Better Election System: Popular Vote or Electoral College?
If presidential elections were decided by popular vote instead of the Electoral College, Al Gore would have been elected president in 2000. How we choose a president profoundly impacts how campaigns are run, the importance of swing states and an election’s outcome. It’s certainly no surprise that the Electoral College vs. popular vote controversy has sparked considerable debate. As the issue surfaces heading into November, is it time to graduate from the Founding Father's Electoral College concept, or are popularity contests no way to choose a president?
The Losses Would Far Outweigh the Gains
- From Evergreen Freedom Foundation
By Evergreen Freedom Foundation - ...because freedom matters
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Agreed
Because a prospective president has to win the majority of the states' votes, the electoral college ensures that the elected President has broad support across the land, rather than simply support in only the big cities with large populations. While big cities attract wealth, they also are home to more poor and more who are on welfare. As a result, a system of straight popular vote is a recipe for socialism: a candidate would only have to appeal to the poor and uneducated to win. Want to keep winning? Keep the poor and uneducated poor and uneducated, keep them on the government dole, and they'll keep voting you into office as long as they're getting their welfare check. A straight popular vote would mean a candidate would just have to hit the northeast, the west coast, and a couple states in the south; then the votes of people in states like Idaho and Nebraska wouldn't matter.
The electoral college prevents this. And in so doing it prevents us from falling into socialism.
- FiveBoxes
August 26, 2008 5:07AM
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who matters?
The votes of people in Idaho and Nebraska already don't matter. Those electoral votes are assured and neither party bothers to campaign there. I don't think your "broad support across the land" statement is true. The campaigns focus on the states that are close, and the issues important to those voters.
I am not arguing that popular elections would change this. It would just be a different group of voters that made the choce.
- Adam Hammond
September 3, 2008 4:45PM
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Side: Electoral College
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Moderating influence?
"The Electoral College moderates and stabilizes American politics."
This argument is false on its face. American politics is increasingly IM-moderate, due largely to the influence of small states where voters, using their enormously weighted votes to great advantage, have been able to push fringe elements into power. Meanwhile, those of us in the larger states, whose votes are worth 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000 of those in the smallest states, must stand by the sidelines watching election after election go by barely affected by our diminished input. I'd like my vote to be counted equally with those in Montant, Vermont, North Dakota, etc.
After we solve this problem, perhaps we can look at the 2-Senators-per-state-regardless-of-their- population issue!
- JackNYC September 3, 2008 4:12PM
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Moderating influence
American politics is only increasingly immoderate to those who don't know history. Read about politics in the 1790s or 1850s (not to mention the 1860s) and you might reconsider.
You also make it sound like the Electoral College is producing winners consistently contrary to the popular vote, which opposite reality. The Electoral College more often amplifies the popular vote result.
You might be interested in this page, especially its conclusions: http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_curiosities.php
- Evergreen Freedom Foundation September 8, 2008 3:36PM
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2 Senators per state is right
Look, the founding fathers saw that having larger populations in some states would give those states more power. Therefore, they established the House of Representatives with a varying number of rep based on the population of the state and a Senate with 2 for each state. This minimizes the impact of population on decision making. I think we need to win electors as a percentage of the popular vote....with each state having an odd number of electors....if one person gets 51% of the popular vote in a state with 11 electors then give them 6 and the other guy gets 5. This will even out the one-sided-ness of the election process.
thanks,
Stan
- inventor217
October 11, 2008 4:00PM
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Metropolitan vs. rural
It sounds nice to express concern for "small town America," but approximately 80% of the US population lives in urban areas. (Source: http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/42.html ) Right now, "small town America" is drastically overrepresented because of the electoral college. Eliminating it would enhance the power of big cities only insofar as it would value city residents equal to their rural counterparts, which is, I suppose, "at the expense of small town America" in the sense that American democracy gave power to the general public at the expense of King George III.
- thoughtcounts Z
September 4, 2008 11:28AM
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The Founders created the Electoral College
Small states are slightly overrepresented, a prudential judgment by our Constitution-makers. The point about rural voters is that a national popular vote scheme would place them at an extreme disadvantage since the transaction costs of political organizing are so much lower in high-population density areas.
- Evergreen Freedom Foundation September 8, 2008 4:09PM
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Disadvantage?
Each Alaskan voters' vote for President counts for twice the vote of each Californian, if you divide the number of electors by the number of state residents in the respective states. I call that more than "slightly overrepresented." I call that undemocratic.
I'm having trouble with the notion that small states and rural areas will be "disadvantaged" if we adopted a popular vote model for electing the President. What is the nature of that disadvantage? Is it "real" or "perceived?" In my mind, a real disadvantage would be a weakened ability to make a case for receiving federal grants for (e.g.) infrastructure maintenance. A perceived disadvantage would be a feeling that one's state is somehow not fully represented in the political discourse, and that voters somehow count for less.
In the first instance, federal funds are granted to the states largely by formulas based on a state's population. There are cases, such as Alaska, where a state receives a hugely inordinate amount of federal funds per resident, but that imbalance is primarily the result of entrenched political interests using their seniority powers to direct earmarks to their state. To my knowledge, there would be no disadvantage in receiving a fair share of federal funding resulting from the adoption of one-vote-per-voter.
In the second instance, it might have been true at one time, when a candidate's visit, in person, to a town or county was the voter's only contact with that person and his ideas. But nowadays, when we have instant and constant information available to all of us through various means, that argument must carry much less weight.
In fact, when each person's vote counts equally, then the concept of "large state vs. small state" loses meaning, at least in the context of presidential votes. As a candidate, I would have to work as hard for the rural vote as for the city vote. And because of modern communication technology, the cost per vote metric is equalized.
This argument has gone on for over 200 years, and we're not gong to solve it here! The "meta-issue", though, is important: is the Constitution set in stone or will it evolve with changing times? I would argue that digging in our heels to keep the Constitution "sacred" will eventually weaken it and render the US, ultimately, irrelevant. But that's a different topic.
- JackNYC September 9, 2008 4:47AM
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advantage?
in response to federal grants , federal grants have become the currency in which votes are bought, large amounts of the grants are directed towards smaller population states or rural living folks, the democrats and all there farm bills and such for grants, and the republicans with there ranch bills and such. I use to get government subsidies for not farming on my land, a small check , but a check none the less. for not farming on my land. Mind you this land was 160 acres in the mountains that you couldnt farm if you wanted too.
as far as easy communications, well that debateable in and of itself. your forgetting the technology divide. living in the large city, I currently have Verizon FIOS, calls to just about anywhere are free get many tv channels, and an internet connection that just lets me rip through web sights like this one without an issue. When i lived near Mt. Shasta by Redding, Ca, it was a little different though , couldnt get internet unless it was dial up, and didnt use that because even my neighbor was considered a long distance phone call , Cable didnt run out there and being in the mountains satellite was iffy at best. picked up 1 tv station off air. and this wasn't that long ago. then you have computer owners , are you really willing to divide the haves with the have nots on this. you seem to be basing all this soley on your own means and not looking at everybody(as they say "try painting with a bigger brush".) which is also why they make the personal appearances, because they know that not everyone is capable of just turning on the tv or internet and seeing the candidate. I f what you said was even remotely true, then why whould any candidate tour at all. it would be more cost effective and easier to just slap up a web sight and be done with it. with your reasoning you have shown you have never lived outside the big city, which is why i added the haves and have nots so it would be something you could relate better too. not to mention more people react favorably to a visit in person then through other impersonable means. so by visiting a single large city you can cover upwards of a million people in just one shot. But in rural areas that same trip might only cover several thousand people.
- neontetra September 15, 2008 11:43AM
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Observation
I'm sure someone's thought of this, but have you considered that the fact that empty states not being represented as well as denser states is not a bad thing? The fact that if you have fewer citizens in a demographic then that demographic holds less sway seems wholly fair to me.
An arguement that I can see against this: Even though there may be less citizens in a demographic, they may contain a disproportianate amount of importance to the country. For instance, and I'm not even sure to what extent this may be true (it is just an example), the number of farmers is far less than the number of people they feed, but if a candidate wants to win the popular vote they may slash wheat prices, hurting the farmers, and, in a roundabout way, the very majority they were pandering to.
- Doublecheck
September 14, 2008 10:44PM
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Not
Having election results determined by the candidate getting the most individual votes is not some scarey, untested idea loaded with unintended consequences.
- mvymvy
December 23, 2009 11:23AM
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