"Isn't it crazy that the future of our country will be decided by 50,000 un-engaged low-information voters in Pennsylvania?"
A man in a diner in Massachusetts (not a swing state)
No wonder people feel frustrated about politics.
I favor a system where every vote matters. I favor a popular vote for president.
We all know the battleground states. These were the 2020 states. The same states are battlegrounds in 2024.
A popular election would mean that every vote matters. The current system of election by states -- or in Nebraska and Maine by congressional district -- means that the votes for the losing candidate in that state or district are discarded before the final tally. This system has undesirable consequences.
1. There is no electoral incentive to have policies that are especially popular to people of any one state. There is no value in running up the score because a safe 54 percent victory brings no more electoral votes than does a landslide. In the real world, this diminishes the influence of the farm states, since a Republican victory is assumed, and there is no more value in a big win versus a big-enough win. Similarly in the opposite way for blue California. In either case, the "extra" votes are wasted.
2. The system undervalues small states and their voters. This is opposite the usual presumption that a system that gives almost three times the presidential vote weight to low-population states as a large one. In fact, presidential math means that the small states and their voters can essentially be ignored, and in fact they are. Their influence is capped by the three or four votes they bring to the Electoral College. No use pandering to Idaho potato farmers. A Republican candidate has all the votes he needs to get a majority; no use winning extra votes.
3. Winner-take-all voting by states, in the close elections that we now experience, puts the attention and tipping point decision-making on a small and unrepresentative group of swing voters in swing states. We lose the "wisdom of crowds" by putting our democracy's future in the hands of about one percent of people in seven states, people who are so unusually uninformed and disengaged that they find themselves in October of an election year barely aware of who is running, but possibly willing to be goaded into voting.
4. The current system leaves nearly every voter cheated. Their votes are not part of the national total, which vote is a drop in a bucket, sure, but at least it's a drop. They have skin in the game. But in Oregon, for example, votes in my neighborhood for Trump simply disappear as they are overwhelmed by blue votes in the Portland metropolitan area. All Oregon's electoral votes will go to Harris. Trump got six million votes in California in 2020, but every Trump voter knew full well that their vote never made its way to be part of the final tally. In 42 or 43 states out of 50, its voters are bystanders to the election.
A national popular vote is legally and politically possible. State legislatures, by law in their states, can agree to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. From the National Popular Vote Compact website: The National Popular Vote Compact has been enacted into law by 17 states and the District of Columbia, including 5 small states (DE, HI, ME, RI, VT), 9 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, WA), and 3 big states (CA, IL, NY). These jurisdictions have 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the law.
What will it take to get the few additional states to join the compact? Perhaps one more screwy election, only this time with the Republican winning the popular vote and the Democrat winning a couple of battleground states by a tiny margin, and therefore the presidency. There is no guarantee that the Electoral College advantages Republicans, although it has done so in recent elections. A few votes in a few states would change that. If Florida or North Carolina flipped blue by a few votes, the electoral college would advantage Democrats.
Sooner or later enough people will feel fed up that the presidential election decision is made somewhere else by somebody else, and change will happen. In the meantime, keep your eye on that voter in Pennsylvania, that voter who knows nothing and cares little, and who might or might not bother to vote, depending on the weather and what is on TV. That is whose vote decides the future of the country. Not yours.
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From the Brennan Center: “The Electoral College has racist origins — when established, it applied the three-fifths clause, which gave a long-term electoral advantage to slave states in the South — and continues to dilute the political power of voters of color.”
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have trouble letting go of the vestiges of slavery. It’s our heritage.
Not only that idle Pennsylvania voter, but also the serious but suddenly distracted or thwarted North Carolina voter?!
ReplyDeleteBut whether a national popular vote is best is over my pay grade. I don't remember that much of The Federalist Papers.
That said, are any votes really "wasted"? Is it like blaming the game's outcome on a final play, as if the rest doesn't count?
I remember when Reagan's GOP won California, Oregon and New York--every state besides Mondale's own Minnesota.
Do you mean the Reagan who negotiated with terrorists to keep Americans captive longer?
DeleteThe Reagan who ended the Fairness Doctrine that's led to hate-talk and divisiveness?
The Reagan who shut down mental institutions which has lead to hundreds of thousands of homeless people?
The Reagan who won a second term even though his Alzheimer's disease was already showing?
The Reagan who let an astrologer influence public policy?
The Reagan whose unnecessarily stationing Marines in Beruit got nearly 300 of them killed?
The Reagan who sold the lie of trickle-down economics?
The Reagan who cheated.on his wife?
The Reagan who used his position in the actor's union to seduce an actress who needed union help?
A lot of us remember Reagan very well. While not the worst republican president he's certainly on the list.
I had forgotten that it was Reagan who killed those Marines in Beirut, not the charismatic, august religious scholar Nasrallah as recently eulogized by the left-leaning, Bad Israel mainstream press!
DeleteBut no, I meant the Reagan as relevant to the topic at hand, utterly transcending in 1984 that widespread, seemingly hard-wired and arguably vote-wasting presidential Red/Blue electoral divide.
If you consider Nasrallah responsible for the death of our troops in Beirut rather than Reagan, then you obviously also consider the Taliban responsible for the death of our troops in Afghanistan rather than Biden. But that's quite a change of fart.
DeleteAnother rationale for the Electoral College was to stop a demagogue—a tyrannical mass leader who preys on our prejudices—from becoming President. Obviously, it didn’t work.
ReplyDelete“ A national popular vote is legal and politically possible.”
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven’t done any independent legal research on this issue, the fact that right wing think tanks and legal groups are lined up against it, demonstrates that its constitutionality is questionable. Constitutionality under the current Supreme Court is merely a political question and the majority’s views are fixed. I wouldn’t count of this compact to fix our broken election system.
A national popular vote for president would turn the entire country into what we have here in Oregon: dominance by blue urban areas. The presidential campaign would take place in the big cities, and rural people and their issues would be completely ignored, if not actively scorned and denigrated.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, enough, Democrats would be fine with this; it serves their political purposes. And given those purposes, there are numerous seemingly logical arguments to make in favor of it. But it’s just the usual struggle for power in virtue signaling drag.
If Conservatives want to gain Majorities, perhaps they could try offering programs more people like.
DeleteMichael seems happy that his vote doesn't matter.
DeleteOne person, one vote serves the purpose of Democrats because it might do what the Electoral College couldn't: prevent a deranged demagogue from becoming president.
DeletePS: What's wrong with virtue?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it true that what the lower population states lack in representative clout in the presidential election, more than make up in the Senate which is where the legislative horsepower is. Rural Western states with fewer people than many large cities, have the same number of Senators. No system is completely fair, but in these times, the idea that fairness matters is beyond farcical.
Peter, does it require a change to the Constitution? If so, how can we get two-thirds of the States to buy in?
ReplyDeleteJohn F: I believe the multi state compact is designed to bypass the Constitutional requirements of an Amendment to rid us of the Electoral College, which could take years to get passed, if it ever did .
DeleteI'm certainly not a Constitutional Scholar, but reading it again, I find nothing in it for doing such a compact between the States
Find nothing forbidding such a compact.
DeleteI doubt the little states would go for it. It reduces their influence. One person, one vote doesn't work in the current format. There's a reason why they call them the "fly-over" states. Not a lot of people there and not a lot going on. Republicans don't like big cities. That's where most of the people live. That hurts them. So, the way things are now are perfect for the GOP. How many elections did the Democrats win in the popular vote, but lost in the electoral college? Do any other countries do this? Why are we the only one?
ReplyDeletePicture an election where every vote counts. How wonderful would that be?
Check$ and balance. Maybe that’s a bigger problem?
ReplyDelete