Connecticut is joining a coalition of other states trying to bypass the zaniness of the Electoral College, which has led to US presidents being elected even though they lost the popular vote. While the most recent time this happened (in 2016) is noteworthy for the resulting disastrous choice it foisted on us, this is about far more than Trump, but about an avoidable breach of democratic (small-D) will in a representative government.<\/p>\n
The scheme, now passed by 11 states (if CT’s governor signs the bill), says that they agree to give all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. This doesn’t go into effect until 270 EC votes’ worth of states pass the compact; the CT bill will bring that number up to 172, well over half the votes needed.<\/p>\n
What’s been interesting is reading the reaction to the bill, mostly from folk on the Right who see this as some sort of fiendish Democratic plot.<\/p>\n
“This is blatantly unconstitutional!”<\/i><\/b> — Um, not so far as I can tell. The Constitution mandates the Electoral College (the states send electors to actually vote for the president), but not how those EC votes are allocated. That’s why, for example, some states do a “winner takes all” choice, while a few allocate out ECVs based on congressional district votes, etc.. As CT voters would have their votes counted in the total popular vote, their voting rights are preserved.<\/p>\n
“The Founding Fathers hated direct democracy; that’s why they chose the EC mechanism!”<\/i><\/b> — While it’s true that some<\/i> of the Founders mistrusted direct democracy, the EC mechanism was developed more because communication within and between the states was so slow. Rather than gathering and sending in tallies, it made more sense to elect delegates to an election convention (essentially what the EC members are) and have them go to vote a few months later.<\/p>\n
“This weakens smaller \/ flyover states, and means you’ll have New York and California electing the President.”<\/i><\/b> — This argument is telling for what it says (liberal hordes will control the country!) and what it doesn’t say (one man, one vote, is a dangerous proposition!). It also ignores population powerhouses like Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n
While it’s true the EC mechanism was also set up to give smaller states (esp. in the early days of the US) a leg up over more populous states, by assigning into the EC count for each state not only the number of US Representatives (which are based on the population), but the number of US Senators (which every state, regardless of size, gets two of), smaller states get a little more oomph. I.e., of the 538 EVs, 100 of them, close to 20%, come from those Senatorial seats. And 100 (or even 50) EVs are more than enough to swing an election, as we know.<\/p>\n
That goes away under a popular vote mechanism (however devised), but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, even coming from a smaller state (population-wise). We are not the assemblage of autonomous states under a weak central government that the Founders largely envisioned, for better or worse, and really never will be again (the rhetorical states-rights federalism of the GOP always gives way to maintaining strong central power whenever any of its own oxen are gored). Just like the US would object to every country in the UN General Assembly getting two extra votes, whether a large nation like the US or a tiny one like Tuvalu, so too this “small states have some inherent right to extra representation” that means the vote of someone in California (or Texas) counts less<\/i> than the vote of someone in North Dakota or Rhode Island is an unfair artifact of history.<\/p>\n
In other words, why, for purposes of electing the President, does Rhode Island have a right to be more powerful, voter-for-voter, than Texas?<\/p>\n
“This will mean that candidates ignore everywhere except for the Big Cities!”<\/i><\/b> — This is a variation on the previous, and really has a lot of the “can’t trust those liberal hordes, especially Those<\/i> People” overtones to it, but it’s got a little different spin. Will candidates just go to Big Cities to campaign and ignore the hinterland?<\/p>\n
Honestly, I kind of doubt it. Or, if they do, it’s only a variation on the focus by presidential candidates on the “Purple” states that seem in play, largely ignoring states that are seen to be a lock. Montana doesn’t get a lot of love either way.<\/p>\n
But, again, this is somehow saying that we need to treat the population differently — that “Big City” voters are somehow less valuable or less enfranchised than “Heartland Farmer” voters. If all of them are treated the same, tallied into popular votes, then candidate will be forced to make an effort to show that they care about people in Cornbelt, Nebraska, as representatives of the people in Wheatland, South Dakota, etc.<\/p>\n
This also has the effect of enfranchising people in states that have all-or-nothing EV allocations but who are not members of the majority party in the state. How many Californian Republicans have you heard bemoaning that their presidential vote is meaningless because all of that state’s EVs will go to the Democrat? Under a scheme like this, those votes suddenly count, and those voters can be energized to participate more.<\/p>\n
“This lets all them Illegals vote!”<\/i><\/b> — That’s usually not quite how this is phrased, but it’s the fundamental message.<\/p>\n
One thing this scheme does is make accurate tallies of the popular vote everywhere<\/i> more important, from a presidential standpoint. The all-or-nothing EV allocation at present means that, unless it’s a real squeaker in a state, a margin of error is somewhat tolerable. Start looking at national voting on a popular basis, and those zany accusations thrown about by Trump about “millions” of ineligible voters throwing the election have to be paid more attention to.<\/p>\n
But that’s already the case to a certain degree, as the GOP (usually) keeps pushing the meme that illegal voters are everywhere<\/i> (or at least in liberal districts). If this forces more attention on cleaning up our voting processes in a just fashion — ensuring voting rights, not just making them difficult to exercise — perhaps that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n
Does this scheme have any chance of success? Hard to say. People wanting to reform the Electoral College — by Constitutional Amendment or by state-based workarounds like this — have been pushing at the idea for decades. I have my doubts about a state-based system working, but this one has the advantage of not being incremental (it doesn’t trigger until it can actually settle the matter) and not requiring everyone to sign on to make it work fairly (as do EV allocation schemes).<\/p>\n
We shall see.<\/p>\n
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\nConnecticut state Senate passes bill giving electoral votes to presidential candidate who wins popular vote<\/a><\/span>
\nThe Connecticut state Senate on Saturday voted in favor of a measure to give the state\u2019s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nView on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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