The United States Presidential Election Process: Undemocratic

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The United StatesPresidential Election Process
Undemocratic?

• The Bill of Rights Institute
• Chicago, IL
• October 2, 2008
• Artemus Ward
• Department of Political Science
• Northern Illinois University
• aeward_at_niu.edu
• http//polisci.niu.edu/polisci/faculty/ward

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Introduction

• The Electoral College system had led to
  presidents who do not win the popular vote.
• The state-by-state electoral process that America
  uses to select its president has led to a
  situation where only about a dozen states are
  relevant.
• Voter turnout is irrelevant, except in the small
  number of states that matter.
• Issues and resources are skewed to battleground
  states.
• The process for resolving an election where no
  candidate reaches a majority of electoral votes
  is even more undemocratic than the electoral
  college.

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The Peoples Choice

• Is the President of the United States the
  peoples choice?
• In 1960, Richard Nixon received 34,108,147 votes
  to John F. Kennedys 34,049,976.
• In 2000, Al Gore received 50,999,897 votes to
  George W. Bushs 50,456,002.
• Of Course Kennedy and Bush won in the electoral
  college but consider this, Nixons votes
  constituted only 49.3 of the total votes cast
  and Gores only 48.3.
• Nixon won the presidency in 1968 with 43.4 of
  the popular vote.
• Bill Clinton won in 1992 with only 43 of the
  total votes.
• Woodrow Wilson won in 1912 with 41.9.
• Abraham Lincoln won in 1860 with 39.8 of the
  popular votethe all-time winner in the least
  popular successful candidates sweepstakes.

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The Electoral College

• Presidential candidates and their campaign
  managers are not trying to win the popular vote.
  Instead, they attempt to put together a coalition
  of states that will provide a majority of the
  electoral votes.
• With 538 votes possible, it takes 270 to win.
• Main (4) and Nebraska (5) award their votes based
  on winning congressional districts and two for
  winning the statewide vote.
• 48 states and DC (3) have a winner-take-all
  system whichever candidate gets the most votes
  in the state gets all of its electoral votes.
• This system creates the phenomenon of
  battleground states, which are those viewed as
  close to evenly split between the two parties,
  i.e. each party has a chance to win that state.
• Other predictable statesan increasing majority
  of them, roughly 2/3are simply written off
  because their preferences are utterly
  predictable.
• In terms of candidate visits and campaign
  resourcesparticularly advertisingthe vast
  majority of the population is ignored. For
  example, in the 2004 presidential campaign 99 of
  all advertising expenditures occurred in only 17
  states with Florida and Ohio accounting for half.
  Add only three moreIowa, Pennsylvania, and
  Wisconsinand total rises to nearly ¾ of all
  advertising expenditures.

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2008 electoral votes with predictable Republican
red states, Democratic blue states, and grey
battleground states. For an interactive map
http//www.270towin.com/
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Implications of a State-by-State Campaign

• A truly national election would increase turnout
  inasmuch as there would be more incentive for
  everyone to vote, in both (and other) parties.
  And, with increased turnout, we might get
  different winners than those that now win
  elections.
• Campaign issues would change. Because of the
  misfortune that most of Americas largest cities
  are in non-battleground states, almost no
  presidential candidate in years has made a truly
  serious speech about the plight of these cities.
  Democrats can take the states containing New
  York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Los
  Angeles for granted, while Republicans in turn
  have almost no incentive to devote themselves to
  consideration of their plight. So issues such as
  prescription drugs for the elderly, support for
  Israel, and opposition to Cuba are magnified due
  to a preoccupation with the battleground state of
  Florida.
• Low-population states are advantaged while
  high-population states are disadvantaged. Why?
  Because each state gets two electoral votes
  regardless of population. Wyoming, with only 0.2
  of the national population, has three times that
  weight in the Electoral College. California, on
  the other hand, with 12.2 of the national
  population, controls only 10.2 of the Electoral
  College votes. Consider the 2000 election. Al
  Gore won New Mexico (and 5 electoral votes) while
  losing Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota (nine
  electoral votes). Yet New Mexico has a larger
  population than those three states combined!

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First Past the Post

• Not only does the Electoral College system
  produce winners who fail to gain a majority of
  the popular vote, it also produces winners who
  do not even gain a majority of state popular
  votes.
• The so-called first past the post system means
  that a candidate only receive more votes than any
  other candidate to be awarded all the electoral
  votes in that state.
• Therefore, in a three-way race, a candidate with
  33.4 of the statewide vote could gain all the
  electoral votes even though her competitors each
  won 33.3 of the vote. In an evenly divided
  four-way race, one would only need about 25.3 of
  the popular vote, and so on
• Many countries have solved this dilemma by going
  to a runoff system that would assure that the
  winner indeed had received demonstrable majority
  support.

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Who Are the Electors?

• Though there may be party and state rules that
  bind electors to cast their ballots for the
  candidate with the most votes in that state, the
  Constitution appears to provide no bar to
  electors who wish to vote their conscience,
  rather than the party line.
• Indeed, a number of recent electors have case
  their votes for candidates other than the one
  they were pledged to support.
• For example, in 1976 one of the Washington state
  Republican electors pledged to Gerald Ford
  actually cast his vote for Ronald Reagan. Had
  only 5,559 voters in Ohio and 3,687 voters in
  Hawaii voted for Ford instead of Carter, with the
  one electoral vote switch from Ford to Reagan,
  For would have finished with 269 electoral votes
  to Carters 268 and Reagans 1. The House would
  have decided the election.
• In 1988, one of the electors pledged to Democrat
  Michael Dukakis cast his vote for Dukakis
  running mate Lloyd Bentsen.

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Resolving Deadlocks in the House One State-One
Vote

• If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the
  House will decided among the top three candidates
  with each state casting a single vote.
• How should state delegations decide to cast their
  single vote?
• What if, in a very close state, representatives
  from districts that voted for X even though the
  state at large voted for Y decided to honor the
  preferences of their constituentswho, after all,
  will be casting judgment on them in the next
  electioninstead of remaining loyal to their
  political party?
• The opportunities for mischief are great. One can
  easily imagine the kinds of promises that would
  be made to potential switchers, given the stakes
  of the decision.
• Consider the election of 1824. John Quincy Adams,
  who had received both fewer popular votes and
  fewer electoral votes than did his principle
  adversary, Andrew Jackson, nonetheless prevailed.
  The reason is that Henry Clay, who had come in
  fourth and therefore was not among the top three
  candidates who were available to the House for
  consideration, threw his support to Adams and, as
  a consequence, became secretary of state.

Photograph of John Quincy Adams. 1848.
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Why No Change?

• National public opinion has long supported the
  abolition of the entire Electoral College, yet
  nothing changes.
• Why? Two reasons 1) The zeal of small states to
  protect their power within the system and 2)
  opposition from minorities who believe their
  power will be diluted.
• In 1969, the House voted 338-70 for a
  constitutional amendment establishing national
  direct election by popular vote.
• But in the Senate, southern and small state
  conservatives aligned to filibuster the proposal
  because they believed that reform would destroy
  the special influence the electoral college gives
  their constituencies.
• Ten years later, the Senate fell fifteen votes
  short of the necessary 2/3 when Democrats from
  New York, New Jersey, and Maryland led the
  opposition after black and Jewish organizations
  claimed that their supposed pivotal power in big
  swing states would be threatened.
• Even if congress were to pass such an amendment,
  consider the difficulty of obtaining ratification
  by ¾ of the states. It only takes 13 states to
  keep an amendment from being enacted. There are
  14 states that reap dramatic benefit from the
  senatorial bonus Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii,
  Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New
  Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota,
  Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. And this
  list does not include the additional 14 states
  whose percentage of the electoral vote is higher
  than their percentage of the national population.
  What incentive do these states have to ratify a
  constitutional amendment?
• Perhaps the biggest lesson from Bush v. Gore
  (2000) is that the current presidential election
  system will almost certainly remain in tact. The
  American peoples apathy toward and acceptance of
  that result demonstrates how difficult it would
  be to obtain a public groundswell for change.

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The Impermeable Article V?

• The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses
  shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments
  to this Constitution, or, on the Application of
  the Legislatures of two thirds of the several
  States, shall call a Convention for proposing
  Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid
  to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this
  Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures
  of three fourths of the several States, or by
  Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one
  or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed
  by the Congress although no State, without
  its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal
  Suffrage in the Senate.

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Alternatives to a Constitutional Amendment

• Article II, section 1 empowers each state to
  appoint its presidential electors in such
  Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.
  Article I, section 10 authorizes Congress to
  consent to any agreement or compact by one
  state with another.
• Large states could compact with one another to
  appoint electors who will be directed to cast
  their votes for the person who wins the greatest
  number of votes in the overall national election.
  The compact would not come into effect until
  enough states (which could be as few as the 11
  largest states) to constitute a majority of the
  electoral votes had agreed to the compact. Upon
  Congress agreeing to the compact, the United
  States would in effect move to a popularly
  elected presidency.
• Congress could call for a new constitutional
  convention after 2/3 of the states petition
  Congress for such a move. The conventions new
  constitution would only take effect if ratified
  in a national referendum.
• In the end, it is the American people that will
  determine whether such proposals are possible.
  The advent of new technologies, particularly the
  internet, have made it possible for relatively
  easy collective action. As a result, electronic
  petitions and websites have been launched to
  change the presidential election process. Will
  these work?

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Further Reading

• http//www.270towin.com/
• Edwards, George. 2005. Why the Electoral College
  is Bad for America. New Haven, CT Yale
  University Press.
• Eskridge, William N., Jr. and Sanford Levinson.
  1998. Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional
  Tragedies. New York, NY New York University
  Press.
• Levinson, Sanford. 2006. Our Undemocratic
  Constitution Where the Constitution Goes Wrong
  (and How We The People Can Correct It). New York,
  NY Oxford University Press.
• Levinson, Sanford, ed. 1995. Responding to
  Imperfection The Theory and Practice of
  Constitutional Amendment. Princeton, NJ
  Princeton University Press.