The Case
Against the Electoral College
By Steven Hill and Rob Richie
November 9, 2000
The nation holds its breath as it awaits the
results of the ballot recount in Florida. It's as simple as this:
the winner of Florida's popular vote wins the presidency.
But the simplicity of the Florida drama is far
different from our bizarre rules to elect the president. Democrat Al
Gore won more votes than Republican George Bush in the national
popular vote. But Bush may be on his way to the White House.
Blame for this democratic anomaly rests
squarely with that 18th-century anachronism, the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is a clumsy device that never would be
imitated by a state for electing its governor -- or by a town
electing its dogcatcher. It has been the subject of more proposed
amendments than any other part of our constitution, but like an
appendix, we keep it because it hasn't ruptured... yet.
Here's how it works. The presidential race is
conducted in each of the 50 states as a separate contest, with each
state having a number of electors roughly proportionate to its
population. To win, a presidential candidate needs to receive the
highest numbers of votes in the right combination of states to win a
majority of the electoral vote.
The perverse incentives created by the
Electoral College are painfully obvious from this year's campaign.
Most states are effectively ignored by the candidates, as they are
seen as non- competitive. Nearly all campaign energy -- and
increasingly, even the candidates' messages for how they plan to
govern -- are pitched to swing voters in the key battleground
states.
The Electoral College's democratic deficit is
compounded by the use of plurality elections -- ones where the
candidate with the most votes wins, even if less than a majority.
Plurality elections mean that a popular majority can be fractured by
the presence of a third party candidate. Far more than any potential
ballot corruption in Florida, Al Gore was hurt by the tens of
thousands of voters who supported Ralph Nader -- but who primarily
preferred him to George Bush.
So what can be done? Over the years, leading
national political figures like Strom Thurmond, Orrin Hatch, Ted
Kennedy, Kweisi Mfume and John McCain have supported approaches to
amend, reform or scrap the Electoral College. The time has come to
institute a national direct election.
There are important questions to resolve,
however. What if, for example, the highest vote-getter only received
35 percent of the vote in a multi-candidate race? That possibility
presents problems of legitimacy.
To prevent this problem, most direct election
amendments call for a second "runoff" election between the
top two finishers if no candidate receives at least 40 percent of
the vote. But 40 percent is an arbitrary standard that is too low
for winning our highest office. A strong leader should command
majority support.
Two-round runoffs also pose problems.
Candidates would have to scramble for extra cash to run a second
campaign, and the cumulative additional costs to local election
officials would be more than a hundred million dollars. Voters would
have to trudge out to the polls one more time.
Rather than mandate a low 40 percent threshold
and two rounds of voting, any amendment to the Constitution should
allow electoral mechanisms to determine a majority winner in a
single election. The most efficient and inexpensive method is
instant runoff voting.
Instant runoff voting simulates a two-round
runoff in one election by allowing voters to cast their
"runoff" choices along with their first choice. Instead of
having a second election, ballot-counters just need to determine the
runoff choices of those voters whose first choice failed to advance
to the runoff. The
system is used in Great Britain, Australia and Ireland and likely
will be the subject of a statewide ballot measure in Alaska in 2002
for its federal and state elections, including the president.
If George Bush is elected, his challenges will
be great in bringing the nation together despite his loss in the
popular vote. Rather than accept an Electoral College system that
can distort popular will and take most states out of play in
electing our national office, his support for direct election of the
president with a majority requirement would send a powerful message
that on issues of fundamental democratic fairness, we should move
beyond short-term partisan and parochial interests.
Win, lose or draw, it is time for George Bush,
Al Gore and our political leaders to join together and push for a
constitutional amendment that abolishes this 18th-century
anachronism.
The
Case for Reform
Electoral College Table of
Contents
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