(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
In two days, the presidential election will be held and we will presumably learn who the President for the next four years will be. In two days, I hope this essay will not seem very important but I am concerned it will be.
For the second time in twelve years and the fifth time in the nation’s history the winner of the popular vote may lose the electoral vote and therefore the presidency. This time it could be the Republican who finds himself shortchanged by an antiquated electoral mechanism. A number of pundits think Mitt Romney could win the popular vote and Barack Obama could win a majority of electoral votes and secure reelection. I hope whoever wins does so with the most votes so that we can avoid the controversy of the 2000 election. Regardless, it’s time to abolish this obsolete system.
Pop Quiz: Can you name the three candidates who received votes in the 2004 Electoral College? The correct answers are George W. Bush (286), John Kerry (251) and John Ewards (1). No, you did not read a typo. Not only did a Minnesota elector vote for Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards for both President and Vice President, but he or she could not spell his ordinary last name correctly. Four years earlier, a District of Columbia elector, Barbara Lett-Simmons, abstained from voting for Al Gore despite the fact he won the District’s three electoral votes. She was protesting the lack of voting representation for the national capital in Congress. Considering George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes (270 is needed to win the presidency), it seems reckless to protest with a vote that could have changed the outcome of the election. Imagine if several Bush electors decided to vote for Gore because he won the popular vote. Lett-Simmons’ vote could theoretically have mattered; though I doubt the Bush legal team would let that occur without a challenge.
Despite the potential for rogue electors to alter the will of their state or district’s voters, only twenty-four states still have laws to punish faithless electors. Yet only once did the Electoral College fail to elect a candidate that it should have. Richard M. Johnson’s election as Vice President in 1836 was decided in the Senate after twenty-three Virginia electors did not vote for him for personal reasons; Johnson had fathered illegitimate children with one of his former slaves and acknowledged his relationship with her. These historical footnotes touch on the inherent, though unlikely, danger of 538 electors overriding the will of millions of voters. The real problem is the Electoral College can act properly and still not elect the candidate chosen by the national electorate.
We forget in 2012 that for much of this country’s history most people saw themselves as (insert your state here) first and Americans second. The United States of America was founded as a federation of thirteen rebellious British colonies with very distinct cultures and identities. This sectionalism became an increasingly difficult problem as the contentious slavery issue splintered the nation in the mid-nineteenth century. Two quotations by Confederate General Robert E. Lee eloquently describe the importance of one’s allegiance to state then.
"I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty." Spring 1861
“I devote myself to the service of my native State in whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my sword.” April 23, 1861
You may hold a sense of pride in your state but I doubt you would consider someone a traitor for relocating from one state to another one. Look at the backgrounds of the two major presidential candidates. Barack Obama is an Illinois resident but has lived in Hawaii, Washington (state), California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington (the national capital) as well as Indonesia. Mitt Romney has lived in Michigan, California, Utah and Massachusetts as well as France. I may be missing a few stops but you get the point. George Washington lived in Virginia virtually his entire life with the exception of military campaigns and service in New York and Philadelphia as the first president. I believe his sole trip abroad was accompanying his half-brother Lawrence to Barbados in 1751. We are a much more mobile people now. Education and jobs take many of us far away from our native state. Segmenting our presidential vote by the state name on our driver license seems arbitrary and antithetical to the spirit of choosing national leader.
Voting rights are extremely important in a representative democracy. Six amendments in the Constitution address voting issues. Some of the more important American political movements of the past two centuries used suffrage as a centerpiece issue. Whether racial (1860s and 1960s), gender (early twentieth century until 1920), or youth (lowering the voting age to eighteen to enfranchise many soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War), voting rights campaigns have been proxy fights for better achieving equality under the law. I feel the Electoral College discriminates geographically. Major candidates should have to pander appeal to everyone and not just voters in the so-called “swing” states. Living in Ohio or Florida shouldn’t increase the value of your vote but right now it does. Why should a Cincinnati resident’s vote count more than someone who lives across the river in Kentucky? Does it seem fair that the candidates are basically ignoring New York, California and Texas or nearly 30% of the population?
I think it would be more equitable to force more nationally-focused campaigns. Imagine Barack Obama speaking to crowds in Dallas or Mitt Romney campaigning in New York City. At the very least, it might engage more people in the national debate. If we ever hope to breach the 60% voter turnout threshold last seen in the 1960s (the last two elections have produced around 57%), this is one way to do so. The lawsuits that emerged in the fallout of the 2000 election will be less likely to reappear. When one state decides an election, it behooves all sides to fight for those electoral votes. If the popular vote decided the winner, I doubt we’d see such fallout again.
Even in the razor-thin 1968 and 2000 elections, the popular vote winners won by over 500,000 votes. It would be awfully hard to litigate a candidate to victory as the absolute numbers grow larger. It is much easier when a state vote is separated by 537 votes as it was in Florida in 2000. Hopefully, this would discourage voter fraud efforts. It is a lot harder to coordinate election improprieties on a national scale than on the state and local levels. Lastly, the Electoral College would be one more expense we can slash from the federal income statement (albeit a small item).
As I mentioned earlier, I hope the Electoral College does not become an issue this year. Nevertheless, in a stridently polarized political landscape, it’s time to make the popular vote the ultimate arbiter of presidential elections. If we want every vote to matter, I believe it’s the only sensible path to take.
