[EL] An Electoral College Tie?
Paul Gronke
paul.gronke at gmail.com
Thu Dec 15 12:20:48 PST 2011
A few reflections on Rob's helpful data:
Americans are simply not very experienced with chief executives winning with margins that are not extremely close to or exceeding 50%.
For example, of the 66 races won with 45-49.9% of the vote, 38 of those are between 49-49.9%. Put another way, the winning governor received less than 49% of the vote in fewer than 5% of all governor's races from 1949-2009.
If we go another 1%, we captures 8 more races--now we are down to 3.5% of the races in which the winner received less than 48% of the vote. 1% more gets us another 13 races, etc. The distribution has a very flat tail.
I am in general not that confident about how much we can generalize from other elections (such as governors races) to presidential contests, which are sui generis in my opinion. But even if we can, there is very little we can say about a presidential contest that would be won with less than 40% of the vote since Americans have virtually no experience with this.
---
Paul Gronke Ph: 503-517-7393
Fax: 734-661-0801
Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
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On Dec 15, 2011, at 11:36 AM, Rob Richie wrote:
> To pick up on a couple points/questions:
>
> 1. Relating to Jerry Goldeder's email about faithless electors, once the National Popular Vote plan is in place, the electors casting votes in a state in the NPV compact would be associated with the national popular vote winner. They have no more likelihood of being "faithless" than electors under the current system.
>
> 2. Relating to Richard's point, here's an excerpt from a short report we did on the 918 gubernatorial elections from 1948 to 2009:
> http://www.fairvote.org/majority-and-plurality-in-u-s-gubernatorial-elections#.TupK1TVAaRg
>
> In a FairVote study of all gubernatorial general elections over a 62-year span (1948-2009) ? 918 total races ? it was found that in 90.4 percent of races, the winner received an outright majority of all votes cast. Among the other races, 7.2 percent were won with 45-49.9 percent of votes cast, 1.1 percent were won with 40-44.9 percent of votes cast, and 1.3 percent were won with 35-39.9 percent of votes. No races were won with less than 35 percent of the total vote. Most recently, of the 16 gubernatorial general elections nationwide between 2007 and 2009, one (Christopher Christie of New Jersey in 2009 ? 48.8 percent) was won with less than an outright majority of votes.
>
> - Rob
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't believe we should be so frightened of the idea that a winning presidential candidate might have received only 40% of the total popular vote. 45 of the 50 states elect their Governors like that. Whoever gets the most votes wins, period. Louisiana, Washington, California and Georgia force a majority vote by having a round with only two candidates on the ballot, and Vermont lets the legislature choose when no one gets a majority for Governor. In the other 45 states, a winning gubernatorial candidate just needs more votes than anyone else.
>
> The lowest share of the popular vote any winning gubernatorial candidate ever got in the last 170 years was in Washington state in 1912, when the Democratic nominee, Ernest Lister, won with only 30.6% of the popular vote. In that election, the Republican nominee got 30.4% and the Progressive nominee got 24.4%.
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
> --- On Thu, 12/15/11, Scarberry, Mark <Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>
> From: Scarberry, Mark <Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu>
>
> Subject: Re: [EL] An Electoral College Tie?
> To: "law-election at department-lists.uci.edu" <law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
> Date: Thursday, December 15, 2011, 11:02 AM
>
>
> In such a case, would we really want the national plurality vote winner (perhaps with 40% of the vote) to become President?
>
>
> Perhaps if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral vote then, instead of the current system or the national popular vote system, there should be a choice of the President either by a joint session of Congress or by vote of the House (with each member having one vote).
>
>
> Of course that would require a constitutional amendment, but in my view it would also take a constitutional amendment to move to a popular vote system, at least to one that has a blackout period like the proposed NPVIC.
>
>
> Mark
>
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
>
> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>
> Malibu, CA 90263
>
> (310)506-4667
>
>
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Levitt
> Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 10:23 AM
> To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] An Electoral College Tie?
>
>
> It's not just a tie that could send the election to the House of Representatives ... I believe it's any lack of a majority. If, for example, the Americans Elect candidate wins enough electoral votes to deprive either the Republican nominee or the Democratic nominee of an Electoral College majority, the House decides the election.
>
> Justin
>
>
>
> --
> Justin Levitt
> Associate Professor of Law
> Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
> 919 Albany St.
> Los Angeles, CA 90015
> 213-736-7417
> justin.levitt at lls.edu
> ssrn.com/author=698321
>
>
> On 12/15/2011 9:37 AM, Dan Johnson wrote:
>
> I'd love to see opponents of the National Popular Vote mount a robust defense of the House of Representatives in a one-vote-per-state-delegation selecting the President (the result of a not-implausible tie in electoral votes).
>
>
> Because, after all, that is what they are defending. A tie will eventually occur. Let us hope that the National Popular Vote compact is established and confirmed by the Supreme Court before that mathematical certainty rears its ugly head.
>
>
> Dan
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>
> ?An Electoral College Tie??
>
> Posted on December 15, 2011 9:18 am by Rick Hasen
>
> National Journal ponders.
>
>
> --
> Dan Johnson
>
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> --
> Justin Levitt
> Associate Professor of Law
> Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
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> ssrn.com/author=698321
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