[EL] Two thoughts on the Electoral College and National PopularVote

[Tara Ross]

This isn't about "democracy" v. "no democracy."  This is about
"democracy with federalism" v. "democracy without federalism."

 

And I am certain that my vote in Texas was very important.  Republicans
would not want to lose Texas's 38 electoral votes any more than Obama
wanted to lose Massachusetts's 11 electoral votes.

 

 

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Jack
Cushman
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2012 1:24 PM
To: Sean Parnell
Cc: law-election at UCI.EDU
Subject: Re: [EL] Two thoughts on the Electoral College and National
PopularVote

 

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Sean Parnell
<sean at impactpolicymanagement.com> wrote:

	1.       Apparently only 17 states have completed their count of
all ballots, per this USA Today editorial (as a rule, I abhor citing
editorials, but I'm going to trust they got this fact right):
http://usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/26/counting-votes-voting-syste
m/1728529/ I think the implications for National Popular Vote are pretty
obvious - had this been a closer election (say, Bush-Gore or
Kennedy-Nixon close) we'd still not know who the president was, and
there would be horrific legal battles being waged right now all across
the country over which ballots should or should not be counted. The
Electoral College seems to have provided conclusive clarity rather
quickly.

 

But the states this year have no particular reason to hurry in
certifying their results. And in 2000 the election wasn't decided until
December 12, over two weeks from now. I don't see why we couldn't
resolve the legal challenges, run the recounts, and certify an official
national popular vote in a close election at least as quickly as the
Electoral College was decided in 2000. These are problems that are
resolved in parallel, not consecutively -- why should other states take
longer than Florida did?

 

The certified totals might ultimately prove to be incorrect, as they
were in Florida in 2000. But as 2000 shows
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000#
Post_recount> , the Electoral College can't save us from simply
certifying the wrong winner. If we don't like slow, uncertain,
inaccurate elections, the solution is to adopt national standards for
modern, reliable voting processes. We're a wealthy technological nation,
and it's an eminently solvable problem.

 

But set that aside for a minute. The more important point is that it's
better to have horrific legal battles and democracy than no horrific
legal battles and no democracy. Because you know what's easier to run
than a democracy? Any other system of government. "Easy" isn't what
democracy is about.

 

Counting every vote is a difficult logistical problem. The Electoral
College eases the vote counting process by ensuring that 3/4 of states
-- and their voters -- are essentially irrelevant to the election; care
and attention can then be focused on the minority of voters with the
lion's share of voting power. That's the core of this kind of practical
objection to the National Popular Vote: it's too much of a hassle to
accurately count my vote in Massachusetts or Tara's vote in Texas, so we
should avoid that necessity by giving Sean 44 times
<http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/>  as important a vote in
Virginia, and focus on counting his.

 

But that's not who we are, and it's not what the Electoral College is
for. It began as a means for state legislatures to select
representatives to debate and choose a President -- a republican strand
of our democratic republic. It lingers, zombie-like, to capriciously
reallocate voting power from some voters to others in a popular
election. It's not a structural choice; there is no rhyme or reason to
the states it chooses to favor. It gives us the questionable benefit of
ignoring the shoddiness of the voting systems in many parts of our
country, but it cuts against a principle we have consistently sacrificed
for: when a group of citizens select one among us to be our leader, each
of us is entitled to an equal vote.

 

It would be great (for so many reasons) if we could first build an
effective, reliable voting system, and then adopt an equal vote. But
that's never been how things go. First you win the right to vote, and
only then -- if then -- do they build the voting booths. Better long
lines than no lines at all.

 

Best,

Jack

 

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