As August approaches it is time to
think about the presidential election
coming up in 2024. In order to make
decisions about the election process
they should be made well in advance,
before you know who any of the candidates
will be.
For presidential elections, we should
look at the question of whether the
electoral college should continue
to be the method of selection. Twice
in the last five elections the popular
vote winner did not win the electoral
college vote (but note that candidates
would have run different campaigns
if the popular vote winner determined
the outcome).
One argument in favor of the electoral
college is that it means that candidates
need to campaign in many states instead
of trying to run up big vote totals in
a few of them. However, in reality
the electoral college doesn’t succeed
at meeting this goal. A candidate
could have widespread geographic support
(perhaps winning 49 percent of the vote
in every state) while losing in an
electoral college landslide. Or the
electoral college winner might have
51 percent of the vote in a handful
of populous states while winning no
votes in all the other states.
If you’re worried that small states
would always be outvoted by larger
states, note that the constitution
already provides protection for
small states with equal Senate
representation.
What actually happens with the electoral
college is that a few random swing
states get all of the attention.
Candidates won’t spend time in states
they are sure to win or sure to lose,
so the electoral college doesn’t even
succeed at making candidates campaign
in lots of states.
Another issue is the nature of state
boundaries. Although we are used to
the boundaries the way they are, at
some point in the past arbitrary boundary
decisions had to be made. If, for
example, three pairs of states
(New York/Pennsylvania, Michigan/Minnesota,
and Wisconsin/Illinois) had been combined
into just three states, the result in 2016
would have been different. Fortunately,
nobody can gerrymander states the way
they can House districts, but it is
important to note how the pattern of
state boundaries affects the result.
More on the electoral college next time.
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–Douglas Downing
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douglasadowning 