Shaking Up The Electoral College

by: Chris Bowers

Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 14:38


Via MyDD, it looks as though North Carolina will throw a curveball into the 2008 presidential election:

North Carolina appears headed to becoming the third state in the nation to abandon the winner-take-all method for awarding its electoral votes as the House tentatively agreed Thursday to shelve the method.

In its place, according to the measure approved on a largely party-line vote, would be a more proportional method that would reward the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each of the state's congressional districts.

The Senate already has passed the measure, which would take effect in 2008. A final House vote could come Friday, then the bill would go to Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, just like the majority in the Legislature, which has backed the change. The state Democratic Party also supports it.

Now, in most cases, I do not think that this is the sort of thing Democrats should be doing. We should not be changing election laws simply in order to favor our party. That sort of action is so Tom DeLay, so Florida 2000, so long-standing Republican power grab. However, in this circumstance, there are mitigating factors that I think make this more justifiable, as parts of North Carolina will become "swing" congressional districts. Right now, because of the state-by-state, winner take all electoral college, major party nominees pretty much only campaign, and spend money in, the 15 or so "swing states" with the chance of flipping in close elections. North Carolina has not been a swing state for some time, and as such it has been largely ignored during recent general elections.

Under this plan, North Carolina now has at least four very "swinging" electoral votes: NC-08 (Partisan voting index of R +3.0), NC-07 (PVI of R +2.8), NC-02 (PVI of R +2.7), and NC-13 (PVI of D +2.5). This will make much of central North Carolina very much a "swing state" of at least equal value to New Hampshire, and even possibly of equal value to Nevada and New Mexico. Maintaining the electoral math status quo between the two major parties, and thus causing the entire populace of your state to remain in presidential election limbo, is neither very democratic nor a good way to represent your constituents. Now, the issues of many people in North Carolina will be heard in the 2008 election, whereas before they would probably have been ignored.  Further, once all the votes are counted, the Electoral College will accurately reflect that the population of North Carolina was not unanimous in favor of one candidate, but instead had a sizable minority voting differently.

Now, I don't think that this is the sort of plan that should be adopted nationwide, because it still has many of the same problems as the Electoral College, that should be abolished. Simply put, the EC clearly violates the principle of "one person, one vote" because it differently weights votes based on where people live. That is ridiculous, undemocratic, and even offensive. Weighting votes based on where people live makes about as much sense as weighting votes based on gender, ethnicity, or religion. However, both swing and smaller states are probably loathe to give up their unequal power, making abolishing the electoral college via constitutional amendment difficult. That is why I am on board with the plan put forth by the Amar brothers, otherwise known as National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, that would result in direct, national popular vote determining the winner of the presidency without amending the constitution. All you need to do is have states that combine to control 270 electoral votes or more agree to give all of their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nationwide. States would continue to use their current systems of allocating electoral votes until enough states had singed on to render the electoral college obsolete. This plan has passed into law in Maryland, is close to passing in Illinois, and has been introduced in 30 other states. It is a worthy campaign to join up with, and it actually has a real chance of working. If you are interested in helping out, you can sing up at National Popular Vote.

Information on the partisan voting indexes of North Carolina, Nebraska and Maine, along with some relevant maps, can be found in the extended entry.

Chris Bowers :: Shaking Up The Electoral College
In addition to two votes going to the overall winner of the state, Maine, Nebraska and now North Carolina allocate one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. Via the Cook Political Report, here are the Partisan Voting Indexes of the 18 congressional districts in those three states:

NE-03: R +23.6
NC-06: R +17.5
NC-05: R +15.4
NC-03: R +15.2
NC-10: R +15.0
NC-09: R +12.2
NE-01: R +11.6
NE-02: R +9.0
NC-11: R +7.1
NC-08: R +3.0
NC-07: R +2.8
NC-02: R +2.7
NC-13: D +2.5
ME-02: D +3.2
NC-04: D +5.9
ME-01: D +6.4
NC-01: D +8.8
NC-12: D +11.3

Swing district are in bold. These figures indicate how much more the district favors the Democratic Party or Republican Party relative to the nation as a whole. Here is a map of North Carolina districts:



The swing districts are clustered near the center of the state, circling around the ultra-red 6th district.  Also, it is both interesting and depressing to note if North Carolina had this plan in place in 2000, Al Gore would have won the Electoral College 270-268 even without Florida. As this map from Dave Leip shows, Gore won three congressional districts in North Carolina in 2000 (Gore CD's in red):



If Republicans claim that this is a travesty of democracy, first tell them that the electoral college is itself an abomination, and then tell them that this would have allowed the popular vote winner to take office in 2000 without any recounts necessary.

Oh, and one final note. If, in the comments, you are going to use that oft-heard talking point against national popular vote, that the two major candidates who just campaign in the major metropolitan areas and ignore the rest of the country, keep in mind that many more Americans live in major metropolitan areas than live in swing states. Yes, it would truly be a disaster if major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Boston, the Bay Area, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix were actually places in which that our Presidents bothered to campaign. How awful if they actually had to pay attention to places like that. Gee, I wonder if there might be a connection between presidents being elected without having to address the issues facing major urban areas, and the extremely high rates of urban poverty in this country? That might be something worth looking into…

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Shaking Up The Electoral College | 17 comments
The Popular Vote Compact Is The Way To Go (0.00 / 0)
But what's happening in North Carolina is not unprecented.  Both Nebraska and Maine have similar systems, as noted here.

I think that what's happening in North Carolina is actually beneficial for the popular vote compact campaign, since it raises the visibility of the issue of the electoral college, and proposes to do something about it immediately.  That helps to raise awareness and draw some people into working for a more longterm and permanent solution--to wit, the popular vote compact.

I'm usually wary of transitional reforms, since there are such powerful forces opposed to any reform at all, and the end result is often only a modest reform whose impact is quickly eroded.  But in this case, I think the dynamics are more likely to swing the other way.  I think folks are likely to see the district-level system as fairer, but arbitrary compared to the compact system.

I could be wrong, of course, but it seems quite plausible at this point.  The one way to know for sure is to pass it in one state and see what happens subsequently.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

Gerrymandering (4.00 / 2)
The problem is the problem of gerrymandering.  Nationwide this plan would have given the election to George W. Bush in 2000 by an even wider electoral vote margin.  Why?  Because of gerrymandering throughout the country leading to uber-Democratic districts (65%+) and safe but not overwhelmingly Republican districts (55%+)  This should go hand in hand with redistricting reform.
Right on the money (0.00 / 0)
I think this is a step in the right direction, but the gerrymandering thing really does reduce its impact. 

For North Carolina, I don't really think it is that much of a case of Democrats engaging in DeLay-style partisan election shenanigans, though.  Long- and medium-term trends all say to me that North Carolina as a state is getting bluer and bluer (Tarheel bluer?), what with demographic changes as more yankees move into the research triangle area and a strong, progressive state party.

Yes we Kang

[ Parent ]
It would be a problem nationwide (0.00 / 0)
But the NC map was written by Dems. There are not many states left with a Republican trifecta, so there are not many options for them to retaliate. Personally, I wish North Carolina would pass the interstate compact above along with this plan it reduce its negative implications. It is possible that they are opening up pandora's box should Republicans over seize control of a state legilslature like California's. 
[ Parent ]
True (0.00 / 0)
But I'd never want to adopt an imperfect system simply because we happen to control the trifecta in more states than the Republicans.  You're right, they are setting an example in the future of what Republicans might try.  Just imagine if the GOP had done this in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York in the late 1990s.
[ Parent ]
The National Pop Vote might lend itself to an IRV like process. (0.00 / 0)
If the compact required a majority of votes and if it provided a means for the losing candidates to transfer their votes to other candidates until a majority is reached by one, then the desire to make third parties viable becomes possible.

Jeff Wegerson
Campaigning in Urban vs. Rural Areas (0.00 / 0)
I've been thinking about that oft-heard talking point against the national pop vote.  I think the pop vote is a good thing all around, but the concerns of the naysayers may be best answered by micro-targeting.

As a rural Californian, I have to wonder what is so much more important about Dubuque than Santa Rosa that it gets all the attention from presidential candidates.  It's true that the national popular vote probably wouldn't bring Hillary to Santa Rosa.  But even if she just came to San Francisco, she would at least be in the same state.

Plus, as campaigns get more serious about micro-targeting the kind of voters who they don't reach by visiting the same population centers over and over again, I think mainstream candidates would take even more notice, resulting in a tremendous net gain for our state's rural population.  As it stands they only micro-target the hermits living in their exurban fortresses in Michigan, but not in California.  Net gain, I tell you!

Yes we Kang

I take it (0.00 / 0)
That those who support eliminating the electoral college feel as though every presidential election in the history of the United States has been undemocratic? Cause the EC has elected every president in history.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.
Only when (4.00 / 1)
The EC has provided different results than the popular vote. And, for those 19th century times when it did so, that doesn't count, because the millions of African-Americans denied the vote back then would have tipped it in favor of the EC winner.

Basically, I always worried that the EC would lead to a situation like 2000, Unfortunately, it did before it was fixed.
[ Parent ]
Have to call you on this Chris (0.00 / 0)
You said that the Electoral College is fundamentally in opposition to the principle of "one person, one vote." Given that the EC has determined every election thus far in the history of the United States, then the extrapolation of your point is that every election has violated said principle.  In most cases perhaps, the country got "lucky" in that the popular vote and EC vote corresponded, but that doesn't change the inherent flaw.  It's like saying that anorexia and improved diet and exercise both achieve the same cosmetic result, so they're the same unless and until someone gets sick.

I mean, you explicitly say that you always worried that this would come to a head which says that you always felt that the system was broken. Given that the system hasn't changed, it's always been broken and it was just a matter of when it would hit the fan.  So is not the natural conclusion of that line of thinking that every election before 2000 (with maybe one or two exceptions e.g. 1960) was just a fortunate accident?

At which point, that's a big kettle of fish that you've just opened.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.

[ Parent ]
It depends on how you look at it (4.00 / 1)
Imagine yourself back in the days when they were debating the direct election of Senators, proposing to replace the old system where they were elected by state legislatures.  A skeptic might object, "But aren't you saying that every Senatorial election so far has been un-democratic?"

To which the unabashed proponent of direct election would respond, "Correct.  That is what I'm saying.  It's just that no one's cared enough to change it before because the practical impact was satisfactory."

So I think you've nailed the fundamental premise, but I don't understand the anorexia analogy or why this is so earth-shattering.

Yes we Kang

[ Parent ]
I'm not saying it's earth-shattering (0.00 / 0)
I'm simply saying that it should be made clear that what's being said is that this country has ALWAYS used a flawed system to elect its presidents.

As to the anorexia analogy, it may have been awkward.  The point is that getting the right result via the wrong means is not the same as getting the right result via the right means.  Chris was saying that elections using a flawed system but coming up with the right end result qualified as democratic, but if the system is NOT democratic, then the outcome isn't either.

Anyways, I think that this is, in fact, an important distinction to make given how many people (not necessarily the ones involved in this particular discussion) only decided the system was broken after things went screwy in 2000.  I've had too many EC discussions centered around the premise that the EC doesn't work any more.  Either it works or it doesn't, and then the discussion can move forward.  But I do think that there's often a very casual willingness to throw the EC under the bus without considering that one implication is that the United States has never had a democratic election for president.  We can decide that's true, but I do feel as though that context changes the tenor of the discussion.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.

[ Parent ]
Interesting (0.00 / 0)
I found that to be a very helpful clarification.  Thanks!

Yes we Kang
[ Parent ]
Not Necessarily, But Since You Mention It (4.00 / 1)
"Democracy" and "democratic" are fairly broad terms, but it's hard to consider all those "slaveowner only" elections as terribly democratic, I'm sure even you would admit, wouldn't you, Lucas?

It's not just that slaves couldn't vote, but most whites couldn't either, and the whites that could vote got their's multiplied by 3/5ths for every slave that couldn't vote.

So, democratic?  Not so much.

And, of course, the electoral college was a part of the same old rotten deal to preserve a slaveowners' veto over any possible future change.  Yes, it also helped out the small states, giving them the extra heft that came from their two senators.  But that was more at the level of strategic detail, while the overall logic was driven by by Southern slaveowner concerns.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that every electoral outcome has been undemocratic, but it does rather lessen the lustre of "democracy" a bit.

So, now let's look at the situation today.  That situation is rather simple: the vast majority of states are largely ignored by presidential campaigns during the general election, while attention is intensely focused on about 1/3 of the states.  As a result, the vast majority of people feel--quite accurately--that their votes simply don't count.  There's just no way around it, this is not good for democracy.

A de facto elimination of the electoral college would change all that.  It would mean that everyone's vote would count, and count equally. It would mean that our presidential elections would be truly national elections, as they have only rarely ever been before.  And I am at a loss to see how that could be a bad thing.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
They are broad, yes (0.00 / 0)
And I realize it's tricky to have this discussion without parsing the term "democratic."  I'm not (yet) however advocating one side or the other so much as making sure we're all clear on the magnitude of what we're talking about.

As I mentioned in response to Chris, what you're describing is happy accidents whenever the outcome of an election could legitimately be described as "democratic." This, to me, also says that the system under which this country has elected every single president is inherently incapable of delivering a "democratic" result in itself.  That is to say, there has never been a democratic outcome so much as there have been outcomes that would likely have also been the result of a democratic process. 

As to the situation today, I don't disagree with your assessment.  But utilizing popular vote would include less states with its immediate focus on major metropolitan areas, so the inclusion of a certain number of states is an irrelevant argument.  The relevant discussion is the number of people who are or feel as though they are meaningfully enfranchised.  And again, this argument for change implies that the EC system has, for every presidential election, effectually disenfranchised portions of the population.  If this is the argument being put forth, then at least say so.

After all that, there's a perfectly legitimate argument to be has as to whether a dramatic urbanization of the effectual voting pool is in the best interest of the country and/or the republic and/or democratic principles.  But if the EC, by its very nature, is broken and undemocratic, then every result also is.  A popular autocrat remains an autocrat.

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.

[ Parent ]
I'm Hardly Convinced It Will Mean A More Urban Focus (0.00 / 0)
I think it's much more likely to mean more attention to exurban California, for example, and other such areas that will be more diverse in terms of population--taken as a whole--and thus will tend to open up the range of issues on the table.

I think it's a mistake to try and establish abstract goods, such as being "democratic" and then asking how a system measures up.  It's much better to look at how things actually work or could work, and ask, "What, specifically, is good about this?  And what is not?"

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
I agree and... (0.00 / 0)
...this movement is not only being pushed by the Dems.  Republicans in many states, including my state of IL, are fully behind this effort.

Though I'm hopeful about your comment that it will help the Dems, it's hard to say.  Sure it puts those electoral votes from small rural states back up for play.  But we still have not  won more than 50% of the popular vote in more than 30 years (Carter 1976). 

It will be very interesting to see how the convergence of this potential change with all of the new uses of technology will impact campaigns and their results.  I think politics will become even more individualized, needing to build even stronger grassroots support in every state to win every single vote possible.
 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

Shaking Up The Electoral College | 17 comments
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