MOTION #81: THIS HOUSE WOULD
ABOLISH THE US ELECTORAL COLLEGE
The United States has
perhaps the most arcane method of selecting its chief executive of any nation,
one no country has chosen to emulate.
There are a total of 538 votes in the electoral college, so a successful
candidate needs 270 to win. Because all
but two states cast their electoral votes as a unit, a candidate can win some
states by narrow margins, lose others by large margins, and thus win the
electoral vote while losing the popular vote.
This last occurred in the election of George W. Bush in 2000.
The Founders had no
political theory or coherent design in creating the electoral college, but they
did have a number of motivations for doing so.
Some were concerned about legislative intrigue and executive dependence
on the legislature, so they wanted some mode for choosing the president other
than legislative selection. Others
worried about mob rule if the voters directly selected the president and feared
the electoral legitimacy direct election would provide the executive. Still others felt voters would not know of
distinguished men in other parts of the country, requiring intermediaries to
identify the best candidates. Finally,
the electoral college was a mechanism to protect slave interests, because slave
states would receive credit for three-fifths of their slaves in the
apportionment of electoral votes even though the slaves could not vote in an
election. All of these intentions are
now irrelevant in evaluating the electoral college.
There is no question
that it violates core democratic principles, such as equality in voting. Are there compensations for this violation
that justify maintaining it? Supporters
of the electoral college argue that it protects small states, forces candidates
to seek broad support, and helps to maintain the two-party system. Opponents respond that the electoral college
ensures that candidates ignore most of the country, especially small states, in
their campaigning, as they attend only to swing states; and that the system
encourages third parties.
The electoral college
has consistently proven to be unpopular with the public. Every Gallup poll taken on the subject has
found clear majorities supporting direct election of the president.
The existence of the
electoral college is an arcane piece of electoral history but one with
important consequences. As a result, it
remains a hot button contemporary issue.
Pros
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Cons
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The electoral college violates the democratic principle
of equality in voting. Under the electoral
college, all votes do not count equally.
Voters in some states have more say in selecting the president than
voters in other states.
For example, California has 55 electoral college votes,
while Delaware only get 3 votes. There is not equality in that, every state
should be equal, California for voting purposes is no more important that
Delaware.
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The US is not a pure
democracy. The electoral college is
one of the checks on majority rule. It is not violating the principle of
equality of voting, because it gives every state a proportional voice based
on their population.
The states that have more of a say also have a larger
population of voters, therefore it is proportional. California has the
largest population for any state, and therefore gets the largest number of
votes in the electoral college.
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The electoral college violates the democratic principle
that the winner should be the candidate receiving the most votes. In 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and probably 1960, the
candidate receiving the most votes for president lost the election.
This occurs because all but two states award all their
electoral votes to the candidate winning a plurality in the state; because
all states receive two electoral votes corresponding to their two US
senators; because the number of House seats (which serve as the basis of the
remaining electoral votes) often poorly match the population of the state;
because states cast electoral votes no matter how many people actually vote;
and because the size of the House is arbitrary.
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The distribution of the vote is more important than the
percentages for each candidate. The entire point of having the electoral
college is to that it can act as a check on the majority vote is to ensure
that the candidate who is best suited and had the broadest amount of support
wins the presidency. If it was simply determined by popular vote than certain
regions of the country would have a greater influence on the outcome of who
won. The electoral college acts as a counterbalance to that.
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If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral
vote, the House of Representatives chooses the president, with each state
receiving one vote. This provision
allows the 7 smallest states with a population of about 4.9 million to
outvote the 6 largest states with a population of 119 million. This is
blatently unfair.
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No one defends this
aspect of the electoral college. It is
indefensible.
However, it is important to note that the election has
never come to the House of Representatives choosing the president. It is
merely a plan of last resort to ensure that there is a president.
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The electoral college allows small third parties to tip
the balance in a state and distort the preferences of the voters. In 2000, Ralph Nader siphoned a few votes from Al Gore
in New Hampshire and Florida, costing Gore victories and thus the
election. Nevertheless, Gore was the
preferred choice of voters in a match up with George W. Bush.
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The propositions
argument is not only a logical fallacy, but also discourages democracy.
It is illogical to
argue that because Ralph Nader got a few votes in New Hampshire and Florida
that if he was not on ballot they would have voted for Al Gore instead.
Furthermore, the American electoral framework is comprised
almost exclusively of a two party system, and any candidate who runs on a
third party ballot needs to be given extra support just to have any chance at
all of even securing just a few votes.
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The electoral college weakens incentives for voting and
party building. There is no
incentive for candidates to mobilize voters in states they are sure to win –
or sure to lose, and voters have little incentive to vote in noncompetitive
states where their vote is likely not to matter.
Some states like Texas just have a fairly predictable
voting record- they have voted republican 9 out of the last 10 presidential
elections. Democratic presidential candidates do not spend much time in Texas
for that reason.
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This argument is
suggestion that there is simply a strategy behind elections- which is true
for every election. The electoral college framework does make a candidate
have to acquire a number of states, in order to win, and while there may be
some states that it is not the best use of time and resources to campaign as
hard in.
But this does require candidates have a broad base of
support in order to win the presidency.
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There is no such thing as a small state interest. States do not embody coherent, unified
interests, nor do they require protection.
The Constitution places many constraints on the actions of simple
majorities, and the Senate provides extraordinary representation to small
states. Moreover, candidates ignore
most small states in their campaigns.
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The electoral
college prevents a tyranny of the majority. The interests of states, especially small states, would
be lost in a majoritarian national campaign.
The electoral college forces candidates to be attentive to state
interests.
When the founding fathers created the electoral college
it was with the many purposes in mind, but the tyranny of the masses is the
most appropriate in mind here. It is important to remember the timeframe that
the US was created in, there was not a very high literacy rate, and it would
become very easy without a check on majority rule for someone to manipulate
the population when entering power.
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The electoral college is not a federal principle. Federalism was not mentioned at the
Constitutional Convention in relation to the electoral college. The electoral college does not enhance the
power or sovereignty of states.
Federalism is based on representation in Congress and the
Constitution’s allocation of powers to the states, not on the electoral
college.
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The electoral
college is an essential bulwark of federalism. The electoral college emphasizing the role of states, and abolishing it
would weaken federalism. This system reinforces the division and sharing of
powers between the states and the national government. Without it the
national government would have much greater power over the state governments,
and the voice of the people would be quieter.
The electoral college is essential to preserving the power of
individuals through their state.
Additionally, the Electoral College helps reinforce
stable institutions that are essential for maintaining a political regime and
preserving a free society.
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The electoral college encourages third parties.
Under the electoral college, a third party with
regional support can win something: a state.
The winner take all aspect of direct election of the president with no
runoff discourages third parties because they have to come in first to win
anything.
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The electoral
college inhibits the emergence of third parties and thus acts as a bulwark
against extremist candidates. The founding fathers
had a reason to fear the emergence of extremist parties. A modern day example
is with Rwanda. When they gained a multiparty democracy, without checks on
majority rule, it allowed for extremist parties to enter politics and made
possible the use of public resources to manipulate the population which set
the necessary precondition of ethnic hatred that enabled the genocide to
occur.
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Candidates do not focus on local interests because of
the electoral college. The evidence is
overwhelming. Candidates do not
campaign in most states, nor do they run advertisements in them. Instead, the electoral college provides
incentives to focus on competitive states, especially large competitive
states. Moreover, candidates do not
focus on local interests in the states they do visit.
We do not need a presidency responsive to parochial
interests in a system that is already prone to gridlock and which offers
minority interests extraordinary access to policymakers and opportunities to
thwart policies they oppose.
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Casting votes by
state forces candidates to be attentive to local interests, which they would
otherwise ignore in a national campaign. The electoral college is helping promote democracy through implementing
a mechanism that make candidates pay attention to local issues, and actually
do what they are elected to do- serve the interests of their constituents.
A presidential candidate is of course going to focus on
a more national level interest, but in order to visit and campaign across the
country, the candidate must be at least aware of the issues that of
particular interest to the local area.
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Candidates ignore large areas of the country in their
campaigns. Moreover, George W. Bush
lost most major demographic groups in winning election in 2000 under the
electoral college.
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The electoral
college forces candidates to win broad coalitions across the country,
encouraging national harmony. In direct
election of the president, candidates might appeal to clusters of voters,
whose votes could be aggregated across states and regions, perhaps
representing only one strata of society.
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1 Comments
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