Abolish the Electoral College

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The multi-volume World Book Dictionary defines rig as 'to arrange unfavorably.' This definition is employed in this essay to describe two of the ways US Presidential elections are rigged against progressives and lower income people.

For decades the very conservative state of New Hampshire has enjoyed a disproportionately powerful impact on our presidential politics by pre-selecting in its primary the candidates from which the rest of the nation must choose. Candidates who do not fare well in the New Hampshire primary are not considered credible or serious candidates by the media. This, coupled with the state’s conservatism, damages the ability of genuine progressive candidates to raise funds. Something of a catch 22 is created: progressives can’t raise money until they become credible and they will not be considered credible until they can win New Hampshire. Thus, progressive candidates are filtered out of the process early.

Not only will people in later primaries be denied the opportunity to vote for progressives, but it has the effect of confining debate to narrow parameters and denying the public exposure to progressive ideas. It is unimaginable that conservatives would allow a Massachusetts or a Vermont primary to enjoy the same kind of influence that the New Hampshire now does because those states would filter out reactionaries. (Vermont’s sole representative, Bernard Sanders, an independent with socialist views has beaten both Republicans and Democrats since 1990.)

To the extent that elections are a contest between reactionaries and progressives, the enormous attention that the media gives this primary rigs the election against progressives. The general ignorance that this process favors conservatives is evidence that the conservative media endorses this.

The reliance on the Electoral College (henceforth EC) to select presidents also rigs elections against progressives. The history of the EC should make it suspect. Consider:

The total number of US Presidential elections for which data on the popular vote exists: 45. The total number of times a Democrat who lost the popular vote yet was inaugurated: 0 The total number of times a Republican or philosophical ancestor of the Republicans the who lost the popular vote yet was inaugurated: 4. These facts suggest that the EC rigs elections against Democrats in favor of Republicans. Before 1824 no record of popular vote was kept. In that year John Quincy Adams was awarded the Presidency, notwithstanding he received less than a third of the popular vote (only 30.5 % with a voter participation rate of only 26.9%) while Andrew Jackson had received 43.1% of the popular vote.

That was the first of four occasions in which the Presidency was denied to the candidate with the most votes. Democrats who won the popular vote in 1876,1888, and 2000 saw their Republican opponents get the Presidency. For example, in election 2000 Gore received 537,000 more votes than his opponent, yet was denied the presidency. In all four instances where the will of the plurality of people has been thwarted the Democrat has lost and the more elitist Republican has been installed. (While Democrats have plenty of faults, generally Republicans wage class warfare more aggressively.)

If in a basketball game, a referee made 45 calls and two were wrongly called against team A and two against team B then there would be no strong case of bias; but if he did all 4 against team A and none against team B, then the game would look suspect. Since, in almost one-tenth (8.889 percent) of the 45 elections for which we have data, the popular vote loser has been installed, there is a bias favorable to Republicans. The EC is not neutral and does not offer a level playing field.

The great Chief Justice, Earl Warren, wrote in his memoirs that the reapportionment case Baker v. Carr (1962) 'was the most important case of my tenure on the Court.'[1] This case inaugurated an apportionment revolution that ultimately established the principle of 'one man gets one vote.' The facts of the case are as follows: The Tennessee legislature had been apportioned by a 1901 statute. Over the years, the rural counties lost population to the cities. By 1960, its legislature was apportioned so that one vote in one county would be worth many times what a vote in other counties would be worth. For example, a single vote in Moore County was worth 19 votes in Hamilton County.[2] Reform could have been achieved through the legislature were it not for the fact that the beneficiaries of this lopsided and unfair arrangement held power and had no incentive to change. Baker v. Carr held that federal courts had the jurisdiction to examine this matter and to eliminate the serious debasement of some votes.

The total reluctance today to deal with the EC makes Warren’s comment understandable, for there are nationwide parallels with the Tennessee situation then and the EC now. The EC now, like Tennessee then, does not make all votes equal, because Gore received 537,000 more votes than Bush. In both situations the debasement of some votes grew worse over time. As will be explained below, the EC debasement occurs because of inequality in the population of states. At the time of our Constitution’s adoption (1789), the population ratio between the most populous state (Virginia) and the least populous state (Delaware) was 11 to 1. Today the population ratio between California and Wyoming is 68 to 1![3] There is no reason to suppose that the Constitution’s framers ever envisioned this inequality. In both situations, it was urban voters, who are likely to be more liberal than conservatives in rural areas, whose votes were diluted. Thus, for both situations, it favored conservatives and hurt progressives. In both situations, a disproportionate share of racial minorities are among those whose votes are most debased. In both situations, the beneficiaries of the unjust systems – those who hold power – assiduously work to maintain the unjust systems. This is done with indispensable help from the media which scarcely acknowledges the flaws and injustice while making it clear they want the system taken as is. The unfair and unjust system is defended on grounds of states rights and with the notion that it is heretical to tamper with what the 'founding fathers' established. Whereas the average person is not conversant with the peculiar features of the EC, perhaps a review of it is in order. An important feature of the EC is that it does not apportion electoral votes strictly according to population. The Constitution stipulates that the number of electors for a state will be the number of representatives and senators added together. This favors sparsely populated states. A comparison of Wyoming and California will illustrate. California has 52 representatives. When the two Senators are added to the 52 it increases the strength of its elector delegation by less than 5%: but when Wyoming has its two Senators added to its single representative, its delegation has become three times as strong! Thus one elector in Wyoming represents 71,242 voters (213,726 voters for 3 electors) and one elector in California represents 203,071 voters (10,965,831/ 54). Thus a presidential vote in Wyoming is worth 2.85 times what a presidential vote in California is worth.

Whereas the California voter is more likely to be from a racial minority and more liberal, these votes become more debased and diluted than conservative votes. It should not be supposed that the only time the EC has worked mischief were the four earlier mentioned elections. Our media has favored Republicans in all but two elections since 1932. In 1980 Reagan received 50.7% of the popular vote and the media proclaimed a 'Republican Revolution.' This had the effect of attracting money to GOP coffers and strengthening their position for the next decade, since business contributions are to buy access and influence and it only made sense to give this 'Republican Revolution' when it was perceived as the wave of the future. How could the media proclaim this when Reagan had not even received 51% of the vote? Simple. Show the electoral map with Reagan’s 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49 and people will see a landslide. The media which announced several Republican Revolutions between 1980 and 1994 are prone to use the EC to exaggerate and augment GOP strength.

Why haven’t Democrats complained much more vociferously about the advantages that the EC gives the GOP? The EC entrenches the two party system and this is even touted by some of its defenders as its primary strength and a strong reason for retaining it. Many Democrats prefer the 'stability' that the EC insures to the chances they would take if independents such as Ralph Nader had a real shot at the Presidency. It establishes a hierarchy: First Place, Republicans; Second Place, Democrats; Third or last place, independents. This might be analogous to what stops the middle class from challenging the upper class: the middle fears that the lower class would gain at their expense.

The election of 2000 illustrated how, with the EC, only a tiny amount of fraud in one state could turn an election. If Bush had been required to win the popular vote, over a half million ballots would have to have been fraudulently altered or disregarded for him to be inaugurated. But with the EC changing several hundred votes in one state can change the outcome.

Election 2000 was the perfect opportunity for the media to expose the major flaws of the EC. Instead they focused almost entirely on Florida and voting machines, virtually ignoring the will of the people and the larger issues. As Michael Parenti observed, the media might not tell us what to think but they are strikingly successful in telling us what topics to think about.[5] This blinded the public to the deep flaws of the EC, which the American Bar Association has characterized as 'archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, and dangerous.'[6]

Although the EC rigs US presidential elections and the case against the EC is overwhelming, the media apparently desire that the public believe that there is no alternative to the EC. In fact, the 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments to the US Constitution all extended the franchise or democracy. The EC can be abolished by amending the Constitution. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, reasons existed for the EC that no longer exist. (1) When the nation was less developed, the media focused almost entirely on local stories, as occurs to this day in the less developed areas of the nation. Before radio and television people of Georgia would not have known a person in New York. (2) When the Constitution was drafted, states had enormous power to restrict individual liberty; the Constitution was written primarily, not to give individuals liberty, but to regulate the relations among the states. The EC allowed states to preserve their prerogatives and restrict voting to property holders. Moreover, the Southern states, where slaves were only counted as 3/5 of a person, acquired protection from the more populous states. Possibly, the EC was necessary to get the Constitution adopted. (3) Where George Washington hoped that political parties would play a minimal or non-existent role, it is possible that the public would have had no candidates of national stature to vote for. (4) In the early days of this nation, individuals were hardly affected by what a President did: there was no income tax and foreign policy was much more defensive and less offensive. Today individuals are greatly affected by a president’s economic and tax policies, his views on the environment, minimum wage, Medicare, prescription drugs, and Social Security. The president, as US imperialism’s leader, also affects personal lives to an immeasurably greater extent than at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, because his militaristic adventurism will more deeply injure certain individuals and their families and friends, than states. When the US invaded Viet Nam, individuals, not states, were most deeply hurt. Clearly, some of the reasons for its initial creation have vanished.

The US Constitution has rightfully been referred to as a 'bundle of compromises.' It is not surprising that it does not always reflect the highest ideals found in the Declaration of Independence. That document holds that 'governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed' and that 'all men are created equal.' The EC fails to harmonize with both of these ideas. The obvious corollary to 'All men are created equal' is that 'all presidential votes should be created equal.' The desire to protect the slave states caused the framers to include white supremacist notions in the Constitution and this is partially what caused them to create the EC. 'All men created equal' was used by Lincoln to help abolish slavery and it should now be used to help abolish the EC.

Just as the Supreme Court, in Bush V. Gore (2000), took positions against state’s rights, which they normally champion, the EC proponents take positions very inconsistent with those they generally espouse. It is ironic that conservatives, who portray themselves as champions of individualism, desiring minimal government, want an extra layer of government between individuals and their president, in a way that enhances state power. The same people who claim that small states should have proportionately greater powered would be appalled at proposals to give tiny nations such as Belize more power at the expense of the US in the UN or the Organization of American States. Many who oppose abolishing the EC because it would require a constitutional amendment eagerly support an amendment to protect the flag. And many who hold that the EC should be preserved because the founders wisdom should be treated with the greatest deference are the same who in blatant disregard of Article II section 1 and the twelfth amendment of the Constitution condoned Texas electors voting in 2000 for a president and a vice president from the same state as themselves. The clear intent of the Framers was that both the president and vice president would not represent the same interests and be from the same state.

The EC is defended on grounds of state’s rights. But here, as in the past, with segregation and laws discriminating against ethnic and religious groups, 'state’s rights' are used as an excuse to deny or diminish individual rights. Abolishing the EC would help the country move toward the ideal of 'one nation, indivisible'.

The arguments of EC advocates are not based on principles they consistently adhere to but rather ones they adopt for opportunistic convenience. They are generally easy to debunk and refute. There could be several benefits for making a major fight to abolish the EC. In addition to lessening political apathy, if a spotlight were put on the EC, it would diminish or deny the US the ability to preach to the world about democracy and would likely stop the US from attempting to violently impose democracy, as it did in Nicaragua in the 1980s or now is claiming to do with Iraq. Many other nations and peoples of the world might encourage the US to move toward democracy; an ironic reverse of the US telling others to move toward democracy.

The next time Cuban leader, Ricardo Alarcon, is badgered by a US national because of his nation’s lack of democracy, he could ask his interviewer to explain: Why the US installs a loser of the popular vote? Why does the U.S. maintain a system which dilutes a disproportionate share of minorities votes? Which US party and class benefit from the apathy the EC generates? Can anyone imagine a US leader answering these questions to the satisfaction of the world? Exposure of US hypocrisy might make it a little meeker and lessen imperial arrogance.

Many factors have converged to make this a most opportune time to fight the EC: the memory of election 2000 is fresh, the public will focus on presidential election this next year, Bush is purporting to build democracy in Iraq, and, there is greater reluctance to cheat minorities (what was once acceptable – one vote worth 19 others – is now completely unacceptable.) If the EC and democracy in the US became a prominent issue, the world would see that, contrary to popular propaganda media images of the left being anti-democratic, elitist or Stalinist, generally, the left is very pro-democracy. A battle over the EC would clarify for the public who the real enemies of democracy are. Because the decency of most average Americans would cause them to favor a level playing field, and because they want their votes to be consequential, perhaps the left will gain new allies if it were to make the abolition of the EC a priority.

The Presidency of George W. Bush demonstrates the EC can alter and blight the political destiny of this nation and the world. Considering the importance of the U.S. Presidency, coupled with the EC’s tendency to favor reactionaries, such as George W. Bush, the whole world has a stake in seeing the EC abolished.

NOTES

1. Bernard Schwartz, Superchief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court- a Judicial Biography (New York University Press,1983), p.410. 2. Baker v. Carr 369 U.S.186 (1962). Mr. Justice William O. Douglas mentions this in his concurrence. 3. The Progressive Populist, (July 1, 2003), p.8 'Repeal Affirmative Action for Conservatives,' by Steven Hill. 4. Jamin B. Raskin, Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court Versus the American People (Routledge 2003), p.60. 5. Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality; The Politics of the News Media (St. Martin’s Press New York, second edition 1993), p.23. 6. Robert E. Diclerico and Allan S. Hammock, Points of View: Readings in American Government and Politics (McGraw-Hill, Inc, sixth edition 1995), 'In Defense of the Electoral College,' by Robert Weissberg, p.129.



--Rick E. Jones holds a masters degree in economics and teaches music in Utah.



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