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.
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