Time to
change the Electoral College?
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza
Jonathan Maziarz, Editor
September 24, 2004
With
Vice-President Dick Cheney and Presidential candidate John Kerry
making stops in Reno and Vegas last week, the shock and awe campaign
of saturating Nevada with political dungbombs continued unabated.
Candidates have been visiting Nevada for months
now, talking up issues near and dear to Nevadans - issues like the
storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain - that normally would
have no place in a national election except as some obscure plank in
a party's platform.
This focus on minor issues allows both Bush and
Kerry to sidestep talking about issues that matter to every
American, like the war in Iraq, healthcare and the economy.
Why is this happening?
The Electoral College.
It's time for it to go away or at the very
least, change with the times. Why?
Does anyone think it's fair that a president
can be elected, and we are not naming names here, and get fewer
votes than his opponent? Shouldn't our president represent the will
of the majority of all the people who voted?
Let's not forget that the Electoral College was
invented by a bunch of wealthy landowners who were used to a life of
privilege and weren't above rigging the system to keep themselves
and their kind in power (Of course, it didn't work for the
Federalists - they haven;t been in office since 1796 - but we are
still stuck with the system they championed.). Sure, the Founding
Fathers were interested in freedom from English rule and freedom
from taxation without representation, but I don't think they were so
hot on the idea of one man, one vote. And at the time, there was no
such thing as a national political campaign, a national political
party, and the country was composed of 13 very different states that
were all vying for power and were deeply suspicious of a national
government that they didn't have as much control over as possible.
The Electoral College introduces a
winner-take-all aspect to the election process that disenfranchises
voters and subverts the will of the majority.
For example, in 2000, Nevada had four votes in
the Electoral College. All four were assigned to Bush/Cheney,
effectively telling those who voted for Gore/Lieberman that their
votes did not matter. Conversely, just over the border in
California, all 54 votes went to Gore, telling the millions of Bush
supporters in that state that their votes were for naught.
There have been attempts throughout the years
to change the Electoral College system, but most failed. An
interesting attempt to bring equality back into the mix, and one
that's gaining national attention, is currently underway in my
former home state, Colorado.
The state will vote on an amendment to its
constitution this November that would split its electoral votes
based on the popular vote. This would mean that the state's eight
electoral votes, instead of going 8-0 in favor of Bush in 2000,
would have gone in his favor, 5-3. Democrats in Colorado need no
longer despair that they are voting in vain should the proposal
pass. Similar proposals, if offered, could give hope to Republicans
in Democratic strongholds like New York and California.
If the proportional plan were applied
nationwide, would it have changed the outcome of the 2000 election?
Yes.
Gore had roughly 500,000 more votes than Bush
out of the 100 million cast. But, because of how those votes were
distributed, Gore lost in the Electoral College by five votes.
Applying the proportional method of assigning electors would have
given Gore a six-vote win and would have allotted six electors to
third-party candidate Ralph Nader.
Detractors of the plan say that this type of
change to the Electoral College will only hurt largely rural states
with comparitively small populations, like Colorado and Nevada. This
may be true, but one could easily argue that states like Nevada
matter too much and that Presidential candidates should be paying
the bulk of their attention to issues of national importance.
Besides, states like Nevada will always have an
equal seat at the federal political table, regardless of their
population, in the Senate, where each state is equally represented
with two Senators.
We are stuck with the Electoral College for
now, but it is time for a change.
Case
for Reform
Electoral
College Table of Contents
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