Abolishing the Electoral College

Earlier this evening I gave a talk calling for the abolition of the Electoral College at the Culture Project, a remarkable series of plays hosted by the Naked Angels Theater Project at 45 Bleeker Street.

Some not so "fun facts" I shared earlier tonight:

--The 10 smallest states in America, by population, control 32 electoral votes. That's 6% of the votes in the Electoral College, yet their population is 7.6 million, or 2% of the national total. Thus 2% of the population controls 6% of the votes for the presidency.

--Those 10 smallest states have less people living there than there are people living in New York City (8 million).

--The state with the most electoral leverage, meaning the smallest number of elligible voters per elector, is Wyoming: A "red state" in 2000, and the home of our Vice President. In Wyoming, there are 120,000 eligible voters per electoral voter. That makes it #1.

--The state with the highest ratio of elligible voters to electors is Pennsylvania. In PA, there are 436,000 eligible voters per electoral voter. Thus a voter in Wyoming is worth 2.6 times "more" than a voter in Pennsylvania. Who said "one voter, one vote?" More like, "one voter, some kind of vote."

--The state in the middle, meaning perfectly balanced between the top 25 states in terms of influence versus the bottom 25 is Oregon, a "blue state" in 2000. In Oregon, there are 345,000 eligible voters per elector.

--Of the top 25 states, 16 were "red states" in 2000, giving the GOP 67% of the high-leverage electoral votes.

--Those states have 48.5 million residents, or 17% of the national population. 17% of the population controls 24% of the Electoral College. "One voter, one vote?" Not exactly.

--And finally, my home state of New York. We're #47 on the list, close to the bottom. In New York, there are 402,000 eligible voters per elector. Look at it this way: a voter in Wyoming is worth 2.3 times more than a voter in New York.

Many of you in the audience asked me to make available the statistics I shared on how unfair the Electoral College is. I am appending them to this message. Now many of you also asked, "What can we do about this?" Well, part of the answer lies in our figuring this out together. Those of you want to email me can do so at davidsol@panix.com; you can also post messages in response to this, and possibly, if enough people respond, get a discussion going here on next steps.

Herre's what you can download from here:

1. 3 Charts showing the rank of states, in terms of how much influence a voter has by state. Download in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Download electoralslides.pdf

2. An outline of my talk, also in PDF format: Download onevoteronevotetalk.pdf

3. The numbers...a single page spreadsheet, in PDF format, that shows my calculations; those of you who want the original Excel version can email me and I'll send it to you. Download thenumbers.pdf

I chose putting these files in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, because this format is easy to read across different kinds of computers and operating systems. Odds are you have Adobe on your computer already and the files will open. If you dont, you can get the Adobe Acrobat Reader for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

And finally, I decided to push the technological enveloppe and make available the video of my talk. It's a big file-- 11.3 megabytes-- but it should "stream" in MPEG-4 format; if you have QuickTime it will play in your browser. it might also play in Windows Media Player, but I am not sure if they support this format. And at some point I may have to take the movie down, if it turns out that it takes away from the rest of my download allocation on this server. Meanwhile, here's the video clip: Download talkvid.mp4

Thanks!

Comments

[Zach]

The Electoral College will never be abolished. Why? Changing it would require amending the constitution, and that requires the support of 38 states. There will always be enough states that are helped by the EC that such an amendment will never get the traction it needs to pass.

Debate it all you want, it's just not gonna happen.

[scH]

As Daser points out, it's not really the Electoral College itself that's to blame it's the huge majority of states that use the winner take all system for assigning EC votes.

However, I'm all for getting rid of the system and letting each person's vote count as one vote. As I was saying to a friend when discussing this topic if people aren't educated enough to vote now it's not because of neglect from candidates it's because they don't care.

[mark]

My understanding of the origins of the electoral college system are a bit less altruistic than some mentioned above. I learned that despite the founding fathers' lip-service to the ideals of democracy, they were terrified of the thought of the "uneducated" masses actually having the power to decide an election by popular vote. The electoral college system was put in place to keep control over the popular election process; electoral college representatives don't actually have to vote the same as the citizens they represent. Anyone have any more info on this..?

[jb in ca]

jb in nyc-
I live in California, the most populous state, and we get virtually NO visits from the candidates. Instead, the time is spent in swing states (not small states) like Ohio and Pennsylvania. I don't believe that your point is a valid one.

[jb in nyc]

no bryan, the pt of the electoral college is to ensure that small states get the same amt of attn as large states. If it were a straight popular vote, a candidate would spend more time in, say, NY, where he could reach greater numbers of ppl at once, and states like WY would suffer.

hundreds of yrs ago black slaves used to count for 3/5ths of a white person in the eyes of the govt. today NYers count as 10/23rds of a resident of WY.

[Tim]

I think this variable weighting of states falls under the idea of protection of the minority. My knowledge of political history is terrible but i'm guessing it originally had something to do with protecting farming states which are inherently less populated. I'm not sure if this still makes sense but it would be hasty to call for eliminating the electoral college without clearly understanding the reasoning behind it. That said, my own personal feeling is that it's probably outdated.

I have to disagree with Bryan's point that it favors democrats some years and republicans others. It has more of an effect on whomever wins those states year after year, which are probably republicans. There's a difference between favoring and outright deciding. If variable weighting can swing the vote by say, 5%, it might change the outcome in close races, but in general the candidate favored by the majority will still win. I think the original point was that the 2000 election was one of the few races in recent history that was so close.

[daser]

This is indeed an important issue. In my opinion, the far more troubling aspect of the electoral college is the "winner-take-all" system of awarding the votes. I can actually understand wanting to give some additional weight to the smaller states so that their voices are not drowned out. So, I don't have a big problem with the way the number of electoral votes are assigned. However, I think that the "winner-take-all" system of awarding these votes is highly unfair.

Here's why: If you happen to vote for a losing candidate in your state, your vote is essentially thrown out meaning you controlled exactly 0% of an electoral vote. Actually something even worse happens. All of your state's electoral voters (who are representing the entire population of your state including you) will cast their votes in favor of a candidate you voted against. This means that even if 40% of a state voted for candidate X (which would be a significant number of people), in the end the collective weight of their influence gets transferred to candidate Y when 100% of that states electoral votes are cast in favor of candidate Y. Your vote is magically transformed! Does this system make sense to anyone?

[Bryan]

Shoot, I meant in my first sentence to say, "I actually agree with you that eliminating the electoral College might be in the best interest for the country"

sorry

[Bryan]

I actually agree with you that the electoral College might be in the best interest for the country, but I can't help feel like your article has a "leftish" slant on things, as you make several references to the 2000 election specifically (though you may be using this as a consistent example)and I get the feeling its taking the road of "Well, Gore won the popular vote in 2000, so he should be President". I could be wrong, just being honest about the vibe I am getting from your writeup.

How long has the electoral college been around? Pretty long time I imagine, so my point is that it doesn't matter how things played out in 2000, as its favored democrats for certain elections and republicans for others. Yea, the numbers aren't fair as one state gets more then the other, but that is just the law of the land at the present time.

I "THINK" the idea behind the electoral college is to not allow something like 4-5 states determine an election, even if their population is much larger. It all comes down to who its unfair for. By using the electoral college, it gives states with 7.6 Million people a better chance of actually having an impact on an election.

Keep in mind, we might have 280 million people in this country, but doesn't mean that many vote. So just because a state has a large population doesn't mean that same amount of people vote.

Just my 2 cents on the issue.