Major flaws in the Electoral College

So now that we know what the Electoral College is, what do we think about it?

Position

The Electoral College in its current state has two major flaws, which may be ameliorated by changing the system but we are probably better off scrapping it entirely and going to a straight popular vote for president.

flaws in the EC

As it happens I can excerpt one sentence from the article I linked to above which demonstrates both flaws:

A Wyoming voter counts more than 3x as much as a California voter, but only if he votes in the majority (for their state).

To see the reasoning behind this statement see the linked article.

The first flaw:

A Wyoming voter counts more than 3x as much as a California voter, but only if he votes in the majority (for their state).

The first flaw is one of disproportionate representation. Because of the mathematics of how Electors are assigned not everyone's vote has equal weight. One of the more reprehensible compromises made at the creation of this country was the so called "three fifths compromise," which allowed Southern states to count their slaves as 3/5th of a "real" person for purposes of establishing representation.

But Californians are counted as less than 1/3rd of the value of a citizen of Wyoming currently. This is the most extreme example (comparing the most populous state to the least populous state). Other comparisons are not so stark and yet any deviation from the basic concept that all votes are equal is extremely troubling.

Now there are simple ways to fix the EC to remove this flaw. By simply setting the number of Electors to be directly proportionate to the population of the state (or district for DC) this flaw can be greatly diminished. There may still be some small problems due to the granularity of the apportionment, i.e. if you have one elector for every 50,000 people then voters in a state with 100,000 people are worth "more" than voters in a state with 125,000 people. The only way to avoid this and have a vote that is truly proportionate is to go to direct popular elections.

The second flaw:

A Wyoming voter counts more than 3x as much as a California voter, but only if he votes in the majority (for their state).

This is by far the more troubling issue. Whereas the first problem was one of disproportionate representation this is a matter of explicit disenfranchisement.

There are two ways that a person can be said to be disenfranchised. In the first they can be directly prevented from voting. In the second their vote can simply not matter. If a voter's votes are shredded rather than counted then they are disenfranchised. It doesn't matter that they went through the motions of voting, what matters is whether their makes any difference to the contest. That is not to say that they must win the contest by the power of their vote but if you subtract their vote and nothing changes then they were never really voting, and were in fact disenfranchised.

Consider these two cases

Jane Smith goes to the voting booth in November. She casts a vote for a governor candidate who it turns out loses. She also casts a vote for a presidential candidate who fails to take her state.

In the case of the vote she made for governor her side failed to carry the day, but her vote in small part determined the winner's margin of victory. She can say "I didn't win but my vote mattered, without me my candidate would have lost worse." This is not the case for the presidential race. Because she voted for a candidate who did not take the state her vote was entirely irrelevant.

Don't believe me? Here is how it has played out in real life:

In Oregon in 2000 47% of the population turned out to vote for Bush. That’s some 700,000 voters. 47% also turned out for Gore. Gore won the popular vote by less than .5% of the total vote (7,000 votes) and so got Oregon’s 7 elctoral votes. Now what would have happened if every single one of the Bush voters had stayed home? Exact same situation. Gore still gets the 7 electoral votes, and the electoral votes are the only ones that matter in deciding the presidential contest.

You cannot say that the loss of some 700,000 votes to bush would change the contest one whit. Bush would still have gotten 271 EVs and Gore still would have gotten 266 EVs. Very nearly half the electorate in Oregon was disenfranchised by the Electoral system; their votes mattered not at all. In every state the winner take all system of the EC disenfranchises thousands every presidential election year.

There are possible methods to lesson this effect. Rather than a winner take all the Electors can be apportioned based on the popular vote of the state. Another option is to have all state Electors vote for the winner of the national popular vote. The former option reduces the amount of disenfranchisement but due, again, to the granularity of having so few represent so many, it does not remove it entirely. The latter option is the best option that retains the EC, but since it makes the EC entirely redundant why bother?
Conclusion

The Electoral College has two grave flaws in its ability to support the democratic ideals of this nation. Those flaws can be ameliorated in part by making changes to the system or they can be alleviated entirely by scrapping it and moving to a direct popular election for President. A popular vote system is already in place and is indeed already tallied every year. By scrapping the EC we can both save ourselves some small amount of money as well as make the system better as a whole.

Fixing the Electoral College will be as difficult as scrapping it (requiring an amendment either way). That being the case there is no reason not to go for the big win. This is not a fight where incrementalism will work.

Lastly under principles of federalism ideas are tried out at the state level for use by other states and the federal government. I know of no state that does not have direct election of their governors. If the system is universally accepted at the state level it is time to deem it a success and bring it into the federal govenment.
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