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Time to abolish outdated Electoral College

Press Herald
Jessica Lovaas
Wednesday, November 24, 2004

It was Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004. Which state will capture the 2008 election? Why can one state have such undue influence? Because of the weighted votes allocated by the Electoral College.

It is long past time to abolish the Electoral College. It is simply undemocratic. The system distorts presidential campaigns to emphasize swing states like Ohio and Florida.

It disconnects each individual popular votefrom the electoral outcome. The winner-take-all method reduces third-party participation and inflates the impact of voter fraud. It often results in a president who is not representative of the majority's will.

Increased fraud, unequal emphasis on different states, no guaranteed majority? What happened to democracy? What were our Founding Fathers thinking?

Agreeing on a method of presidential selection at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was no easy task. The subject was voted on 30 separate times. There was a dead-heat race between a direct popular vote and a legislative vote.

Concern for the republican value of separation of powers meant rejecting a congressional vote. With no solution and the convention near closing, the Brearly Committee on Unfinished Parts was sent away and returned with the somewhat jerry-rigged Electoral College.

But why had the popular-vote alternative been abandoned so quickly? Aside from small states fearing domination by populous states like Virginia, many scholars argue that the Founding Fathers were motivated by a "Machiavellian duplicity." They publicly illustrated a commitment to democracy, while privately fearing the "unthinking" masses.

Regardless of the Founding Fathers' intentions, their Electoral College has failed. A quick glance at its historical failures more than illustrates its inadequacies. 

The 700 proposals to abolish or amend the Electoral College that have been brought before Congress since 1789 illustrate a widespread discontent with our mode of presidential selection.

In 1876, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won 51 percent of the popular vote, with 500,000 more votes than his opponent. Yet he did not gain a majority of electoral votes. The committee that allotted the contested electoral votes corruptly gave each and every one of these states to Rutherford B. Hayes, despite Tilden's majority.

Other elections occurred in which a candidate won the Electoral College without winning the popular vote. In 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but not the Electoral College, allowing Benjamin Harrison to become president.

The notorious 2000 election is the most recent illustration of this shortcoming. George W. Bush received 500,000 fewer votes than Democrat Al Gore, but still won a narrow Electoral College victory. 

The 2000 election illustrates an additional flaw: The all-or-nothing system allows marginal voter fraud to make a major impact on the national election. Bush won in Florida by less than 1,000 hotly contested votes, but received all of the state's 25 electoral votes. This alone provided him the electoral victory.

How can 1,000 votes make such an impact? Is this democratic? In a popular election, 1,000 contested votes in Florida or Chicago would hardly alter the final result. 

The Electoral College minimizes the chances of third-party candidates running, or encourages people not to "waste" their vote for them when they do run. In 1992, Ross Perot received 19 percent of the popular vote, but zero electoral votes. 

This means that nearly a fifth of the people in our country had no voice - they voted, but could have no impact on the outcome.

The EC does provide unequal representation of states, over-representing states with the smallest populations. Indeed, Wyoming has four times as much weight as California, with 165,000 people per electoral vote to California's 628,000. But does such "extra" representation really protect the rights of the smaller states? No.

Regardless of size, "safe" states that historically vote for one party (like New York or Massachusetts) tend to be ignored,. Campaigning there becomes pointless. Less policy is aimed at these states and and the incentive for residents to vote is reduced. 

Swing states are on the other end of the spectrum. Overemphasized by the Electoral College, they receive an unfair share of campaign money and policy promises.

This is why we hear so much about hazardous nuclear waste in lightly populated Nevada, but very little about issues concerning the 19.2 million New Yorkers. What happened to the goal of protecting all states equally? 

The Electoral College does none of the things it claims to do. Instead, it undermines democracy. It makes one vote more important than another, based solely on location.

Because a government of the people should be genuinely and equally constituted of all people, the Electoral College must be abolished and replaced by a direct vote alternative.

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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