Re: A Popular Debate

["Greg Dennis" <gdennis@>]

 I didn't expect to see a discussion of the NPV interstate compact on
here, but as long as there is, I feel the need to defend it.

> I think the electoral college has it quirks, but it's worked
> pretty well.

The Electoral College determines that a vote for President in Wyoming
is worth 4 times a vote for President in California. It also relegates
2/3 of the country (the non-swing states) to spectators when it comes
to presidential elections. It also has a racial bias in terms of whose
electoral votes matter most. I wouldn't classify any of these features
as working "pretty well." No wonder 72% (!) of the public wants to
elect the president by a direct popular vote instead.

> If you want to change it go ahead and amend the
> constitution. If you can't do that, then leave it alone.

First, to correct, the NPV does "leave it alone." It doesn't change
anything in the Constitution. The states are given complete power to
determine for themselves how they allocate their electors. They aren't
even required to hold elections to choose them, and if you go back far
enough, some states in fact didn't.

Many of the amendments to the Constitution since the bill of rights
deal with electoral reform and the right to vote, and they weren't
suddenly added one day by a benevolent Congress. They started first
with individual states signing on, in an incremental fashion, until
there was sufficient national support and momentum for a
Constitutional amendment. To make a guess, I doubt we'll see the NPV
compact ever take effect -- once it comes close, Congress will
probably respond to the pressure and just eliminate the EC directly. I
think you should look at the NPV compact more as a mechanism for
building that pressure.

> I think that encouraging
> people to vote is a good thing.

No disagreement here. But the Electoral College has the effect of
*discouraging* turnout in 2/3 of the country that don't matter to the
presidential election. If every vote mattered, more people would vote.

> I also have big problems with combining
> vote totals from different states -- especially if everyone plays by
> different rules, I don't see how it's fair. I don't want my vote
> affected by some elderly folks in Florida who mess up a ballot, or by
> some person in the midwest whose goal is to keep people from voting
> because their house was foreclosed on.

All good points, and another reason to support a move to dump the
Electoral College. The EC has the effect of *magnifying* small, local
problems like the ones you bring up into national concerns, because
they could have the effect of flipping a close swing state to the
other candidate. If we had NPV, the butterfly ballot in 2000 would
have been a problem largely isolated to Palm Beach County, diluted by
the popular vote nationwide. Due to the EC, it could very well have
changed who was elected President.

> What if the vote is so close you
> need a recount?

If you need a recount, then you need a recount. Countries around the
world have provisions for recounts. California, with a population
larger than Canada or Australia, has a provision for recounts in the
case of close elections. In the rare case a recount is needed, then we
can wait a few days to get the answer right. The world won't come to
an end in the meantime.

- Greg