Electoral College Mess

The Electoral College is beginning its self destruction because it is working the way it was written, not the way people expect.

But it will persist for a while.

There are some very reasonable things about the electoral college system.  By counting votes by states it means that huge regional majorities lose some of their national importance.  It also means there is a firewall in the event one or a few states attempt partisan advantage.

This is probably good for the stability of the nation.

Trump tweet last night 

Widespread regional acceptability.  The current election is an example where Clinton racked up a four million vote majority in California.  The electoral college system kept that from overwhelming the national vote forcing her candidacy to be acceptable to other regions.  A more predictable example from history would be a candidate who represented the racial traditions of the white south who might rack up huge majorities in the former slave states, but who was otherwise unacceptable to the nation.  

State mischief.    A state like Texas, with a Republican House, Senate, and Governor,  or California with Democratic control, might find some reason to block a candidate from the ballot on some basis, e.g. disallowing a slate of electors.  Federalist respect for state autonomy in matters of ballot access might be helpless in stopping such an action.   The result is a national election which was won soundly by one candidate but who lost a national popular vote because the candidate got no votes in that one state.    Could this happen?   It did happen.  Abraham Lincoln received zero votes in ten southern states in the election of 1860 because in ten states no electors were willing to put forward their names as electors pledged for Lincoln.  Therefore, there was no way for individuals to vote for him.

However, neither of those sound reasons for an electoral college system explain why it will persist.    It will persist because of inertia and the idea that one or another party benefits from it.   It will collapse when parties think it is too dangerous to persist.   And that is underway now.   The electoral college is being revealed as capricious with an unreliable result.

Here is Fox News gloating and saying "Bias Alert", noting Slate had an article reversing an earlier Slate article which praised the electoral college.  The electoral college has fundamental respect.  Party and policy people like it when it works--for themselves:    Click Here.

The Democratic effort to encourage defections--the Hamilton elector gambit--backfired in the short term but it succeeded long term.   It revealed and reminded the leadership of both parties that electors are not reliable.  Electors are selected based on their strong party and political affiliation which actually makes them unreliable electors.   They actually care about politics and the issues.  They have their own strong political agendas and they want to exercise it, not act as a passive agent.   Party leaders are thinking:  next time this could be a disaster for our side.   Defections happened--but not where expected.

A variety of electors--more Democrats than Republicans, as it turned out--decided to defect.  In Washington State 4 out of 12 electors defected--from Hillary Clinton.   Three voted for Colin Powell, a nominal Republican, and one for a Native American elder, Faith Spotted Eagle.   Two Texas Republicans defected, one voting for Ron Paul and another for John Kasich.  In Hawaii a Democratic elector voted for Sanders rather than Hillary Clinton.

In several other states there were mechanisms for replacing electors before they could cast a faithless vote, although they tried to.   This happened in Maine and Minnesota, where Clinton voters attempted to  defect but were replaced.

This blog argued two days ago that the electoral college was a time bomb.  Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were both expected to cast presidential ballots for the Democrat, yet each were under the control of Republican legislators.   There was discussion--which did not come to fruition, fortunately for Republicans as it turned out--of changing both states from winner-take-all to votes being distributed by congressional district.  And because in Pennsylvania some very aggressive gerrymandering, packing Democrats into relatively few congressional districts, even though the total votes for Democratic congressmen is greater than the total votes for Republican congressmen, Pennsylvania's 18 congressional delegation is 13 Republicans, 4 Democrats, 1 vacancy. (The districts are drawn so that Democratic votes are "wasted" in overwhelming majorities in urban districts, leaving a majority of districts with a Republican majority.   This is legal and constitutional.)   States have broad latitude to shape their own congressional districts.  The presumed result of Pennsylvania moving from winner-take-all to allocation by congressional districts was that Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would not all go to the Democrat and would instead be split about  13-Repubican, 7-Democrats, even if the state cast a majority of its votes for the Democrat.  Against expectations, Trump, not Clinton, won statewide. 

Here is a Pennsylvania Congressional District

  
There is no national mechanism for requiring every state to be winner-take-all.  Again, partisans on both sides are looking at the maps, wondering if they--or the other side--might successfully game the system to move electoral votes from one side to the other through the mechanism of state law.   All of this draws attention to the electoral college.  As a blog comment here put it, the votes Americans cast for president are suggestions, not orders.

And, of course, there is the mis-match between the electoral college vote and the popular vote.   This year Republicans love the Electoral Vote mechanism but as recently as 5 days before the election Republicans were bemoaning the presumed "blue wall" which would have allowed Clinton to win the popular vote (thanks to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) while herself losing the popular vote.  

The presidential winner wants to claim the mandate of the American people.   In actual fact it turns out he or she has the mandate of an invisible group of people who are free to be faithless grandstanders.

Bottom line:  the electoral college only has credibility with the partisan side of voters who most recently benefitted by its capriciousness, a weak foundation.  It is losing credibility with the leaders of both parties who are considering how its systems may work against them.   At this moment the Republicans are in control and nothing will happen, but if it appears the pendulum is changing then there will be a window in which the rules might change.  

Meanwhile, Thad Guyer 

Guyer considers the whole Hamilton Elector effort to have been a big mistake for Democrats.   He headlines that it was a "Hoax."  He is correct that it backfired and may be used against them in 2020, but I do not consider that fear to be a problem.  Both sides are now keenly aware that electors are unreliable, which is why the system might change.   But Guyer's real complaint is that Democrats are distracted from the real work of moving the party away from a party out of touch with American nationalism, patriotism, and populism.  Guyer is keenly aware that Trump has disrupted our political norms and expectations and any ambiguity in that system works to the benefit of Trump.   As this blog described yesterday, Trump has vastly superior message discipline and can use areas of ambiguity to suit his purposes at the expense of Democrats.

Democrats open up the system at their own peril.   Here is how Guyer expresses it:

Now That the Hamilton Electors Hoax is Over ...”

Another media hoax down-- “Hamilton Electors”. Media, left, center and right is filled with highlights that Democrats lost—once again—and that Trump actually widened his margin victory over Clinton in the Electoral College. So Trump—again—wins the best of both worlds: a new electoral victory over Democrats, and the green light we gave him to deploy his own Democratic-style “Hamilton Electors” gambit in 2020 if need be. A Wall Street Journal editorial say Republicans are the true “Hamilton Electors” because they faced-down harassing emails, letters and phone calls, after weighing Russian tampering, FBI interference, Trump conflict with China over Taiwan, his daughter and son-in-law as first lady and presidential advisor, and business conflicts of interest. (See, “WSJ, Hamilton’s Electors Vote Trump”, Dec 19, 2016, https://goo.gl/PlaT26.) 
As Breitbart rejoiced: “It’s hard to keep track of how many times Clinton has lost the 2016 election now.” (See, Brietbart, “Democrats Inflate Electoral College Vote into Another Burst Bubble for Clinton”, Dec 19, 2016, https://goo.gl/uhrKBG).  

With the Hamilton Electors coup hoax now finished, Russiagate will also likely fade away. Its urgent media impetus was that Hamilton Electors needed to act on the Federalist Papers’ admonition that a candidate installed by a foreign potentate must be stopped. Done and done. The hyperbolic claims that Russiagate is as bad as 9-11 and thus needs an “independent commission” have fallen on bipartisan deaf ears. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agrees with Mitch McConnell on no outside commission, that the investigation will stay in-house-- in Congress. Schumer wants it to be a “select committee”, McConnell says it will go to a “standing committee”. Timed to the 2018 midterms, after a televised spectacle and amidst teeth gnashing over what the CIA, FBI and NSA are willing to declassify for public consumption, Republican committee members will vote one way, Democrats the other.

The only sunlight is this: Schmuer and Obama are determined to bring some leadership to the Democratic party. Obama pledged this week to work for our salvation by helping promote coherent policies appealing to demonized rust belt voters. Schumer will work on saving the endangered Democratic senators in 10 Trump states up for reelection in 2018. Schumer says to do that-- and deny Trump a filibuster-proof 60 votes-- lock step opposition to Trump legislation is out of the question. However, the NY Times, Washington Post and CNN will remain in charge until we get a new DNC chair to replace disgraced acting chair Donna Brazile (debate question leaker), who replaced disgraced chair Debbie Schultz Wasserman (Sanders primary rigger). (See, ABC News, “Acting Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Accused of Leaking Debate Material to Clinton”, Oct 31, 2016, https://goo.gl/YH9WxL). That battle of succession looms large as Obama Secretary of Labor Tom Perez fights to save us from Rep. Keith Ellison, the DNC chair front runner. (See, CNN, “Ellison faces renewed scrutiny over past ties to Nation of Islam, defense of anti-Semitic figures”, Dec 1, 2016, https://goo.gl/Y65GkD). 

Obama and Schumer have their work cut out for them in getting us back on track. At least that will now not include the distractions of Russiagate and Hamilton Electors.