy.

Proportional allocation of electors would be an approximate solution  
in California, but not much of a solution in small states (especially  
if they were reduced, as I think we agree they should be, to a more  
proportionate share of the total College).

>
>
> I'm also open to amending the EC so that states with small  
> populations do not have such a disproportionally large fraction of  
> the EC.  That could be accomplished without having to amend the US  
> Constitution, the same way the national popular vote could be  
> accomplished.

Elaborate, please.