Friday, August 06, 2004
Boo, the electoral college!
I did comment about Derek's post in his comments section, but since we are escalating to multiple post level, I decided to break this out. Plus, you two are absolutely slaughtering me in post count.
What I hate about Dave's argument is the seeming need to hold on to the status quo. Yes, I agree that the electoral college has served us well over the past 200 years, but the fact remains, in 2000, the majority of people voted for the LOSING CANDIDATE! Now, you can all talk about 3rd parties dividing and conquering small issues (like they did with prohibition), and you can talk about how the electoral college encourages 2 party cooperation. But how can you argue that the winning candidate needs to have at least 40% support from the voters, but then turn around and say you are ok with giving the election to someone who loses the popular vote? Isn't that what is more important? Why do you have a problem with someone who wins 34% of the vote and the plurality, but not have a problem with someone who wins 48% and loses the popular vote?
Basically, the electoral college is a way for everyone to cover their ass and say "well, at least a good portion of the population voted for him." But is this really true? Aren't a lot of people not voting? Aren't a lot of people only voting because they're the lesser of two evils? If some other 3rd party candidate had won, would the voters who voted for other people really be any less happy? I think trying to please the greatest percentage of the population is a noble effort, but in terms of voting you will always be disappointing the majority of the people.
You also seem overly worried about single issue candidates. Single issue candidates would be destroyed by the two parties. They would simply absorb any issue that got big enough to garner widespread support. Just like they do now. I think by worrying about splintering and factioning, you are ignoring the fact that people don't like voting for losers.
The two parties would still dominate, and third party candidates wouldn't win because 1) the two parties do a good enough job of representing the big issues, and 2) nobody thinks the 3rd party candidate can win. Why would either of these two things change with the elimination of the electoral college?
Obviously there would be consequences from switching to a popular vote. Candidates would clearly lead more national campaigns, but I don't think any local or regional candidate would gather enough support to be recognized. And there are other issues that need to be worked out. But the electoral college clearly does not have a place any more in our system. If 2000 didn't point this out, what will it take? This can clearly happen again (and will probably become more and more likely as the two parties get closer and closer), so we should do something about it. But you can't argue about little details, and then ignore the big picture. Of course, if you enjoy having the less popular candidate win, then the electoral college is for you.
My problem with the current system is firstly, no matter how you look at it, big-state bias, small-state bias, there should be no bias. Secondly, all the votes for the losing candidate in a particular state do not matter, as long as he loses, he gets no electoral votes, no matter how close the race (see Florida, 2000).
As for your third party- 12th party thoughts. There are more than 2 party's now, the Green, Reform, and Libertarian are probably the biggest, but I am sure there are at least a dozen more small party's out there. And even with a popular vote, these party's will face daunting challenges. First there is the fund raising and national exposure that is needed, and most small party's will not get that. Second, it is not easy to get a candidate or party on the ballot in most states. A popular vote would make people more aware of the choices (not a bad thing in a democratic society) but I do not think that you would have election results with no candidate receiving more than 35%.
: 10:03 AM Anyways, I think that the reason this country has such low turnout is a result of the system. And, a system where someone's vote is not wasted because thier candidate is not going to win their state may be enough of a motivating force to get many more people to vote.
I think the best idea so far in this forum is Stu's about splitting the electoral votes based on percentages within a state. While this is not s true popular vote, it is much closer to one, and gets rid of some of my problems with the system.
Finally, a question that hopefully someone with some interantional politics under his belt can answer. How do other 'Democratic' nations do their elections. Do they have the equivalent of an electoral college? Do they have the problem where the winning candidate recieves 30% of the vote? Do their systems have any better voter turnout?
By the way, I am still too lazy to make a name to publish on the site, but these 2 comments were by Derek.
: 10:11 AM << Home
