In the post number 3 on this topic (8-7-10)I promised another argument against NPV. This is not it. This is a response to one of the main arguments in favor of NPV. That argument goes like this: Most states know which candidate is going to win the electoral votes of their state because each state runs a plurality winner take all system. That is, Texas will vote Republican and California will vote Democratic. So the election will come down to a few close battlground states like Florida and Ohio which are tossups. Everybody else is "left out".
The problem with this argument is that it is not the electoral college that causes a state to be taken for granted. It is the way the state chooses to assign its electoral votes. Most states use a "winner take all" method which assigns the electoral votes of the state to whoever gets the most popular votes - regardless of how close the outcome is. To become battleground states all Texas and California have to do is allot their electoral votes proportionately based on the split of the vote. That is, if you get 43% of the popular vote then you get 43% of the electoral vote. That will eliminate their being taken for granted. If they want to they can choose to become a battleground state.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
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OK, if electoral votes in a given State are allocated by % of popular vote then the purpose of an electoral college is obviated. If all States allocated electoral votes by % it would de facto be a national popular vote. I have 2 objections.
ReplyDelete1. In a close election we would be doing a national recount of under votes.
2. My thoughts on this concept go deep. I mean really, really, really deep. Which of the following sentences is grammatically correct?
a. The United States is a republic.
b. The United States are a republic
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.
ReplyDeleteEvery vote would not be equal under the proportional approach. The proportional approach would perpetuate the inequality of votes among states due to each state's bonus of two electoral votes. It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
ReplyDeleteEvery vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Every vote would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast.
National Popular Vote has nothing to do with whether the country has a "republican" form of government or is a "democracy."
A "republican" form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a "republican" form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as has been the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), DC (3), Maine (4), Michigan (17), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (31), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), and Washington (11). The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington. These six states possess 73 electoral votes -- 27% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Response to toto's first comment.
ReplyDeleteI did not and will not argue for proportional assignment of electoral votes. That possibility was offered only as a response to the “battleground states” problem. There is a much easier method to eliminate that problem, if it is a problem.
With respect to Toto’s second comment.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the general argument there are two questions. Is popular vote the way to elect a president? For purposes of this discussion I am willing to assume the answer of yes. (Personally, I think the Bayh-Cellar Amendment would be the way to go. See the 8-7-10 post.)
Now we get to the second question: Whether the NPV compact is the best way or even a reasonable way to do that.
In your first sentence you say “most votes” but you do not mean a majority right? You mean more than anyone else? There is no provision for a runoff. Are you opposed to runoffs?
Philosophically I have not conceded that the current system of electing a president is “bad”. It was obviously designed as a compromise to accommodate a union of sovereign States. If we have a simple national popular vote to elect a President then, to state the obvious, that would remove the State from the process. The same would be true of any system that emulates a simple national popular vote or is designed to produce the same results as a simple national popular vote.
ReplyDeleteWhile the concession to a national popular vote (or a facsimile) appears to be minor I am, at this point, not anxious to move further toward a national mindset. Indeed, I would prefer to move more toward States’ rights.
That having been said, assume for a moment that we had a National popular vote and I won by 500K votes. I believe that my opponent would want a recount. It was painful in Florida in 2000. Imagine recounting nationwide.
p.s. Speaking of States’ rights – or more precisely too many Federal rights - I do live in Texas and yes our Governor does rattle the succession saber from time to time. Honestly, I don’t think that will ever happen or that it should happen. Still I truly believe that if you took a popular vote in Texas on a proposition to succeed it would be a landslide.
The idea that recounts will be more likely and messy is distracting. Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state-by-state winner-take-all rules.
ReplyDeleteThe possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
A nationwide recount would not happen. We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires. The larger the number of voters in an election, the smaller the chance of close election results.
Recounts in presidential elections would be far less likely to occur under a national popular vote system than under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each separate state).
Based on a recent study of 7,645 statewide elections in the 26-year period from 1980 through 2006 by FairVote, the probability of a recount is 1 in 332 elections (23 recounts in 7,645 elections). Thus, with 420 statewide races on the ballot in 2006, there was one statewide recount (the Vermont State Auditor's race). Similarly, there was one recount in 2004 (the Washington state governor) and one in 2008 (the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota).
So, if the President were elected from a single nationwide pool of votes, one would expect a recount once in 332 elections, or once in 1,328 years.
Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, there are 51 separate opportunities for recounts in every presidential election. Thus, our nation's 56 presidential elections have really been 2,084 separate state-level elections. In this group of 2,084 separate elections, there have been five seriously disputed counts. The current system has repeatedly created artificial crises in which the vote has been extremely close in particular states, while not close on a nationwide basis. Note that five seriously disputed counts out of the 2,084 separate state-level elections is closely in line with the historically observed probability of 1 in 332.
A national popular vote would reduce the probability of a recount from five instances in 56 presidential elections to one instance in 332 elections (that is, once in 1,328 years).
Under the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's electoral votes.
ReplyDeleteNot a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.
Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote. – including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912, and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).
Americans do not view the absence of run-offs under the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time.
Each and every one of those elections mentioned in toto’s 9-23-6:15 note as well as all of the other 48 presidential elections that we have held have one thing in common. Winning of the popular vote was not the candidates’ primary objective. Whether we like the structure or not the name of the game was electoral votes. In each and every case the winning candidate won a majority of the votes that determined the election. (That includes the 1800 and 1824 in the House of Representatives.) The popular vote data begins with 1824, because until then they didn’t even record the popular vote. Popular vote is a wonderful thing. But when looking at elections which did not use that system it is strange to talk about those elections as if they did use that system. So perhaps Americans do not view the absence of runoffs as a problem in the present system because the present system always gives a winner who has a majority of the determining votes.
ReplyDeleteBut NPV would change what the determinative votes are. In their system it is popular votes that count. OK but isn’t NPV then obligated to provide a method for dealing with a situation in which the votes are scattered among several candidates? The Bayh-Cellar amendment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#The_Bayh-Celler_Amendment gave a way to do that. It required that the plurality winner have at least 40% of the vote or hold a runoff. A system doesn’t have give a majority winner but please spare us a 27% president (see 8-7-10 post).
I have to disagree with toto’s statement that recounts should NOT be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. All consequences of a change should be considered. In the last 50 years (13 presidential elections) 3 have been decided by less that 1% of the popular vote.
ReplyDelete1960 Kennedy vs. Nixon
1968 Nixon vs. Humphrey
2000 Bush vs. Gore
Toto’s calculations that a national popular vote would reduce the probability of a recount in a presidential election to 1 instance in 332 elections do not agree with recent history.
Returning to the statement that the possibility of a recount should not be a consideration in the debate. In my opinion not only should it be considered, but the specter of a national recount could be a deal breaker.
In FairVote's study of 7,645 statewide elections in the 26-year period from 1980 through 2006, the average change in the margin of victory as a result of a recount was a mere 274 votes. The original outcome remained unchanged in over 90% of the recounts.
ReplyDeleteA recount is not an unimaginable horror or logistical impossibility. A recount is a recognized contingency that is occasionally required (about once in 332 elections). All states routinely make arrangements for a recount in advance of every election. The personnel and resources necessary to conduct a recount are indigenous to each state. A state's ability to conduct a recount inside its own borders is unrelated to whether or not a recount may be occurring in another state.
If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.
The U.S. Constitution requires the Electoral College to meet on the same day throughout the U.S. (mid-December). This sets a final deadline for vote counts from all states. In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court has interpreted the federal "safe harbor" statute to mean that the deadline for the state to finalize their vote count is 6 days before the meeting of the Electoral College.
This thread has been split on Sept 25 into
ReplyDeleteNPV 4a about whether to keep the electoral college,
and
NPV 4b about whether if we change should the NPV Compact be the way to go.
In each case the last comment on the topic is there.