Tag Archives: electoral college

When Your Political Candidate Loses

Democracy is, as Winston Churchill reportedly said, the worst form of government except for any other.

Those burdened by living in a dictatorship or in a country ruled by a few elites may envy those able to vote relatively freely for their leaders in countries known as democracies. However, as we found out on January 2021, that quaint burden left to the United States by the early patriots and known as the electoral college has risen to haunt us.

The United States is known as one of the youngest countries in the world but one of the oldest democracies. We hear it so often that we need reminding that we don’t really have a pure democracy. In our presidential elections. we vote for electors who are, according to our constitution, supposed to meet in early January following the popular election to cast the ballots that actually elect the president.

It seems that the country’s early founders didn’t actually believe in ALL the people electing their leaders. Instead, they developed a system in which a small group of supposedly wise men (at the time only white men and more often the wealthier ones) would gather in early January and elect the president.

For most of our history, the electoral college became merely a group of unknowns who simply rubber stamped the November popular election.

Alas, we paid for the lack of clarification when Donald Trump’s followers attempted to use that little known practice to take over the government on the day the electors were supposed to meet, when they would overcome any opposition in order to declare Trump as the elected president.

The electoral college still remains, of course. The U.S. Constitution could be changed to reflect our more democratic ideas, but changing the Constitution is a massive undertaking.

At least we know now that we must safeguard our elections from any kind of mob influence, as well as guard the vote counting from outside manipulators.

We can give thanks that those who wished to overturn the 2020 election were defeated. We are rightfully warned, however, to safeguard the voting process in our coming elections.

Dealing with the Electoral College

As we prepare for our next presidential election, candidates are announcing their campaigns for various offices. Once again that relic from the past known as the Electoral College overshadows the process.

I grew up, as did many Americans, supposing that every four years, we, the American people elected or re-elected our president, to oversee our government until the next presidential election. After a period of turmoil following that terrifying attack on the capitol the day of the 2021 electoral vote counting, more of us now understand that the election is only the first step in the process. The new presidential term begins only after the Electoral College meets in January and certifies the results of the November election.

Perhaps the problem is that the founders of the United States were not whole heartedly into the idea of the people actually ruling themselves. Better if they elected, not the president, but only supposedly wise men (at the time, only men voted and only for male candidates) who would then decide on the president.

That idea had fallen into a kind of quaint custom of the electoral college meeting in January to calmly put the final stamp on the person we the people thought we had elected in November. Then, of course, the country discovered that the quaint custom opened up the idea of a few people pushing the electors to elect who they wanted, regardless of the election numbers. Turmoil ensued, the aftermath of which we are still living through.

Many of us would like to change the Constitution to reflect the more democratic way of electing the president by the voters. Changing the Constitution was made too difficult for that to be done easily.

Perhaps we are stuck for the time being with our antiquated system of the electoral college. Nevertheless, we are certainly free to give serious thought to changing our constitution to reflect the ability of the people to actually elect the president. Perhaps it is time to grow up and go all the way toward a democracy.

 

Renewing Democracy

Actually, the United States does not have a democracy. We do not elect our national leaders by popular vote. We elect them by people called electors, sent to Washington in early January every four years by the states after the presidential election.

Until January 6, 2021, few Americans paid attention to the electoral college, meeting after each presidential election to certify the vote. For most of our history, it functioned as a kind of rubber stamp after the November election.

Where did this “electoral college” come from? Some of our nation’s founding leaders, back in the late eighteenth century, didn’t trust the idea of ordinary citizens electing their leaders. They wanted a group of supposedly enlightened state leaders to actually decide on the outcome of the presidential election. Ordinary citizens would elect these “electors” who would then make the choice for them of the next president.

We all know how that turned out.

Nothing humans devise is perfect. We must constantly fine tune even well-thought out designs. After the January 6, 2021 calamity, perhaps we should examine the idea of political parties, whose development the founding citizens didn’t foresee.

One suggestion for overcoming the power of political parties is ranked choice voting. Voters rank political candidates on their ballots instead of voting only for one.

Another is overcoming gerrymandering. Gerrymandering allows winners of an election to create voting districts that don’t reflect the population density but instead create weird districts that tie the favored party into divisions that favor them.

Regardless of the methods chosen, we need voting laws which decrease the power of parties and increase the power of individual voters.

It’s the Institutions, Stupid

That’s the title of an article by Julia Azari in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2019). The American political system, she says, has disappointed us because of a growing mismatch. The country’s political institutions no longer match political realities.

We operate under a system devised in the late eighteenth century, something of a dysfunctional dinosaur today.

Our system developed in a time when, for all practical purposes, “country” to the average American meant local or state governance. Few Americans traveled beyond the next town or read (if they were literate) anything other than the local paper.

Paulette Jiles’ novel News of the World paints a picture, even after the Civil War, of small town citizens willing to pay a fee to hear world news read to them. They knew little of the outside world, much less enjoyed our instant communication.

Today we move from San Francisco to Houston or Indianapolis to Nashville or across the country to other urban areas all the time. Some small towns and rural areas have been depopulated while cities are weighted down with massive growth. Yet we still tie our elections to the states through our constitutionally mandated electoral college.

Until we have the courage to change our system to represent the actual reality of our national concerns, Azari indicates, our government will continue to flounder.

Rotten Boroughs

Parts of Britain, by the 1800’s, were known as “rotten boroughs.” A rotten borough was an election district that had lost significant population due to industrialization and movement to cities. The remaining shrunken population still elected a representative to the British parliament.

Meanwhile, in contrast, growing cities had little representation in parliament.

Gradual reforms eventually led to a fairer system, giving more representation to the cities.

Our voting system today doesn’t approach the unfairness of the rotten borough, but it bears resemblances.

Each state, whether California (2010 census: 37,252, 895) or Wyoming (2010 census: 563,757) elects two senators.

California elects 53 representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives. Wyoming elects one representative.

A combination of those numbers forms the “electoral college.” This electoral college, according to the U.S. Constitution, elects the president. It has 538 members (equal to 100 senators plus 435 representatives, plus 3 members for the District of Columbia).

Each electoral vote from California represents 719,219 Californians. An electoral vote from Wyoming represents 192,579 citizens of Wyoming. Thus, the citizens of some states enjoy more representation in the election of the president.

Several movements are attempting to change the election of the president to more equally reflect the population of the United States. However, whether one loathes it or loves it, the election of the president by the electoral college is, at present, perfectly legal.

However, one reason for less representation of urban voters in the House of Representatives has to do with the “gerrymandering” of voting districts by state legislators. Gerrymandering means the party in power too often draws voting lines to favor its members rather than honestly reflecting the population of the state.

Surely, true representative government rests on accurate representation of actual voters.

Winning Without the Popular Vote

The selection of the American president by the electoral college, not by popular vote, went unnoticed in most presidential elections until recently. Most presidents who won the popular vote also won the electoral college.

The term “college” is misleading, though written into the U.S. Constitution. It’s simply a group of people elected every four years by the different states to decide on the president and vice-president for the next four years.

The electors may not even appear on the ballot. Normally, however, in each state, electors have been chosen by each political party to represent that party’s candidate. The electors meet in December to officially elect the president and vice-president.

The number of electors for each state is based on that state’s representation in Congress. The number is equal to their two senators plus one for each of the state’s representatives in the U.S. House, plus three for Washington. D.C.

The winner in a state takes all of the electoral votes, except in Maine and Nebraska, who allot part of the vote proportionately.

Obviously, more populous states will have more electors based on House representatives. However, the advantage of population can be diluted by the addition of two electors for every state regardless of population.

In the recent past, population growth has concentrated in cities. Rural areas have, in many cases, lost population. Yet states with less population still retain the same number of senatorial electors as those with growing populations.

The Economist, a British-based magazine, pointed out the growing importance of the electoral college in seeming contradiction to the democracy Americans are so proud of. “In two of the five elections for 21st-century presidents, the minority won the electoral college.” (July 14, 2018; “American democracy’s built-in bias”)

Our elections are still dependent on the 18th century thinking that shaped our Constitution. Direct election of a leader by popular vote was still too radical, even for the document’s framers.

Various schemes have been suggested to steer the electoral college to a more population-based makeup.

Unless it does, the growing divisiveness of Americans may be reflected in more “minority” governments.