In defense of the Electoral College

By Robert S. Sargent, Jr.
web posted September 6, 2004

Abolish the Electoral College. (Heading, New York Times
editorial, Sunday, 8/29/04)

Once again there are calls from every quarter calling for the
overhaul of the Electoral College system in favor of a nationwide
popular vote. Briefly, the Constitution mandates that each state
appoint a number of electors equal to the number of Senators
and Representatives in that state. This college of electors meets
in December and votes for President. These electors pledge to
vote for one or another party's candidates, and except for Maine
and Nebraska where a proportional method is used, the winner
of the popular vote in each state receives all of the Electoral
College votes. The arguments against this system can be
compelling. As Steve Chapman in the Washington Times wrote,
"There is something wrong with a system that lets the second
place vote-getter claim victory."

In Business Week, on June 14, there were two articles (no
byline) criticizing the Electoral College. One pointed out that if
you are a Democrat in Texas, you may as well sit home on
Election Day. The state is overwhelmingly Republican, and with
the winner take all allocation, your vote is pretty much
meaningless. The same would be true of a Republican living in
Massachusetts. In a popular vote scenario, your vote would
count as part of the whole no matter where you lived.

On August 11, in Timothy Noah's Slate "Chatterbox," he pointed
out that small states have a disproportionate advantage because
each state gets a number of electors that equals the total number
of House seats plus two (Senate). And very large states have an
advantage because of the winner-take-all allocation of electors.
All of these distortions and criticisms would be fixed by a
nationwide popular vote.

While these arguments can be persuasive, there are a lot of good
arguments for keeping the system. In the August 21, '04 L.A.
Daily News, Robert Hardaway pointed out that, "In 1956 a
Republican proposal to abolish the Electoral College was
defeated after a vigorous defense by Sen. John F. Kennedy. He
declared that ‘direct election would break down the federal
system under which most states entered the union which
provides a system of checks and balances that ensure that no
area or group shall obtain too much power.' Kennedy observed
that under the Electoral College, no candidate can be elected
president who does not have substantial support in every region
of the country."

Paul Greenberg, in another Washington Times column noted
that, "At least the Electoral College confines fights over
contested votes to decisive states…[S]uppose the presidential
election hinged on disputed vote totals across the
country…[For] those who thought the 2000 election was a
confused mess…you ain't seen nothin' yet."

There's an argument for keeping the system I would like to
submit that builds on Kennedy's argument: our tradition of seeing
our political entities as geographical, rather than as majorities of
total populations. We do not allow Representatives of one state
to represent part of another state. On the Federal level, states
are kept whole even if it doesn't comply with "one person, one
vote" (as long as states are kept whole, with their different
population mixes, a Representative of one state will inevitably
represent more or less people than a Representative of another).
Up until the Warren Court forced "one person, one vote" on the
states in the 1960s, the states followed the example of the
Federal government and didn't allow counties to be broken up.
Since counties have different populations, geography was more
important than proportional representation. If state constitutions
reflect the will of the people, then the people would rather their
political entity be the geographical county seat, not the "people"
of the whole state. And at the Federal level, the Electoral
College keeps geography as the primary entity. It's still state
against state.

Just as the 17th Amendment was enacted in 1913 so that the
"people" instead of the un-egalitarian state legislatures would
choose Senators, and just as the primary system has come to
dominate the political scene so that the "people" instead of the
un-egalitarian political parties would choose nominees, I believe
it's just a matter of time until the Constitution is changed so that
the "people" instead of the un-egalitarian state Electors will
choose our President. But be warned: The kind of government
we live under will be radically changed. The two-party system
will disappear. The winner-take-all system makes it extremely
difficult for third parties to ever be successful, but with votes
tallied up nation-wide, there will be big incentives for radical
minority parties to emerge, preventing any candidate from
capturing a majority of the votes. The result will be run-offs, and
deals brokered between various parties, European style.
Demands from radical minor parties will be met to create
majorities.
 
To quote Greenberg again: "A straight popular vote for president
is one of those bright, shiny ideas that, as good as they look in
the abstract, have never been tested in reality. But it's an election
year, and once again we're being told to drop this old antiquated
system…in favor of the French model. How many Republics
have the French had by now? Five? One loses count. We
Americans are still on our first, in large part because we do not
discard our institutions lightly." I hope my prediction of change is
wrong and that we think long and hard before we discard this
vital part of our Constitution.

Robert S. Sargent, Jr. is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right
and can be reached at rssjr@citcom.net.

Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com