Seventeen men and women are meeting in Lansing today, in a session presided over by Lt. Gov. John Cherry, and cast our votes for President. In Ohio, electors will vote to the accompaniment of a color guard and a musical interlude. In Pennsylvania and New York, there will be long and involved ceremonies. But in Iowa, the seven electors will just troop into a conference room, vote, and go home.
What’s happening today is, in fact, the real presidential election, the one that officially counts. What we the people did in November was to choose 365 electors pledged to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and 173 pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin.
We think that‘s what the vote will be today. But there are sometimes surprises. Four years ago, one of John Kerry‘s electors voted for John Edwards instead. In 2000, one elector refused to vote at all. Back in 1976, one of President Ford’s electors voted for Ronald Reagan instead. None of these so-called faithless electors has ever made a difference in the outcome.
By the way, this wasn’t how the founding fathers intended for this to work. They were wise, but they were naïve in that they didn’t foresee political parties. They thought we, or more accurately the legislature, would choose the wisest people in our state.
They then would get together, probably over some Madeira, and choose the best man in the country to lead us. If nobody got a nationwide majority, the House of Representatives would then pick the President from the top three candidates.
However, it took about five minutes for political parties to take this over. For many years, the electors have been nominated by the parties, and are expected to vote for that party’s candidates for president and vice-president if they win the popular vote in the state.
Mostly, the electors are relatively unknown party stalwarts, though this year, two of them are Teamsters leader James Hoffa and United Auto Workers’ president Ron Gettelfinger.
There are those who want to do away with the electoral college, and have the president elected by the national popular vote.
But if that were the case, Sterling Heights and Ada and Owosso would never see a candidate for president. Neither would Nevada.
They would spend all their time in TV studios, or in major metropolitan areas. What if we got rid of the electors themselves, the people, and have the awarding of electoral votes be automatic?
I don’t like that either. Some day, if our nation lasts long enough, some winning candidate for president will die, or have to be replaced between the day the people vote and the electoral college meets. When that day comes, the electors that year may have to do the job the founders intended, and pick the best person for the job.
And I think George Washington would like that.
Wasn't George Washington vehemently against political parties, anyway?
Posted by: David | December 16, 2008 at 11:31 AM
The US Constitution was a flawed document and not a masterpiece by any means..It reflected the myopic vision and beliefs of the nation's orginal illegal aliens and domestic terrorists..
The electoral college is not a democratic idea or principle and as such like many of the early backward aspects of the US Const it should be removed ASAP..
Posted by: Thrasher | December 16, 2008 at 12:45 PM
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
Posted by: susan | December 16, 2008 at 01:32 PM
Keep in mind that the main media at the moment, namely TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
For example, in California, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise we wouldn't have recently had governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.
If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a "big city" approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn't be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.
Posted by: susan | December 16, 2008 at 01:32 PM
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,181 state legislators — 439 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 742 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Posted by: susan | December 16, 2008 at 01:33 PM
I support the NPV movement right here..right now!!
Posted by: Thrasher | December 16, 2008 at 03:14 PM