The Electoral College is not anti-democracy. Yes, on rare occasions it will award the presidency to someone who did not get the most votes. However, it does ensure that the winner is the person who gets the most diverse votes. As Madison and Hamilton noted in The Federalist Papers, our country is not made up of purely homogenous interests. People who live on the coasts have different concerns than those who live on the plains. People who live in cities have different concerns than those who live in the suburbs, who have different views from those in rural areas. The Electoral College, by incorporating the number of Representatives (determined by population) and Senators (two per state), speaks to the importance of appealing to a variety of geographic interests as well as to pure population. If we went to a pure majority-vote system, candidates would only care about the interests of people living in cities, since that's where it would be easiest to campaign and entreat the most voters. For an example of this, look at the voting results based on which presidential candidate won which precincts. The result is a Red America with a few patches of blue. Fact is, Bush won a majority of votes from the vast majority of geographic area. Gore and Kerry won majorities in major cities and a few other places, here and there. The Founders decided that, all else being equal, the one with the wider geographic appeal should have the edge. This does not appear "anti-democratic" to me. Not to mention that pure democracy has never been a desire of this country. Federalism is inherently undemocratic; one state can enshrine the death penalty even when the vast majority of the rest of the country rejects it. The Bill of Rights is also undemocratic, as it takes far more than a majority to undo the rights protected there. Thus, accusing something of being "undemocratic" is a weak epithet. We have long learned that democracy is a tonic best enjoyed in moderation.

I live in Arizona (like no one had guessed that before) and it is allowed for citizens to gather enough signatures to have a measure put on any ballot. There is a very low threshold for how many signatures are required and thus there can be tens if not hundreds of "voter" initiatives on the ballot. (The 2006 ballot was a complete mess with, if I remember right, close to 100 different voter initiatives.)

These voter initiatives have caused quite a bit of havoc in just the last year. Cigarette taxes were raised by 80 cents per pack to pay for schools. At the same time, cigarette smoking was banned from most bars and restaurants and other businesses, with a 2 cent per pack tax increase to pay for "enforcement". I am not a smoker, but this is what happens when "majority" rule comes into play.

In 2004, Ohio and several other states had on their ballots amendments to deny the rights of up to 10% of the population to marry and to protect their families. In fact, in Ohio, the passed amendment also has the consequence of denying protections to victims of domestic abuse if they aren't married to the person who abused them. Again, this is what happens when a "majority" rules.

The "tyranny of the majority" was well feared by our Founding Fathers. That is why they set up the Senate the way that they did and also made it quite difficult to change our Constitution (although one President prefers to ignore it).

Let us also not forget, that any plans to change the Electoral College are based on the majority of those who vote. Not those registered to vote or even eligible to vote, but on the majority of voters. So, how does that represent the "majority" of Americans?

Your last comment confuses me. How are the people who don't vote represented in either the current use of the electoral college or in a system that is closer to popular vote?

If you don't vote you can't complain about not being represented.

In the 2004 election Kerry got 4 electors from RI based on 250,000 votes and he only won by 80,000 votes. Bush got 9 electors from Colorado based on about 1 million votes and he won by about 100,000 votes. I don't see that the math works to support your argument.

In Co each elector represents 250k votes and in RI the elector represents 100k votes.

Many democrats in Texas or republicans in California don't even bother to vote. The electoral college defeats democracy and does not work to enhance the republic......

As by one comment, the "winner take all" system perverts the "democracy" argument in various respects. Quite early on, for political reasons largely, however, state legislatures went that route. Madison, btw, was support of the district by district method. I doubt, however, he would support it for three states alone, instead of across the bd.

The reason for the EC was diverse. At the time, it was deemed impossible for a country as large as ours to be able to have one at large democratically chosen election. Some did think it possible, but most did not. Likewise, some didn't trust the people, thinking it better for a small educated group of electors to do the job. Others worried about state power, especially slave states (Madison realized even then section v. section was in many ways more important than small v. big state), who had a plus given the 3/5 compromise.

Some of these things are obsolete. No more slavery. The EC is not a actual active body of electors reasoning themselves. Many states require (possibly unconstitutionally though the SC thought otherwise) electors to vote for a certain candidate. It is not acting in the way many Framers thought it would. In fact, many soon found it rather unworkable. The 12A was just one tweak; many wanted more.

The diversity argument has some bite except that it doesn't really. In the late 1800s, the presidential election generally was determined by a handful of states, thus NY and Ohio (some things don't change much) were heavily focused upon, including when picking veeps. Once, in fact, shades of Nader, a third party candidate arguably tossed the election because of the winner take all rule -- a swing state was so close, a few votes by said party made the difference.

[Instant runoff voting would help, including for believers in the Electoral College, deal with various problems.]

Ditto 2000/2004. There are "red" and "blue" states. Bush won more states in large part because some "red" ones have very few people. NY and CA are diverse too. States today is a pretty rough way to promote diversity, surely via the winner take all method. The Falkland Island like population of some states also helped Bush give each gets three votes ... you have the electoral districts PLUS the two at large.

BTW, would so many say "thank God for the EC" if Florida went differently? It very well could (should) have. Result? Bush would have won more states, but lost the election on popular and electoral votes. The country would still be greatly divided. Other alternatives are not much better. The Brits had minority PMs for years, winning on a plurality.

Finally, at key points in history the EC didn't do its assumed job of diversity. Lincoln, for instance, had Clinton in '92 like numbers but the winner take all system allowed him to win the right states.

Majority rule surely has limits though 'democracy' often has a broader definition (religious freedom is deemed democratic even if it means minority rights) , but the EC is bad for reasons not really reliant on that truth.

-j

I know that some of you might have a problem with the label, but we are actually a Liberal Democracy. Four types of Democracies are generally recognized.

Representative

Representative democracy involves the selection of government officials by the people being represented. The most common mechanisms involve election of the candidate with a majority or a plurality of the votes. Representatives may be elected by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the entire electorate proportionally proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referendums. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in their interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment as how best to do so.

Liberal Democracy

Liberal democracy is a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, separation of powers, and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal) of speech, assembly, religion, and property. Conversely, an illiberal democracy is one where the protections that form a liberal democracy are either non-existent, or not enforced.

Direct Democracy

Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens participate the decision making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives. The supporters of direct democracy argue that democracy is more than merely a procedural issue (i.e voting). Most direct democracies to date have been weak forms, relatively small communities, usually city-states. However, some see the extensive use of referendums, as in California, as akin to direct democracy in a very large polity with more than 20 million potential voters.[7] In Switzerland, 5 million voters decide on national referendums and initiatives two to four times a year; direct democratic instruments are also well established at the cantonal and communal level.

Socialist Democracy

Socialism has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, Soviet democracy, and the dictatorship of the proletariat are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory democracy and workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy. Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and other "orthodox Marxists" generally believe in soviet democracy and democratic centralism. Libertarian socialists generally believe in direct democracy and Libertarian Marxists often believe in a Consociational state that combines consensus democracy with representative democracy.

I referenced the fact that "democracy" is not just majority rule, but I find the word misleading in some ways as applied ot our system.

A "representative democracy" is better defined as a "republic," which is what Art. IV protects ["a republican form of government"], what we have schoolchildren pledge to support ["the republic for which it stands"], and what our constitutional system as a whole was put in place to honor. The word "democracy" is not in the Constitution and many associated it with the French Revolution are other scary things. In the Federalist Papers, "democracy" was compared to "republicanism," the former defined as direct democracy.

It is true that we can understand, and do understand in various respects, "democracy" as the people as the ultimate rulers, and thus able to delegate to represenatives and set up a gov't that secures rights that limit what the majority can do. But, the word often isn't used that way. Many don't consider the federal courts, which in various cases hand down rulings not open to review by the people in any realistic fashion (amendments being rather hard) "democratic." Nor do they consider the Senate "democratic" and so on.

Many didn't think of them that way when they were created either. So, like many other words that cause a lot of noise ("religion," "human life," "equal justice under the law," etc.), it is partially a definition thing.

-j

The Founders decided that, all else being equal, the one with the wider geographic appeal should have the edge.

And that's a good idea? It's OK to diminish people's voting power simply because of the arbitrary condition of their local population density? Then again the Founding Saints of the Republic decided that the similarly arbitrary tone of ones skin, gender, or the amount of land ones ancestors had to bequeath also determined how much democracy one was entitled to. Why did prior generations think those were bad ideas again?

accusing something of being "undemocratic" is a weak epithet

OK then, it's stupid, how's that for an epithet?

Personally though I don't understand the fascination with preserving aspects of a system designed for a president who was the head of a pathetically small army (compared to European armies of the time) and a customs house to a president who simultaneously heads the largest military, insurance agency and intelligence apparatus on the planet.

1. "most diverse votes" is a totally meaningless and arbitrary metric. How do you define 'diverse'? The Red State conservative bloc may be geographically diverse, but racially it is lily white.

2. the bi-coastal cities would have more power than the flyover states. Well- that's democracy- One man one vote; majority rules. You got a problem with that?

3. Bill of Rights is there to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. However right now we don't have a 'tyranny of the majority'. Right now we have a 'tyranny of the majority in the small flyover states'. In other words 'tyranny of rednecks'. The interest of the true majority is not being served right now- and that is undemocratic.

I would be against changing the electoral college, but for slightly different reasons than democracy.

1. The constitution states that someone must receive more than 50% of the vote on election day or the election goes to Congress to decide. As the elections are so close in the popular vote, it would throw many elections that way, and we know how difficult it is to get a constitutional amendment.

2. The scenario of Florida 2000 would be played out in every election in every part of our country. Remember the lawsuits on the military absentee ballots in FL, the tales of eaten chads, the challenges of results in certain areas by one party and other areas by the other party trying to get a few more votes for the state total. And with every vote in the nation counting toward a large popular vote, the incentive of local officials to tilt their vote totals more one way or another would be great. Right now, both parties can watch for this type of thing in the regions that will make a difference, but imagine the difficulty of keeping an eye on all precincts in the nation.

3. To do an election based on popular vote, you have to nationalize the election process (same reason SCOTUS said you couldn't do a selective recount in Florida - all votes must be given equal protection). And the federal government just isn't good at anything it attempts to do.

4. Right now, we know a winner before all absentee votes are counted, since a state knows if the absentee votes can tip the scale or not. With a popular vote, every absentee in the entire nation has to be counted before a winner can be announced (assuming close elections, which have been the trend lately). And this counting will be done when preliminary numbers are already in, giving even more temptation for corruption.

5. We do not even have a federal standard of who is eligible to vote. In some states, felons can vote. In some states, they can't. And in some states, you can be dead and vote. :)

Yes, the Presidency isn't a democratic process, but I'm not sure that's so bad. Even a straight popular vote does not mean that the best is the winner. You can read John Allan Paulos or other people about voting methods and see that you can never create a way to vote that everyone agrees gives the most fair solution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/­Voting_methods gives a good overview of this issue)

"One man one vote; majority rules. You got a problem with that?"

Yes. People en mass are stupid and greedy! That's why we don't allow 51% of the Senate to change the constitution. That's why interpreting the law comes down to 9 unelected judges. That's why we don't have the government ruled by the latest poll numbers.

If majority ruled in 1779 we would be loyal subjects of the British crown. (Which, by the way, isn't a very democratic process either)

Majority rules says that 50.1% of the population can subjugate 49.9% of the population. I think our current process helps prevent that. Although, I will grant that our current system does cost us a lot in unnecessary farm subsidies.

You really want to fix "tyranny of the rednecks"? Simply reduce federal government to only necessary items (national defense, interstate commerce), remove federal government from all income redistribution, social security, education, everything not essential to national security or international commerce, and give all that back to states. Then the rednecks can't do a thing to you - there'd be no power.

(You wouldn't want me as President. I'd be taking the federal government and tearing it down as fast as I could. Instead of small amount of state taxes and large amount of federal taxes, I'd reverse it and everything that could be done at the state level would be.)

50.1% of the population subjugaing 49.9% of the population is not a very good thing obviously. But it is better than having the 49.9% subjugating the 50.1%. Which is what we could potentially have under the electoral college system. Sprinting races are won by 1/100ths of a second. Is it fair that the guy who is only half a nose ahead gets the gold medal and the other guy get the silver? Or would you rather award the gold medal to the guy who is half a nose behind in the interest of fairness? That is what you are proposing.

One solution to this 49.9% vs 50.1% business is to have proportional representation in the house or senate instead of geographical representation. But that's a different debate for a different time.

The constitution states that someone must receive more than 50% of the vote on election day or the election goes to Congress to decide. As the elections are so close in the popular vote, it would throw many elections that way, and we know how difficult it is to get a constitutional amendment.

Important qualifier: more that 50% of the Electoral Vote. Thus, Lincoln and Clinton in their first wins managed to get in with around 40% of the popular vote. Sectional parties, see Lincoln, show how the EC can really skewer things in that department.

I'm not sure what system you suggest will result in the less than a majority problem ... changing the EC as a whole requires a constitutional amendment already. Instant run off voting can help though. Likewise, Clinton aside, the winner of the popular vote tends to have a majority anyway.

The scenario of Florida 2000 would be played out in every election in every part of our country.

This could -- like there -- very well require an equally too close to call election. We were talking a fraction of a percent point there. Elections simply don't tend to be that close. Anyway, such litigation can arise now. There is a right to vote. If the right to vote is infringed, even if your desired candidate loses, there is a harm. The fact that the litigation might arise from voters, not candidates, doesn't really alter the overall litigation explosion concern.

And with every vote in the nation counting toward a large popular vote, the incentive of local officials to tilt their vote totals more one way or another would be great. Right now, both parties can watch for this type of thing in the regions that will make a difference, but imagine the difficulty of keeping an eye on all precincts in the nation.

All systems will have some gaming the system problem. The current system has its own problems. In a close election, arguably, a couple states might affect it anyway, so they now have the incentive to game the system. In 2000, for instance, NH could have decided things too (Gore got 266 votes, one elector abstained). I also think some national regulation and oversight is both ideal and possible. Parties pay attention now. And, locals can game the electoral races for local races too. The chance they might in this additional matter is not a tipping pt in favor of the EC.

To do an election based on popular vote, you have to nationalize the election process (same reason SCOTUS said you couldn't do a selective recount in Florida - all votes must be given equal protection). And the federal government just isn't good at anything it attempts to do.

The election process is already national in some respects (HAVA is a federal law). If one doesn't like federal voting rights laws, well ... Anyway, your summary of Bush v. Gore is a tad bit iffy. The different voting technologies surely did not result in equal vote counts, for one thing.

Right now, we know a winner before all absentee votes are counted, since a state knows if the absentee votes can tip the scale or not.

We know if the winner is in doubt ... if it could tip the scales, the absentee votes can go either way. Thus, we may not know.

With a popular vote, every absentee in the entire nation has to be counted before a winner can be announced (assuming close elections, which have been the trend lately).

Again, it is a matter of how close ... will the absentee votes matter. Absentee votes also don't take that long to count. And, the EC count takes place in December. If the vote was so close now, litigation in a couple states can delay matters too. Many send in AVs before Election Day. If popular votes is important for democracy, a slight delay is not a reason to disregard it.

And this counting will be done when preliminary numbers are already in, giving even more temptation for corruption.

The corruption fear is present in a smaller scale now too. The EC has its own problems. Finally, it is unclear just how strong this fear really is. I personally don't see state officials be as corrupt as that. In fact, a good policy would be to take electoral decisions out of the hands of partisans like in Ohio and Florida.

5. We do not even have a federal standard of who is eligible to vote. In some states, felons can vote. In some states, they can't. And in some states, you can be dead and vote. :)

Dead people have rights too, right? Seriously, it is unclear what relevance this has, since we can simply use the current rules (states mandated by federal laws and constitutional limits anyway). This is a matter of counting votes, not determining who can vote. That's a separate issue, no?

-j

Joe_JP:

Important qualifier: more that 50% of the Electoral Vote.

Agreed. But under the procedure you outlined, they'd be the same, right?

Joe_JP:

Instant run off voting can help though.

That would change the face of politics! Good-bye two party system! (Not necessarily a bad idea!)

I prefer approval voting myself. I think that's also more likely to get more moderate winners. Plus, it allows the protest vote ("I disapprove of all candidates!").

Joe_JP:

There is a right to vote.

Actually, surprisingly, not for the Presidency. The only ones that have a right to vote are the electors (and a Congressional vote can even throw those out). The voting rights act does say that once a state has decided to choose its electors by voting, everyone (minus felons, the insane, the young, the non-citizens) has a right to vote and should have their votes counted equally. This came up when Florida's legislature considered just naming electors. Thankfully they didn't.

For Senate and Congress, the constitution now states these have to be by popular vote.

I agree that there is a corruption issue now too. The difference is that it can be localized. You know what regions are going to be close and both parties can send their observers to those areas. Nationwide, this becomes an issue. Right now, there is no incentive for San Francisco to inflate their vote total. There would be in a national popular vote. And how easy would it be to completely ignore illegal immigrant voters, greatly jacking up the vote total for your region. Right now, that would have little to no effect, unless you just happened to be in a close state. And, yes, there's incentive for corruption in lower elections still, but there's a major difference between throwing the vote for city dogcatcher and throwing the vote for the US Presidency.

I'd also agree - taking election issues out of politician hands would be a good idea. But I don't think this can be done effectively. Either the officers are responsible to the people (in which case they are elected), or they are responsible to the state legislature (in which case they are chosen by politicians), or they are assigned for life. And we know how nonpartisan the supreme court can be. ;)

Joe_JP:

This is a matter of counting votes, not determining who can vote

But if you nationalize the votes, states suddenly would have an interest in increasing their number of voters. I'd expect a year after removing the EC, you would see all states removing the voting restrictions on felons and most states playing with the idea of lowering their voting ages (federal government says that above 18 can vote, but does not say younger can't). Plus, you'd see many communities considering extending the vote to noncitizens. You'd have to federalize everything with this all at once. But you're right - this is a side issue, not an issue on the fairness of the EC.

Joe_JP:

I also think some national regulation and oversight is both ideal and possible

You have much more faith in national government then I do.

pro and con of electoral college efficacy and fairness. The electoral college was established because representative democracy was still an experiment and the architects of the constitution were not certain that true mob rule in presidential elections would not present the nation with someone smooth and paternalistic on the outside but either rank incompetent or outright evil on the inside, such as the president that is squatting in the White House today, in fact.

That the elctoral college system is flawed is demontrated in the fact that it overruled the popular majority won by Al Gore and presented the nation to George Bush, the negative consequences of which the nation is in the throws of struggling with and will be making payments for unto the next couple of generations.

The irony is that a slime ball such as George Bush was just as likely to win the nation outright on the popular vote. All the electoral college does is shift the real decision making process of deciding on the final two teams of presidential candidates from the hands of the populace at large to partisan political insiders. Oh my!

Neither system is adequate or fair, and damn well does not protect the nation from having a fool or a self-serving cynic be placed in control of the nation's executive branch.

Just some food for thought. Now the rest of you may return to picking nit and discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Also, tell that to all of the States not identified as "battleground". It has been decades since my State has been contested, leaving us to cast somewhat blind votes.

With the current population distribution it is patently unfair, even undemocratic, to use the out-of-date Electoral College, even when it generally calls the same winner as the popular vote.