By Michael McAuliffe
Published October 24th 2004 in The Republican (MA)
As the 2004 campaign nears its conclusion, there is one thing politicians, pundits and pollsters appear to agree on: the very real possibility that for the first time in history, consecutive presidential elections may end with the winner losing the popular vote.
President Bush could repeat his win of 2000, or U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts could become the Bush of 2004, concluding an extraordinarily tight race that has already seen a dizzying array of Electoral College scenarios and widespread criticism the system places inordinate emphasis on a handful of swing states.
"I think we'll have really messy elections. We could have the courts pick the winner, and we could have a wrong-way winner," said Robert D. Richie, executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy in suburban Washington, D.C.
"It just seems like a wild card," Richie added.
Four years ago, the Supreme Court effectively decided the election by a 5-4 decision that ended a recount in Florida, boosting Bush to his electoral victory over Vice President Al Gore. Should the winner again be the loser of the popular vote, there are predictions Americans from coast to coast will demand the abolition of the Electoral College.
"There would have to be a real hard look at the Electoral College," said Christopher M. Conroy, a political research associate for the independent polling firm Zogby International.
U.S. Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced legislation in September to abolish the Electoral College, established by the founding fathers as a compromise after rejecting three possible ways to elect the president: by popular vote, by Congress, or by the state legislatures.
"It's an anachronism," said Baird, who along with Green proposes that the popular vote decide the presidency.
Baird said the country is not having a true national election, but rather a campaign where the candidates focus on states where the race is extremely close. He said the result is that millions of voters are disenfranchised.
"We've got a system that encourages (candidates) to not go to ... where all the people are," Baird said.
Locally, Baird's sentiment is echoed by E. Henry Twiggs, chairman of the Springfield Democratic City Committee.
"It's ludicrous for one guy to get more votes, and he still can't win," Twiggs said.
In the country's history, four men have lost the popular vote yet won the presidency: John Quincy Adams in 1825, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Bush. And amid all the numbers that will be crunched on Election Day, the most important one to Bush and Kerry is 270, the number of electoral votes needed to win the White House.
There are a total of 538 electoral votes, one representing each member of Congress and three awarded the District of Columbia. The votes are divided based on population, with a minimum of three each to the smallest states. The most populous state, California, receives 55 electoral votes.
The formula does not translate to one person, one vote because every state except Maine and Nebraska awards all its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. In addition, Colorado voters will decide Nov. 2 whether they want to do away with the winner-take-all system and instead divide the state's nine electoral votes proportionally based on the popular vote.
Had such a system been in place in 2000, Gore would be president today.
Winner-take-all can mean that a resounding popular vote victory in one state can be offset by a one-vote loss in another state. Taken to an extreme, a candidate who wins by one vote in each of the 11 most populous states would collect 271 electoral votes and win the presidency, even were the candidate to be thrashed in the popular vote everywhere else.
Conroy also pointed out that based on census data, population shifts have actually created an Electoral College map where a repeat of the 2000 vote - 50,999,897 ballots cast for the Democratic candidate and 50,456,002 cast for Bush - would produce more electoral votes for the sitting president.
"The thing to remember, the states Bush won last time now they're worth more than they were last time," Conroy said.
The reality of attempting to win over voters in a handful of closely contested states has both raised the profile of smaller states such as New Hampshire and Iowa and resulted in the candidates largely overlooking big states such as California and Texas, where polling data shows Bush or Kerry comfortably in the lead.
"I think it's very unfortunate that the Electoral College has produced this strange campaign where most people haven't seen a campaign except in the debates," said Alexander Keyssar, professor of history and social policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
"We have to come together as a nation and address this whole question," Twiggs said. "If a person is going to run for president, he should run in every damn state."
Eliminating the Electoral College, however, would be no easy task. It requires a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by at least two-thirds of the House and of the Senate and three-quarters of the state legislatures.
Over the past 200 years there have been more than 700 proposals in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. In fact, there have been more proposals for a constitutional amendment to change the system than on any other subject, and public opinion polls have consistently shown that for more than the past half-century, Americans favor eliminating the college.
"They've been ripe for it since the late '40s," said Keyssar, a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his book, "The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States."
Still, small states, fearful they would lose influence to larger states if the system changes, appear unlikely to want to eliminate the Electoral College.
"I just think that they're not going to give up that role that they play," said U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield.
Richie, of the Center for Voting and Democracy, is sure of one scenario that would spell the end of the Electoral College: a tie. Should Kerry and Bush each get 269 electoral votes, the selection of the president would be put in the hands of the House of Representatives.
"People will go berserk," Richie said.
"I think there's no way the system could survive a tie vote," he added.
President Bush could repeat his win of 2000, or U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts could become the Bush of 2004, concluding an extraordinarily tight race that has already seen a dizzying array of Electoral College scenarios and widespread criticism the system places inordinate emphasis on a handful of swing states.
"I think we'll have really messy elections. We could have the courts pick the winner, and we could have a wrong-way winner," said Robert D. Richie, executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy in suburban Washington, D.C.
"It just seems like a wild card," Richie added.
Four years ago, the Supreme Court effectively decided the election by a 5-4 decision that ended a recount in Florida, boosting Bush to his electoral victory over Vice President Al Gore. Should the winner again be the loser of the popular vote, there are predictions Americans from coast to coast will demand the abolition of the Electoral College.
"There would have to be a real hard look at the Electoral College," said Christopher M. Conroy, a political research associate for the independent polling firm Zogby International.
U.S. Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced legislation in September to abolish the Electoral College, established by the founding fathers as a compromise after rejecting three possible ways to elect the president: by popular vote, by Congress, or by the state legislatures.
"It's an anachronism," said Baird, who along with Green proposes that the popular vote decide the presidency.
Baird said the country is not having a true national election, but rather a campaign where the candidates focus on states where the race is extremely close. He said the result is that millions of voters are disenfranchised.
"We've got a system that encourages (candidates) to not go to ... where all the people are," Baird said.
Locally, Baird's sentiment is echoed by E. Henry Twiggs, chairman of the Springfield Democratic City Committee.
"It's ludicrous for one guy to get more votes, and he still can't win," Twiggs said.
In the country's history, four men have lost the popular vote yet won the presidency: John Quincy Adams in 1825, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Bush. And amid all the numbers that will be crunched on Election Day, the most important one to Bush and Kerry is 270, the number of electoral votes needed to win the White House.
There are a total of 538 electoral votes, one representing each member of Congress and three awarded the District of Columbia. The votes are divided based on population, with a minimum of three each to the smallest states. The most populous state, California, receives 55 electoral votes.
The formula does not translate to one person, one vote because every state except Maine and Nebraska awards all its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. In addition, Colorado voters will decide Nov. 2 whether they want to do away with the winner-take-all system and instead divide the state's nine electoral votes proportionally based on the popular vote.
Had such a system been in place in 2000, Gore would be president today.
Winner-take-all can mean that a resounding popular vote victory in one state can be offset by a one-vote loss in another state. Taken to an extreme, a candidate who wins by one vote in each of the 11 most populous states would collect 271 electoral votes and win the presidency, even were the candidate to be thrashed in the popular vote everywhere else.
Conroy also pointed out that based on census data, population shifts have actually created an Electoral College map where a repeat of the 2000 vote - 50,999,897 ballots cast for the Democratic candidate and 50,456,002 cast for Bush - would produce more electoral votes for the sitting president.
"The thing to remember, the states Bush won last time now they're worth more than they were last time," Conroy said.
The reality of attempting to win over voters in a handful of closely contested states has both raised the profile of smaller states such as New Hampshire and Iowa and resulted in the candidates largely overlooking big states such as California and Texas, where polling data shows Bush or Kerry comfortably in the lead.
"I think it's very unfortunate that the Electoral College has produced this strange campaign where most people haven't seen a campaign except in the debates," said Alexander Keyssar, professor of history and social policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
"We have to come together as a nation and address this whole question," Twiggs said. "If a person is going to run for president, he should run in every damn state."
Eliminating the Electoral College, however, would be no easy task. It requires a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by at least two-thirds of the House and of the Senate and three-quarters of the state legislatures.
Over the past 200 years there have been more than 700 proposals in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. In fact, there have been more proposals for a constitutional amendment to change the system than on any other subject, and public opinion polls have consistently shown that for more than the past half-century, Americans favor eliminating the college.
"They've been ripe for it since the late '40s," said Keyssar, a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his book, "The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States."
Still, small states, fearful they would lose influence to larger states if the system changes, appear unlikely to want to eliminate the Electoral College.
"I just think that they're not going to give up that role that they play," said U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield.
Richie, of the Center for Voting and Democracy, is sure of one scenario that would spell the end of the Electoral College: a tie. Should Kerry and Bush each get 269 electoral votes, the selection of the president would be put in the hands of the House of Representatives.
"People will go berserk," Richie said.
"I think there's no way the system could survive a tie vote," he added.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.