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Colorado and the Electoral College
Friday, August 27th, 2004Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi has more.
26 Responses to “Colorado and the Electoral College”
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I think that guy nailed it. If they were proposing it in Cali TOO then that would help Bush, but they are only doing it in a state that usually goes Republican.
Interesting analysis. I think that it comes back to the root problem that the Federal government has a lot of unnecessary discretionary spending power which voting blocks are competing to receive chunks of. The primary consequence of moving as a single state to proportional representation would be a reduction in the quantity of pork flowing to Colorado while their tax payers would continue to part-fund that pork. In that context it’s hard to argue with him.
However, I don’t see these as arguments either against the idea for the nation as a whole, or against the idea as part of a wider series of changes limiting central power. Of course, neither of these are on the table right now.
Excellent topic. I think very few people are aware of Amendment 36 and how it could change the election. Go visit http://www.electoral-vote.com to see how critical Colorado’s votes are.
I find it alarming that anyone would propose elimination of the Electoral College. I wonder how these people feel about changing (or negating!) other parts of the constitution. Free speech is probably annoying to some.
Harry, that sounds remarkably like the lead up to a ‘slippery slope’ argument.
Why do you find the idea of eliminating the Electoral College alarming?
Hi Bernard. I had to leave the other day when we were on this same topic. The electoral college is specified in Article II section 2 of the Constitution. If is okay to eliminate that section (actually all of Article II) then what about Article I. You mentioned the slippery slope – I don’t know what you mean but if you mean changing one part of the constitution means we can alter other parts then yes that is what I am worried about.
From my understanding, the electoral college is just an extension of a representative republic.
As has been pointed out before, pure democracy is nothing more than a “mob rule” scenario.
Elimination of the electoral college simply brings us closer to a situation where the residents of a handful of metropolitan areas (NY, LA, CHI, etc…) gain the ability to set all policy for the whole country. Elimination of the college means politicians never even address issues that apply to Nebraska, Kansas and so on. Politicians will simply pander to the large population areas.
The parts of this country where all the real work gets done go without.
No, I think those that drafted the constitution wrote it like it is because they anticipated problems with a straight democracy.
If the national concerns of the people of the southeast, for example, are all but ignored while New Yorkers and Los Angelinos get all the say in the direction this country moves, we will soon be facing another civil war.
The electoral college completely devalues my vote, I live in Texas, and there’s no question that dubya’s gonna take my vote even though I wouldn’t vote him president of my high school. I live in a large, powerful state that there is absolutely NO campaigning in…why should either candidate waste the money?
Remove the electoral college and bring the election to the people, not the swing states.
All the electoral college really does is help both parties prevent a third party from ever getting any credibility in a national election…sure a guy could get some actual votes…but what exposure does a guy with no votes from the electoral college get when that’s what we count?
Harry, slippery slope arguments are ones in which a policy or position is dismissed not because of its own consequences but because of a fear that it might open the door to further changes which are not obviously related. This fear is the source of Radley’s frequent ‘I blame gay marriage’ satirical columns.
Chris, it’s certainly true that the electoral college represents a brake on popular democracy (though it should be noted that it isn’t the only one), and it’s equally true that such brakes are vital. However, the negative consequences of the state by state winner takes all scenario can’t be ignored either. I suspect that a situation in which the Federal government had much more limited power on tax and spend issues affecting individual states would be much preferable, but i’m still thinking this one through.
Bernard –
So you’re cool with dropping Article II?
Here’s the link:
http://www.fathermag.com/US_Constitution/00_main.shtml
Harry, reading through Article 2, the first paragraph which springs immediately to my eye is:
‘[Each State] shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: ‘
Explain to me how this section disbars the proposals put forward here?
Reading the rest, I don’t quite understand your assertion that the Electoral College is tied into all of Article 2. How exactly would it impact on sections 2, 3 or 4 or the majority of section 1?
Finally, i’m not ‘cool’ with dropping anything. I’m interested to discuss what works and why. If that alarms you, you are in no way obliged to participate.
Bernard,
my two cents:
The argument is that the Colorado Legislature is being by-passed, with this Colorado Constitutional change.
sds. You may be right there. I think the fact that an out of state group is raising the issue in Colorado rather than in California raises alarm bells in the first place, and I’m pretty much convinced by Harsanyi’s opposition to this particular change in this particular instance. I’m just interested to explore the consequences of similar changes across wider areas or under different circumstances.
The electoral college was devised so that:
- each state could tally it’s results
- the results establish the electors selected
- those elector could go to DC on their horses (days travel) and vote on the next President
Remember that when the Constitution was written only certain folks (while male land-owners) could vote, so it was by no means to prevent “mob rule.” There may have been some motivation to mitigate large pop states dominating, but the main reason was more practical: using the electors meant that they only had to tally the college votes.
The Electoral College is an artifact of an earlier era, the pre-tele(graph, phone, vision) era, where getting the results quickly was not feasible and subject to far more potential chicanary than punched chads. Sack it for the popular vote and let California feel important again :-)
This way, the Presidental canidates have to campaign EVERYWHERE, because all votes count. Concentrate in high density areas, sure, but if you ignore all the low density areas of the country, you will have much more difficulty winning.
Wouldn’t this essentially mean that the same party would control both the House and the White House?
I can understand how the question of partisan motivation might enter the conversation, but I’m not really convinced. If one was looking to propose this amendment in any state, why Colorado, unless it’s simply a matter of the particulars of Colorado state law? I mean, you’d be looking for a bonus 4 EC votes if you didn’t win the state, but a loss of 4 if you did (granted that 4 votes may be significant), and Colorado’s been polling fairly close (although I don’t know what the polls looked like when the amendment was proposed).
Why not Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, or Florida? Why not all of those? This may, in fact, be politically motivated, but I don’t think it’s very good strategy, in the end, as it’s just as likely to backfire as not.
In any case, even if it is politically motivated, why not simply judge based on the pros/cons for the state of Colorado (or the voters of Colorado and the fairness therin, if you like) in the context of the overall EC? Opposition on the basis of it being politically motivated is pretty well politically motivated, in itself, and subject to the same scorn.
Try It In Your Home State First
Another editorial, in the Denver Post about changing Colorado’s electoral vote allocation. You can bet that J. Jorge Klor de Alva, the wealthy liberal activist and resident of California who has helped organized and finance the initiative, couldn’t ca…
The Electoral college was invented as part of the compromise to keep the southern (slave) states happy. At the time a slave were counted as 3/5ths of a person for representation purposes, but of course a slave could not vote. This made it impossible to elect the president by counting direct votes so an alternative was found that allowed the southern states to apportion those 3/5ths slave votes. Obviously this reason does not exist anymore.
The logic for retaining winner-take-all in colorado only makes sense in the current system. If all states had proportional assignment of electors (or direct popular vote), then there would be ‘swing’ electors in every state and candidates would have to make a nationwide effort. Colorado’s citizens only have a say now because they are roughly evenly divided. As politics shift colorado’s say may easily disappear. If California was evenly divided then no candidate would pay any attention to Colorado.
The only Amendment 36 will have a beneficial effect is if ALL 50 STATES use it or something like it.
Amendment 36 is an end run by California Democrats from San Francisco to circumvent their perceived loss in 2000.
Once again—
Why didn’t they put this on the ballot in California?
Answer – because California is already going to Kerry.
This election is more about getting Bush out than electing a good solid candidate. Kerry is NOT a good solid candidate. I fear I may have to vote for Bush to keep Kerry out.
The Electoral college was invented as part of the compromise to keep the southern (slave) states happy. At the time a slave were counted as 3/5ths of a person for representation purposes, but of course a slave could not vote. This made it impossible to elect the president by counting direct votes so an alternative was found that allowed the southern states to apportion those 3/5ths slave votes. Obviously this reason does not exist anymore.
No. The “3/5ths” rule dealt with representation (i.e. how many members were in ther House). Indirectly, this impacted the number of electors, but the Electoral College was not part of that compromise.
The big concern (reviewing histories of the Electoral College) was that “favorite sons” of each state would so spread out the votes among too many canidates that no one could achieve a clear victory (recent history not-withstanding). Also, national campaigns in that time were impractical, and there were no “national” parties. Hence, they borrowed an idea from the ancient Roman senate and developed the original college (I admit to a Google search here to back check).
Why is it kept today? Mainly inertia (why change it, would cost too much, etc), but also note that by making it usually a “winner take all” approach the candidates know they only have to campaign in “key” states (saves campaign costs) where 50% + 1 vote = all electors.
Of course, I am surprised that Republicans in CA and other states that lean Democrat haven’t tried to change the formula in their states (should be easier than recalling a governor). And vice versa for Democrats in Republican leaning states.
The main reason I don’t like the Electoral college is that it has a damping effect on folks voting. After all, if you live in a district or state that is >65% of the “other” party, your vote essentially doesn’t count at all, so why bother (Yes, I know there are a LOT of other reasons for folks, but this one seems removable). Imagine a really close overall popular vote for president where its a complete nail biter all the way to Hawaii? Where every vote seems to count. Political hacks across the country would be having panic attacks as every result poured in.
The big concern (reviewing histories of the Electoral College) was that “favorite sons” of each state would so spread out the votes among too many canidates that no one could achieve a clear victory (recent history not-withstanding). Also, national campaigns in that time were impractical, and there were no “national” parties. Hence, they borrowed an idea from the ancient Roman senate and developed the original college (I admit to a Google search here to back check).
This is part of the explanation, but not the whole one. The records of the constitutional convention’s debates show that several methods of electing the president were considered. The first draft of the Constitution to come from the styling committee said the president would be elected by a joint ballot of Congress. This was rejected by the convention, because many delegates felt this would make the president beholden to the legislature (even if the president was ineligible for reelection, as also was originally proposed.)
The convention also rejected having the state legislatures pick the president and the direct popular vote. The latter was a problem because voting requirements were not uniform throughout the states, and because of the slave issue that led to the three-fifths compromise on representation. The state legislatures, like Congress, was rejected because of a fear that “cabals” might develop to manipulate the presidential selection.
The electoral college finally emerged on the theory that a body chosen for the *sole* purpose of selecting the president would be relatively free of premeditated conspiracy. This is why electors must meet in their respective state capitals, rather than in Washington. The original provision requiring each elector to vote for two persons was to avoid the problem Peter described–everyone voting for a favorite son.
Imagine a really close overall popular vote for president where its a complete nail biter all the way to Hawaii? Where every vote seems to count. Political hacks across the country would be having panic attacks as every result poured in.
Imagine the panic attacks from that really close overall popular vote when one of the candidates demands a recount, and we have to recount every vote in the country…
lets discuss the fact that only around 50% of voting age population even votes.
lets fix that first then discuss the electoral college.
some suggestions:
– online voting.
– move election day to a saturday.
– allow more than 1 day to vote.
Even though I am from Texas and WILL vote for Bush, I agree with what Mike N’s assessment, that my vote does not count, which probably contributes to many people not voting all over the country.
Maybe the way to change this without removing the electoral college is in how the electoral college is chosen.
But then again… isn’t the electoral college chosen by how we vote for our state reps? In that case, then we are fairly accurately represented if we vote for the state reps. Yes?
So in Texas, if you want your vote to count, then make sure you vote for the state reps, am I understanding this right? My understanding of how the electoral college is chosen in my state is very little, so correct me if I’m wrong.
I like michael’s suggestions. I still think we should stick with the electoral college. I get real tired of hearing liberals complain that that’s the reason Gore lost in 2000. Did they ever stop to think that a lot of conservatives probably don’t even bother to vote in states like CA or NY where THEIR ‘vote doesn’t count’?
The problem in 2000 wasn’t the college, itself, it was Florida. The state was, for all intents an purposes, a tie…and our system doesn’t handle ties well, because it doesn’t acknowledge that there is some “noise” in the voting “signal,” so to speak.
Florida, a state that registered some 6,000,000 votes (as I recall) was decided by a margin of less than 600, or 0.01%. I don’t believe that our present voting infrastructure can support belief in a margin of error that low.
The solution? I’m not quite sure. Surely, proportional allocation of electoral votes would have helped, because it would have made the 25 EV argument a 1 EV argument.
Personally, I think we just need more electoral votes in the pool, and then a sort of Maine/Nebraska system, by district. Multiply the number of votes by, say, 100. Each district has 100 EV, awarded on a % basis. Each state has 200 EV for the statewide vote, also awarded on a % basis. If done nationwide, the smaller states keep their representational skew, but we get a finer districting effect.
In each district, using some quick and dirty arithmetic, the number of voters that don’t have their vote “count towards” an electoral vote for their candidate (that is to say, the remainder after all district electoral votes are accounted for) is something on ther order of (voters per district) / 200…using 2000 numbers, that’s about 1150 per district, or about 500,000 nationally. In California, alone, in 2000, there were about 4.5 million voters that didn’t have representative votes in the electoral college. I think a system like this preserves some of the nice things about the EC (the small state skew, districting effect), while providing the greater granularity that I think would provide for a fairer system, and being less prone to catastrophic ties.
Of course, this is too complicated a solution to ever be implemented, not to mention that it cuts into the power of the 2-party system.