At 03:49 AM 10/11/2004 -0400 Bryon Daly wrote:
>> Bush States Never in Doubt:
>> AK, UT, ID, MT, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, MS, AL, GA, SC, KY, IN
>> Kerry States Never in Doubt:
>> HI, CA, IL, DC, MD, NY, VT, MA, CT, RI
>
>Translation: states where your vote doesn't mean squat, especially if
> you're in the minority party there.
I categorically reject this conclusion in the strongest possible terms.
First, why is it that you think "your vote" in an election decided by 10%+
of the vote means less than "your vote" in an election decided by 527
votes? In either case, the changing of a single vote does not change the
outcome.
Moreover, I think that it is exceptionally dangerous to suggest, as you do,
that a vote for a minority party, "doesn't mean squat." The importance
of democracy is that the *process* matters, and that seeing your side tally
up a minority of votes confers legitimacy to the fact that your particular
minority is in power. It ensures that grievances are addressed through
peaceful means.
The corollary to your argument is that American democracy would be
healthier if all of elections were split almost exactly 50-50, and decided
by as little as one vote. I think that this is a false assumption - and I
think that it is a good thing that certain politicians are able to build
such a strong consensus around their views as to win substantial majorities.
Additionally, it is worth noting that no matter what system you use for
"tallying up" the votes, be it winnner-takes-all EC, congressional district
EC, proportional EC, or straight popular vote, there will always be a
single winner and everyone else will be "losers." Under your logic, the
votes of the 40.56% of Americans who voted for electors for Mondale-Ferraro
in 1984 "didn't mean squat" because "both parties [knew] who will win."
And what about the votes of the 56%+ of Americans who cast votes for
electors pledged to *other* candidates than Clinton-Gore in 1992? or the
nearly 51% of Americans who did so in 1996?
Thus, I again reiterate this in the strongest possible terms - we do not
simply count votes for the winners, we count *everyone's vote.* To say
otherwise is to slowly undermine the democratic-republican system of
governance.
>Is this really a desirable system for a democracy (or, ok, a
>republic)? Any good justifications for it? Why should we want the
>voters in a handful of states have so much influence over the final
>results? Why isn't there more call for change?
>
>I had thought that after winning the popular vote but losing the
>election, that at least the dems would push for some changes, but they
>seem content with the status quo, and that puzzles me a bit.
Is the system desirable? Well, for one thing it was a fairly important
part of the deal that sealed the creation of the United States of America
as a nation-state in the first place. Thus, it is arguable that any
attempt to ditch it would smack a bit of "bait-and-switch."
Another good reason for it, is that geography is important. First off,
all nation-states are based on some form of geography, to the extent that
they have national borders. As a corollary to this, all wars of secession
are also based on secession. One benefit of the EC, then, is that it
ensures that rural States brought into the political process - or more
accurately, it creates the perception that more rural Sates are brought
into the process. Especially in cases when these rural States have a
broad consensus of political opinion, it could be very easy for dissidents
in said States to argue that "Others" in the distant, urban States, simply
don't understand them, blatantly ignore their interests, and that in an
electorate of 110 million votes, that their votes are simply lost. By
reducting the electorate to 538 Electoral College votes, it is much easier
to argue that a small State is carrying an impact with 3, 4, or 5 EV's.
(By the same token, it is hard to argue that CA and NY - which are
single-handedly keeping the Party which supports their broad consensus of
opinion afloat in the Electoral College - are being slighted by the
Electoral College process.)
One reason why there isn't more call from change, even from the Democratic
Party, is that it is exceptionally difficult to change the Constitution.
As of yet, there does not appear to be the broad-based outrage at the EC
that would be necessary to effect a Constitutional Amendment to change it.
Another reason is that somewhat surprisingly, the Electoral College doesn't
necessarily benefit Republicans as much as you might think. For example,
consider the list of States benefitting from the floor of 3 EV's.
Republican:
WY, ND, AK, SD, MT
Democratic:
DC, VT, DE
In other words, the 3 EV floor benefits the Republican Party to the tune of
only 1 EV or 2 EV. It is also worth noting that MT is the closest State
to picking up a 4th EV, and that the closest States to dropping from 4 EV's
to 3 EV's are RI, HI, NH, and ME. Thus, it is entirely conceivable that
this will balance itself out in the future... and may even swing to
benefitting the Democrats after the next Census.
(As an aside, it is interesting that you - like almost all observers who
make arguments similar to yours, chose Alaska as your type-example of
disproportionate voting power, even though WY, ND, and DC all have even
more disproporionate voting power (by virtue of their lower populations.)
Alaska, is however, the state most geographically "different" from CA, and
thus is the most "Other" - which to me at least, is an interesting
illustrative example of why geography matters.)
>I can only posit cynical behavior on behalf of BOTH parties to
>maintain their own strongholds at the expense of fairness.
Well, this is another argument entirely. I suspect that Gautam can post a
better defense of the two-Party system than I can.... but I'll give a shot
at it in another thread.
>But it seems to me that the biggest problem isn't so much the EC
>itself, so much as the "winner takes all" setup that awards all the
>electoral votes to the state pop vote winner so that that the winner
>gets all the electoral votes whether he wins by a 99% margin or a 50
>vote margin. That just seems unnecessary and wrong to me. It would
>be very easy to allocate the electoral votes directly proportional to
>the pop vote, or give each district one electoral vote, with the 2
>other EC votes going to the overall pop vote winner.
A proportional EV system would be disastrous - see more on Colorado below.
One effect would be to empower third parties - but, the catch is that
those third parties would pretty much only be viable in the largest States,
like CA, NY, and TX. For example, 10% of the vote for a 3rd Party would
win EV's in California, but not in any State with 5 or less EV's.
Given the obscene level of gerry-mandering in Congressional Districts, that
system would probably be no better either. We probably both agree that
Congression redistricting should be put into the hands of non-partisan
commissions.
>> ... Lastly, while there is an initiative
>> on the ballot to split Colorado's EV's, it is nearly inconceivable that
>> Colorado would choose to commit electoral suicide in this way - and that's
>> probably more said about that than it is worth.
>
>You say "electoral suicide", I say "democracy". :-) That measure
>could conceivably give up to 50% of the CO voters some impact on the
>election that would otherwise be written off. Why can't (or
>shouldn't) every state do this?
The reason is that Colorado has 9 EV's, and after the 2010 Census will
almost certainly have 10 EV's. Under the 9 EV system, the loser of
Colorado needs to garner a mere 39% of the Colorado vote to earn 4 EV's.
That leaves the winner of Colorado with 5 EV's. In other words,
campaigning in Colorado would produce an expected return of only a single
EV - a smaller expected return than WY, VT, or DE.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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