Is the electoral college system really fair?

The Electoral College is a great big steaming pile of dog shit. If the majority of the country wanted Al Gore to be president, then Al Gore should’ve been president. Since when is the purpose of a vote to allow the minority to choose? Is it friggin Opposite Day somewhere in the world?

It had it’s reasons for it’s time, but it’s time is long been over.

Re-hash.

Very interesting question, Adina, but I would caution you about your wording – “the least popualar”. Yes, we have a “two-party system”, but there are actually hundreds of presidential candidates. When George Bush ran against Al Gore in 2000, Bush was not “least popular” by any means, he was #2 out of several hundred.

To actually answer your question, I think the electoral college system is a bunch of BS.

I understand the reasoning the creators saw. But they didn’t anticipate the kind of national elections we have today, where people are 100 times more familiar with the presidential candidates than their local school board or even their next-door neighbors.

It just doesn’t make sense for our country anymore. It was created for the U.S. that existed 200 years ago, and a lot has changed.

The use of the electoral college is outdated. The person who wins the popular vote should be the winner.

HOWEVER, it is the current system. Both sides can count. You need so many electoral college votes to win. In this scenario, you (obviously) can strategically win certain states, becoming POTUS and not have won the popular vote.

Robmandu, do you think it would be worse if the campaigning was concentrated in the most heavily populated areas, than the way it is now, where campaigning is concentrated in “swing states” that are not especially heavily populated, and so they basically “decide” the election?

My main gripe against the electoral college system (and this has nothing to do with Rob’s comment) is that if I live in Texas (which I do), and I vote dem, even if there were enough people who vote dem to make 1 “electoral vote” or however many, it doesn’t matter, because every last one of Texas’s electoral votes will be counted as republican.

The result is that my vote is nullified.

@La_chica… no, the Electoral College does not automatically push the campaigns to the smaller states. It pushes them to the ones where there are votes up for grabs.

Believe me, CA, NY, etc. are still immensely important. But when CA is already substantially (irrevocably?) for Obama, why would he waste time/money campaigning there?

Oh, and from Wikipedia:

“Forty eight states, and Washington, D.C., employ the winner-takes-all method, each awarding its presidential electors as a single bloc. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, select one elector within each congressional district by popular vote, and additionally select the remaining two electors by the aggregate, statewide popular vote. This method has been used in Maine since 1972, and in Nebraska since 1992.”

Are you talking about real votes or electoral votes?

I think a roughly equivalante number of real votes are up for grabs everywhere. The fact that certain states are more evenly split between red and blue causes more electoral votes to be “up for grabs” when really, the level of “decidedness” of people there are the same as the people everywhere else—no more decided or undecided. That’s just how it seems to me. Maybe it’s not true.

As far as the “popular/electoral” states, didn’t Colorado recently switch to that system too? I think it’s great that they’re doing that! But it’s 2 or 3 out of 50. And I don’t live in one of those states…

I personally wish they would abolish the electoral college and decide elections on a popular vote. It seems outdated and unfair.

But I don’t think it’s going to disappear any time soon. The smaller states would have a fit, and, to be sure, I’m sure it would result in less campaigning there, and more of an emphasis on California, New York, and the other big states.

BTW… in 2004, Kerry lost Ohio by something like 120,000 votes. If he had carried Ohio, he would’ve won the presidential election by having more Electoral College votes.

Bush won the popular vote by 3 million votes that year.

robmandu: ...okay? i still think the electoral college system sucks.

my question as to whether you were talking about real votes or electoral votes was not a rhetorical one. i’d really like to flesh out this issue more, and i’m really curious about your point of view.

My point was that it seems this topic comes up most often when people complain about Bush winning the office in 2000 (see description of this Q). The same system almost worked for the Democrats the next time. So wishing a change on something that’s apparently working irrespective of party in the name of “fairness” seems superficial.

I’m not convinced that a straight popular vote is the way to go. We have a representative government and the framers intended it that way. OTOH, the Electoral College system is far from perfect. It’s been 200 years… and while we see some occassional tweaks (like Maine & Wyoming) there’s no real impetus to change the system. It seems it works well enough for the most part.

The problem with monkeying around with the foundations of our election system is that it’s tough to do without introducing biases—real or imagined—and hence calling the legitimacy of future elections into more doubt than we currently have.

I got kicked out of Electoral College for drinking in my classes so I think it sucks.

Seriously, I live in California which means voters in this state have the least clout of any voters in the US. Meanwhile, Wyoming voters have the most say in each of their individual votes. The EC is an archaic system. Unfortunately, you’ll never see it go away. No small state is going to ratify a change in the constitution as it wouldn’t be in their best interest. I suppose the closest thing we might have to a popular voting system would be if each state (or commonwealth) were to split their delegate votes in accordance with that state’s popular votes.

Robmandu, I disagree with the suggestion that just because the country has not collapsed the system is “working”.

It seems unfair to me, not because Al Gore lost or because Kerry almost won, or whatever. It seems unfair because I feel that my vote doesn’t count for the reasons I described in my second post about living in Texas.

I think a straight popular vote would be ideal, but I don’t think it will ever happened for the reasons you mentioned.

There are also a lot of obstacles that would prevent every state from moving to a split electoral vote system, and I don’t like the idea of half the states using it, and half not. That seems even more biased than the current system.

I agree with you that those in power see little impetus to change the system. (The party that wins does not want to remove the system that elected them, thus undermining their perceived “right” to be in power).

But I do not equate the lack of momentum toward change as evidence that the current system is at all fair.

@AstroChuck & @La_Chica… just spitballing here…

AstroChuck‘s reasoning is that Californians “have the least clout of any voters in the US” because they live in the most populous state, right?

Without an Electoral College (that is, going strictly by popular vote), we’d all be voters of a “single state”. And the result would be winner take all still. Isn’t that going in the wrong direction?

Right now with the Electoral College, if you want to make a difference you theoretically can at your local level. You need only exert your influences on fellow constituents in your state. If you could get your message out and help tip your state over to vote your way, then you’ve made a huge contribution. Your local efforts impact nationally.

Makes sense?

Oh, and I don’t think I agree at all with the premise that a vote in a state that’s overwhelmingly for the candidate you oppose is wasted.

You talk about a “single state” as if it’s a negative thing. I don’t see that as a negative at all if we are talking about a federal election. Everybody gets an even say in the outcome of the presidential election. What’s wrong with that? Why should the urbanite vote be of less value than the rural vote? We are one country, aren’t we? Under the EC you could theoretically get a president with just a small percentage of votes and a losing candidate with a very large percentage. The popular vote is the only right way to choose the leader of the US.

I’m AstroChuck and I approved this message.

Sorry, @AstroChuck, I was just trying to understand your quip above where you said your vote didn’t count for much.

California is the most populous state in the union and Wyoming is the least. California has 53 house representatives based on population. Wyoming has one representative seat as that is the fewest number that any state can have, regardless of population. Even though California has a much larger population than Wyoming (70 times more) both have two senate seats, as all states have. This gives California 55 delegate votes and Wyoming, 3. If things were truly even handed, California should have 210 delegates if Wyoming gets 3. As it is now, Wyoming voters have nearly 4 times the say in who becomes the POTUS than Californians. Does this sound fair to anyone? This is what is wrong with the Electoral College. It is blatantly unfair, but why would states such as Wyoming, Utah, Alaska, the Dakotas, etc. ever ratify an amendment to the constitution that would weaken their power in presidential politics? You need 38 of the 50 states to ratify an amendment. There are just too many of these small states that would never go along for us to change it.

The Electoral College is populated in numbers equal to each state’s representation in Congress.

@AstroChuck, sounds then like California is under-represented in the House as well. Your issue then is not so much with the Electoral College as it is with the fixed size of the U.S. House of Representatives as established by law. Currently limited to 435 as of 1963.

Not true. If population alone truly dictated the number of delegates then all states, regardless of population, wouldn’t all have 2 senate delegates.

What’s not true? All of the referenced info I linked?

Note also the distinction I made between House of Representatives and Congress (comprised of both Senate and House).

Why should the vote “of the people, and by the people” have so much less clout than that of persons they already elected?

It’s our country. We should also have the power to vote senators and representatives out of office if they fuck up.

Perhaps there was a rationale for the Electoral College; was being the operative word. In 1787.

I want my vote to count.

Oh… I see where I might’ve missed explicitly linking one thing.

from Wikipedia—

“The size of the Electoral College is equal to the total membership of both Houses of Congress (435 Representatives and 100 Senators) plus the three electors allocated to Washington, D.C., totaling 538 electors.”

Rob, I always appreciate your input, but do you truly believe that your vote matters a whit to the EC? That your peronal views are of the slightest interest to them?

I’m still voting, simply because I feel it is a moral obligation. By and large, though, it is a fruitless one.

Well, at this point of the thread, I’m not so much defending the EC as simply trying to understand some of AstroChuck‘s complaints of the system. He’s a really smart guy and if I can grasp his rationale, maybe I’ll learn something new.

But since it looks like my links aren’t being followed, I’m slowly coming to realize that no one here cares about the history of the system, how it evolved to its current state, and what mechanisms exist for its change.

@Knotmyday, I don’t know if any individual members of the EC care about my particular vote. But, in the other thread, I do make mention of the consequences that can occur for faithless electors.

True; notwithstanding the 26 states beside. I’m still (staunchly) on the side of the popular vote.

Okay, Rob. I’ll try again to explain.
Although there is no exact number of people per representative, it’s usually around one per 700,000. In Wyoming there are only about a half million residents. They could have just 10 residents and they would still get one representative. And still both states get two senators. So even if a state had only 10 people in it they would get 3 delegates voting for the presidential ticket.

Yah, I got that.

And I tried to explain that the number of electors for each state is based on that state’s number of representatives in Congress (Reps + Senators).

And further that the House of Representatives has been artificially capped at 435 maximum members since 1963. It’s not growing per capita as it really should. As California grows, you’re right in that each person is increasingly under-represented in the Congress… and by extension in the EC as well.

So… if your state’s representation in the EC (and Congress) were increased to the correct number based on population then your argument about being under-represented wouldn’t carry as much merit. Therefore, I was pointing out that your problem isn’t with the EC… it’s with the artificial cap of representatives in Congress.

Now, you still might disdain the EC for other reasons… but I was trying to help track down the root cause of that one argument against.

Friends?

I think that a candidate should have to get a certain amount of votes to receive an electoral vote in a state. Electoral votes stay the same as they are now, but the candidate acquires as many electoral votes from that state as he/she can. I’m in the VA, so if half of the votes go to Obama and half to McCain, they each get 6.5 electoral votes. Then it’s all about popular math booya

[ removed by myself ]

After the first representative it is based on population.; before you reach around 700,000 or so. You still get two more delegate votes in addition because of the two senate seats each state has regardless of population. That all gives smaller populated states a more powerful vote in picking a president and vice president. The larger the state, the less clout the individual voter has. It’s not fair. That’s all I was trying to say, Rob.

Okay, but since every state gets the same leg up with those two “senator” votes, isn’t it a wash? Basically, it’s the same deal as having a Senate in the Congress, right?

So that leaves the one “representative” vote (minimum) no matter how many people are in the state. A state that only had twenty people would get that one representative, just like another state with 700,000 (to borrow your number).

Yah, that’s not perfectly, equally fair. But whatcha gonna do?

The complaint is identical for how your state’s representation works in Congress. Would you also like to remove the representative government and convert to straight democracy?

—

Feel free to consider those all as rhetorical questions. It seems I’m bugging you and I really don’t intend to.

How is it a wash when a half million people get two delegates to represent them in one state while the over 35 million residents of another state just get two as well? No matter how you slice it, being a Californian means that my single vote for Barack Obama has less power than it ought to. If I were in a less populated state it my vote would carry more weight, even more so as California is not a swing state. Every American’s vote, regardless of where you live, what you do, how much you make a year, etc. should count the same. If there were 200 million people voting then each vote should be worth 1/200,000,000. It isn’t that way now. The popular vote is the only fair way to have an election. But it ain’t gonna happen, anyhoo.

We never would have had a country if it were not for the electoral college. It gave smaller, more rural states a way to have more influence in elections so as to counterbalance the very populated states. Without that concession from the big states, the smaller states never would have agreed to be part of the union.

Now that we’ve got it, we’ll never get rid of it. It would take a constitutional amendment, approved by 2/3rds of the states to get rid of it. There are enough small states who don’t want to lose the power they have under the electoral college system so that such an amendment would never pass.

I.e., it is totally hypothetical to talk about it. Fair or unfair—and there are arguments on both sides—it will not change without a civil war. Now, if current demographic trends continue, and more and more people from the center of the country move to the coasts, then more and more electoral power will be concentrated in that votes of very low-populace states. This may be cause for civil war at some time in fifty or 100 years. I hope you youngsters here never live to see that day!

You can complain all you want about unrepresentativeness. But the system was designed that way. We are not and never have been a representative democracy—at least at the Executive level. The founders thought there were good reasons for doing this. Now we’ve got it, we can’t change it. I see little use in complaining.

No.

Kudos to daloon for being the one to finally point out the reason for the electoral college.

If it weren’t for the electoral college, we would have the problem of the tyranny of the majority. If chosen by popular vote, the president would represent the interests of those living in densely populated areas, and the minority would totally get the shaft.

So the electoral college is about states’ rights. The people, however, have their representatives in Congress. That’s the reason those elections are contained to much smaller geographical areas.

Statewide elections reveal some of the problems with popular votes. I’m living in semi-rural Illinois right now, and I hear no end of the complaints about how the politics of the state (for those positions determined by statewide elections) are heavily weighted toward Chicago. Just imagine the same thing, but on a national scale.

Aidje, that’s not why the electoral college system exists. The electoral college system exists because the framers believe that the common people would not be aware who the presidential candidates were, and they would actually be voting for their “electoral rep” who would know who the presidential candidates were, and would cast his ballot in favor of the one he saw fit.

The issue of states’ right, which you and Daloon are referring to, is the reason the house of representatives exists, and why the electoral college system is partially based on the House of Representatives in determining the distribution of electoral votes.

The thing that strikes me about your example of rural Illinois versus Chicago is that the electoral college system does absolutely nothing to alleviate that specific example. With or without the electoral college system, the people in rural Illinois are less influential than those in Chicago…

@La_Chica, where’d you hear that in days of yore people would merely vote for local electors and trust those guys to go choose the president for them?

From Wikipedia:

In the Federalist Papers No. 39, James Madison argued that the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. The Congress would have two houses, one state-based (Senate) and the other population-based (House of Representatives) in character, while the President would be elected by a mixture of the two modes, giving some electoral power to the states and some to the people in general. Both the Congress and the President would be elected by mixed state-based and population-based means.

—

If you get a chance to read Madison’s words directly, you’ll see that he spends a lot of time discussing federal vs. national concepts. And he proposes that in some cases, federal should take precedence, and in others national. He also acknowledges that the line is blurry in places.

The EC is a federal construct but isn’t totally absent of national influence. And was established that way on purpose… not just because communication was slow, or people were ill-informed, or technology was not lightning fast.

I read it in my history book! I don’t see how that wikipedia quote refutes what I said, but when I get home I’ll look for my book and tell you all about where I got the idea! ;-)

@La_chica… good point! Just b/c it’s in Wikipedia doesn’t mean it’s so. However, a good wiki will cite numerous references to good source info. And that’s more substantial. In my last quip, I also linked Federalist Paper #39 directly to help shore up the argument.

@La_chica
To answer your criticism of my example: I did not mean for that to be a demonstration of the electoral college solving the stated problem. I meant for it to be an example of the same problem on a smaller scale. I don’t disagree with you on any particular point.

dosent the EC kinda go aganist Wesberry V. Sanders ruling of 1 person 1 vote??

Wesberry v. Sanders was about ensuring people are equitably distributed across congressional districts… not so much about how many people are actually in each district. And even following the letter of the law, it’s still possible to gerrymander the setup. So it’s doesn’t guarantee perfect fairness either.

Okay, I have been looking for the quote I mentioned before. I didn’t find it yet, but I did find these interesting tidbits:

“Many opponents advocate eliminating the electoral college altogether and replacing it with a direct popular vote. Their position has been buttressed by public opinion polls, which regularly show that Americans prefer a popular vote to the electoral college system.”

And here’s another example of the point AstroChuck was making about living in California:

“Yet today, for example, there are more people living in New Mexico than there are in Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming combined. But New Mexico has only five Electoral College votes, compared with the nine that Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming have together.”

-encyclopedia britannica

i know it was about equal distrubiton but the whole problem was that the minoritys vote was being dilluted by the majority and isnt that the same thing that happens with the the EC if you are a democrat living in Texas (which i am) or a Republican living in California it is not 1 person 1 Vote

I found what I was looking for:

“A third alternative for electing a president that the framers examined was the direct popular vote of the people… William Kimberling (1992), former Deputy Director of the Federal Election Commission Office of Election Administration [...] has stated that “Direct election was rejected not because the framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their state, people would vote for a ‘favorite son’ from their own state or region” (2).”

This is from a journal article I found on my college’s library website. I don’t know if this link will work for you, but it’s worth a shot.

So after re-reading, I concede that historians have not definitely pinpointed this as the one reason. In fact, “Historians have suggested a variety of reasons for the adoption of the electoral college, including concerns about the separation of powers and the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, the balance between small and large states, slavery, and the perceived dangers of direct democracy”.
(Britannica again)

@aisyna, after sleeping on it, I think I now understand your original quip as you intended. And I’d like to retract my original reply in order to acknowledge that your contribution helped to buttress my original point that the artificial cap on number of congressmen sent to the US House of Representatives seems to be the bulk of the root cause of the problem with California.

(I know others here don’t like the each state also gets two electors per their state’s Senators, too… but that’s part of the federalism that Madison explained.)

As to the tyranny of the majority… we’re not talking about farmers being affected by city or state-legislated re-zoning. We’re talking about the Federal Executive Branch.

Everyone, regardless of where they live, will have deeply personal reasons for their ballot choices. I do, and my views differ considerably from what might be considered representative of my district. And I ain’t in no big city, neither.

Hopefully my electoral collegians share my perspective.

One man/woman, one vote is how it should be, and how it should have been.

Perhaps it should be one man, one vote. Certainly that would help my political opinions more. But again, why bother talking about it? It’s never going to happen. The deal was done over two centuries ago. It’s locked in now by the vested interests of smaller states. The issue should not be how to get rid of the EC, but how to work within its contraints to make it more democratic.

can’t they find some way to change it so the smaller states get the electoral votes, but the big states that can hold their own get the popular vote?

Let me prove it unfair. Imagine nine cities that either vote a Yes or vote a No. they are grouped into three states, each with three cities.
|n|n|y|
|n|y|n|
|y|n|y|
each y is a city that votes yes, same with n’s. They are grouped into states by their row. Two states are no’s and one is a yes. If you count the number of y’s and n’s, this agrees with the electoral colledge system.
However, if you group the cities differently,
n n | y
...—|
n |y | n
—| .|
y .n | y
Lines are the bounderies (ignore periods). Here, even though the same cities voted the same, the different grouping cause two cities to vote yes and one no. Even though no should win, yes wins in this case.