Much has been said in opposition to the Election College, so it is useful when arguments are made in support of it, in order to see how convincing they are. Benjamin Zycher provided a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, a conservative free market think tank one such argument in a guest piece. The nature of the organization might be unknown to readers of the piece, and its relevance to the immediate issue is somewhat unclear.
Of course, the current occupant is in the White House because of the Electoral College, but some scenarios have him ironically losing in 2004 on account of it -- turn about is fair play? And, since the "popular will" both is checked by the Electoral College and is not so gung ho about some of PRIPP's policies, this too makes it useful for readers to be aware of the background of their organization. The same would apply no matter what the ideology, and others might think the liberal nature of a writer on gun control would also be helpful to know.
On to the arguments of the piece, one subtitled "Forcing Candidates to Broaden Their Base Reduces Political Extremism." The author suggests the system can
provide candidates with incentives to broaden their geographic and political bases and to steer toward the center rather than the extremes of the political spectrum.
This, the founders felt, would help reduce the sources of political strife and, in the extreme case, avoid civil war. They understood that passions and irrationalities can afflict mass decision-making under direct democracy.
The geographic diversity appeal of the Electoral College turns out to be less useful when we look at the actual results. From the beginning, electoral votes tended to be grouped by section, the winner take all system only furthering this tendency. For instance in 1796, John Adams picked up a few stray electoral votes (like one can now do in Maine and Nebraska) in the South, and thus won the presidency. Such a result led to the move toward winner take all systems in which even a bare majority of the popular vote statewide (including results involving a few regions in a large state like California) will result in all the electoral votes going to that candidate.
This plus the reality that only a few "battleground" states are truly in contention, results in selective campaigning. In fact, in large states, a candidate might benefit from campaigning in select areas of the state, if the votes would add up the right way. And, as in 2000, some regions vote Democrat, some Republican.
The idea that those with support favoring certain regions are burdened by the system just does not match history. The example of Al Gore in 2000 is used, but again, it doesn't help his case. At best, it proves supports the idea of an Electoral College because the stars (popular vote) aligned perfectly. At worse, it put in the White House someone that didn't even win in Florida, a controversy that probably would not have arisen if we had a popular vote system. And, given a mere thousand vote swing, and Gore would have won the state and election.
Colorado will vote for an initiative supporting a system that would proportionally allocate the electoral votes, which would arguably help geographic diversity. Candidates would benefit from campaigning in states that might not vote for them overall, but in which they would pick up a few electoral votes, especially if we are talking about large states. Zycher notes such a system, which is surely allowable under the Electoral College, would "induce candidates to shift their efforts and resources to uncompetitive states, where there are large numbers of electoral votes to be had."
It is unclear if he finds this a good idea or not. Nonetheless, he does note the current system encourages candidates to move on to another state once they determined they have a plurality. A close election, however, makes such assurance often unlikely, resulting in selective campaigning in a few key states. And, quite likely both sides will in fact compete over a few states, ignoring chunks of voters elsewhere in the process. Both systems could thus promote targeted campaigns.
The Electoral College is also said to motion a centrist political system and limit the power of third parties. Current realities again lead one to question this argument. It is true that our system promotes centrism, but it is done in any number of ways, and the importance of the Electoral College is rather unclear.
Second, our current political system in fact promotes the power of special interest groups, especially in the primary campaigns. Next, a closely fought election does raise the importance of third parties, which again are limited by any number of factors. For instance, the fact so few local and state officials are members of third parties surely is not a result of the Electoral College! And, of course, some might say third parties are not exactly a bad thing.
The importance of "passions and irrationalities" in the current system surely suggests that value leaves something to be desired. The Electoral College in fact is a grand anachronism, a mere shadow of how it was originally intended to be carried out, including the use of electors tied to popular votes. And, it sets up a system that lays in wait, jumping up with some unintended consequence every so often. A few examples or near misses of the "wrong" President being elected, "rare occasions," or not (toss in just one near miss, we are talking about elections affecting ten percent of the occupants of the office).
An elector in this election suggests he might vote against the candidate he is aligned to, an election which sets up various 269-269 scenarios. The system also has tie breaker that results in a few members of the House of Representative deciding things, surely as troubling as "disproportionate bargaining power to regional and ideological fringes" supplied in runoff election scenarios. Scenarios much less likely if instant runoff voting is used. And, our current system sets up just such bargaining power scenario, including a few voters in say Nevada being more important than millions in New York, a state likely to be a sure Kerry win.
He concludes:
Yes, the electoral college is easy to poke fun at. Yes, it occasionally frustrates the will of the plurality or majority. But the founding fathers understood the dangers of direct democracy and struggled to create a system that reflected the will of the people while constraining the majority. The electoral college serves those ends well.
The current form of the Electoral College really does not serve those ends well. Not only is it more of a direct democracy than the founding fathers surely would have liked, but current realities make many of its original purposed outdated. This last point in fact was not even mentioned by the editorial, such as the lack of a truly national media and modern communication systems, or concerns arising from slavery or a nation much more state centered than it is today.
An editorial can only do so much, so I don't really mind the fact it was not discussed, but it should be underlined. The main point is that even if we accept there is some benefit to the Electoral College in theory, in practice, the benefits turn out to be quite debatable. And, the problems remain as well, resulting in a cost/benefit analysis that makes the system at best a wash, at worst, a troubling outdated system with a dangerous down side.