With the presidential election coming up this November, a movement is underway, instigated by the Democratic Party, to circumvent Constitutional protections and implement the wholesale disenfranchisement of voters on a nationwide basis.
Out of lingering resentment over the disparity between Al Gore's majority in the popular vote and the Electoral College win, which gave the presidency to George Bush in 2000, the Democrats have found a way to end-run the Constitution and make the results of the election more closely resemble the popular vote. The problem is that they do this by disenfranchising voters on a state-by-state basis.
The way the Electoral College works is that each state chooses a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives they have in Congress and sends them to vote for whichever candidate won their state in the general election. Some states do this on a winner-take-all basis and others do it by dividing the electors proportionally based on how the popular vote in that state was divided between the candidates.
The benefit of this system is that the greater granularity makes results more definitive, with the winner usually holding a considerably larger majority in the Electoral College than in the popular vote. The catch is that in an extremely close election, winning the right states can result in the winner in the Electoral College actually having a minority of the popular vote. It is a system where each state election is essentially separate and the winner is picked based on who won the most, and most valuable, states.
It is a federalist idea designed to distance the final selection of the President from the direct vote of the public. In fact, as originally written, the Constitution had the electors selected by the State Legislatures and not the popular vote at all. The founding fathers didn't entirely trust the public and were concerned about demagoguery and mob rule. They created systems like the Electoral College to provide checks and balances and to prevent the majority from using the democratic process to oppress political minorities.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Joel S. Hirschhorn
I normally do not agree with this writer, but here I am in total agreement that the right way to deal with the Electoral College is through a consitutional amendment that replaces it with the popular vote in the states. How to get that amendment? Congress has never shown much interest in proposing the amendment. That leaves the only other option that has never been used in the history of our country: an Article V convention; learn the truth about this constitutional provision at www.foavc.org and become a member. Some other very worthy amendments could also be considered, particuarly getting all private money out of political campaigns.
2 - Lumpy
What bothers me about this is the way that it's being done by basically throwing out the constitution and trying to make national law in the stete legislatures. That's a terrible precedent to set and I think the article is right on for condemning the democrats for it. They would do away with the constitution if they could and rule by plebecite.
An article five convention is just about as bad of course. Just another way to shred the constitutiin and replace it with something much worse.
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Every constitution decays eventually. The American republic - note folks, REPUBLIC, NOT DEMOCRACY - was based on a balance of power that kept all the potential thieves growling at each other, and allowed the citizenry freedom therefore.
The basic concepts of freedom in the States are disappearing. State sovereignty disappeared as a result of the Civil War - habeus corpus, orders of mandamus are all going now. The basic idea that a cop has to tell you why you are arrested - all going down the drain of the imperial regime instituted after "9/11".
It is not an issue of which party runs the show. Both parties are run by varying wings of the oil and banking autocracy.
4 - Lumpy
I'd still rather live in our decaying republic than in the socialist utopia of israel.
5 - David
The Constitution says "Each State shall appint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct..."
If the Democrats or the Republicans, who I think are more likely to do this, convinces enough state legislatures to just appoint their electors, who will presumabely vote the way the legislature wants, despite what the popular vote of that state wants, it will be Constitutional. Reprehensible, but legal.
6 - Lumpy
U think the republicans would do this? Try following the links in the article. This is a 100 percent democrat scheme.
7 - Al Barger
Note that the distribution of votes per state in the electoral college was carefully and consciously done to give states with smaller populations a relatively larger say in picking the president. It was part of the original balancing of power between the states that the least populace state would get an equal number of senators to a New York or California, with the house being based on population. They kind of split the difference by adding house and senate reps together to get the presidential electors.
It was all in consideration of broadly not wanting a handful of highly urbanized states to overly dominate the hinterlands. Good idea, I say.
Re: the electoral college - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The 2000 election of Bush worked just exactly the way the founders would have intended. Bush got not quite as many votes as Gore, but carried a lot more states. The greater number of states supporting Bush tipped him the close election.
8 - Dave Nalle
As some have suggested here, the issue is basically that the Democrats would like to completely do away with state sovereignty and turn this from a Constitutional Republic made up of individual states into a single body politic ruled by a majority which they assume they would dominate. That kind of government is a recipe for tyrrany and most democrat leaders are well educated enough to damned well know it. That being the case the only reasonable conclusion is that oppression and tyrrany are their end goals.
Dave
9 - Todd Nicholson
With all due respect, I don't see why having a fair election for president changes the republican nature of our government. Right now, candidates totally ignore 25 states, including nearly every small state. How is this protecting their rights? When every vote is equal, every vote counts -- you're a foolish, likely losing candidate if you don't do something to win votes that could help you win. But as it is, you don't need to do anything outside of the battleground states.
10 - Dave Nalle
An election which is always dominated by the majority may technically be fair and may certainly be democratic, but it is absolutely not Republican, which is a system based on shared power and compromise.
What the Democrats propose is also not federal in nature, and that's also an element of our government. It weakens the power of the states.
But the worst part is that because of the way that it is structured it takes away the representation of the states which participate in the electoral process. It is NOT as you suggest, a system where each man has one vote in a plebescite, because of the way they're bringing it in on a state by state basis, it's a system where some people have one vote and others have more than one, and no one is fairly represented.
Dave
11 - Baronius
Todd - I agree that the targeting of certain states has gone too far. It's disheartening to those of us outside the so-called swing states to have our votes taken for granted. It encourages that red/blue state mentality. The thing is, it's a stupid election strategy too. A party need to stay competitive in all states at the top of the ticket if it wants to pick up wins in Congress and school board races.
I don't think the solution is to get rid of the electoral college, though. If a party wants to be stupid and alienate half the country (and both of the big parties do), then let it.
12 - Baronius
Hey - there's no article on the subject, but is anyone else following this Nevada thing? (It's sort of on the subject of disenfranchisement.)
The teachers' union sued to prevent the casino workers' union from easier access to the caucuses. They lost. There's a whole Clinton/Obama dimension to the story, but the aspect of it that fascinates me is the fighting between unions. It reflects an interesting development in the relationship between unions and the Democratic Party.
Unions used to be blue collar. Currently, about half of the US union membership is school teachers and government workers. The white collar union members are part of the urban, educated, liberal side of the Party. The blue collar workers are poorer, and tend to be Reagan Democrats or new minorities. There are no commonalities between these groups.
Clinton didn't formally support the lawsuit, but it was filed by her supporters. It's another example of Democrats who want to make sure that only sympathetic votes get counted.
13 - handyguy
Our paranoid Republican friends are at it again.
Is this likely to happen? No.
Is it accurate to refer monolithically to "The Democrats" as the authors of this plan? Would it be more accurate to say "some Democratic politicians"?
Does Dave really believe the popular vote winner should lose the presidency, or is he just flying this foolishness up the tired old GOP pole to get web traffic for Blogcritics?
US conservatives have always had a persecution complex, even now when they're running the country.
14 - handyguy
PS If the popular/electoral results had been reversed in 2000, how many of you fine, noble gentlemen would have accepted Al Gore as your president without screaming bloody murder? Precious few, I bet.
15 - Baronius
Handy, do you think that the winner of the popular vote should lose the presidency? It sounds like you don't. That'd put you on the side of "some Democratic politicians". So it's more than just some Democratic politicians who support it, so Dave is right to be concerned.
But you say that he's just being paranoid, so he shouldn't be concerned.
But then you say that Republicans wouldn't have supported supported Gore in the same situation, so you're questioning the authenticity of the electoral system, so we should be concerned?
But if Dave's just being foolish, and it's never going to happen, then we shouldn't be concerned!?
16 - Dan
From the title, I thought Dave's article was going to talk about the way Democrat's and so called "moderates" are voting Republican in the primary's in order to get the crappiest candidate nominated. Lot of that going on lateley.
Al, comment #7, gently addressed the crux of the matter. (Dave missed it) Those two Senatorial electorate votes--not based on the population of the state--are the biggest imbalance of power Democrat's ought to be complaining about.
Of course, If the Republicans tried get away with something like this, the Dem's would all turn in to indignant Thomas Jeffersons.
Still, the SCOTUS has given ground on stuff like this before. Redistricting to prevent disenfranchisement of minority groups for example.
But it would probably be harder for California and New York to argue persuasively that they're being disenfranchised by Wyoming, and South Dakota.
17 - handyguy
This sensationalistic, hyperbolic article and its accompanying comments may provide some moments of fun in the form of pretend-paranoia for GOPers who may feel like they're on the ropes this election year.
What about the "disenfranchisement" effort in California funded by wealthy Republican activists to do the opposite: to divide that state's electoral votes according to the winner of each Congressional district?
The disenfranchised in this case would be the Democratic voters in such states as Texas, Georgia, Florida...which would remain winner-take-all.
But talking about this equally baldfaced case of political shenanigans on the other side would spoil Dave's attention-getting if preposterous headline. He loves to accuse Democrats of things he claims the GOP rarely or never does, then when called on it, claims he was saying no such thing.
18 - Jack Cushman
If Democrats have a numerical advantage, why did Ronald Reagan win by 8 million votes? This isn't a partisan issue.
The Electoral College disenfranchises four out of five Americans, including the ones in Texas and Mississippi as well as Massachusetts and Vermont. Read the evidence and make up your own mind.
The National Popular Vote is all about fixing the swing states -- a phenomenon the Founders never saw coming. Fortunately, they gave states the fundamental right to choose their own electors, and we can use that right to fix it.
I for one am ready to move from a system where voters in Florida pick the President, to a system where voters in America pick the President.
19 - Clavos
"The disenfranchised in this case would be the Democratic voters in such states as Texas, Georgia, Florida...which would remain winner-take-all."
Democratic voters in Florida already ARE disenfranchised, in the primary--by their own party, and the candidates, who agreed not to campaign here.
Don't be surprised if Florida goes even more strongly Republican this time.
20 - Dave Nalle
If Democrats have a numerical advantage, why did Ronald Reagan win by 8 million votes? This isn't a partisan issue.
Historically Republican candidates get more of the independent vote than Democrats do. But polls show people self identify as Democrat about 44% of the time and as Republican about 36% of the time.
Dave
21 - Dave Nalle
The Electoral College disenfranchises four out of five Americans, including the ones in Texas and Mississippi as well as Massachusetts and Vermont. Read the evidence and make up your own mind.
That argument is somewhat disingenuous. Having fractionally smaller representation because of state size isn't a huge imposition, and the problem of winner-take-all could be fixed MUCH more fairly by apportioning delegates based on the popular vote instead and that wouldn't run roughshod over the current system.
Dave
22 - Dave Nalle
Democratic voters in Florida already ARE disenfranchised, in the primary--by their own party, and the candidates, who agreed not to campaign here.
Good point. If the democrats don't mind disenfranchising their own voters why would they hesitate to disenfranchise others.
What I find interesting is that the states they took votes away from in the primary happen to be ones which might have gone strongly for Obama like Michigan.
Dave
23 - Clavos
"What I find interesting is that the states they took votes away from in the primary happen to be ones which might have gone strongly for Obama like Michigan."
It was punishment. National party leadership was more interested in asserting their own authority over the state party leaders than in doing what was best for the voters.
24 - handyguy
Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
Iowa and New Hampshire and their insistence [by state law in NH's case] on being first have had a ripple effect. When several states pigheadedly insisted on moving their primaries earlier than Feb. 5 because they wanted to be first, too [in their regions], the national parties were put in a tough spot - do they try to enforce the rules, or just let it go?
But the state legislators and state parties do bear some responsibility for what happened. It wouldn't have hurt Florida and Michigan to wait until Feb 5, which is still really early by historical standards.
Europeans think we're nuts to start the process so early. They may be right.
25 - Dr Dreadful
I hear that an embryo who will be running for President in 2060 has already started campaigning from within the womb.