Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

BBB, I agree totally. The electoral college is a sham now, and perhaps always has been.

We have an electoral college for the same reason we have a House and a Senate - to ensure that, while majority rules, the rights of minorities (in this case states with lower populations) aren't trampled. Individual states may allocate their electoral votes as they wish so, if you want it changed, work toward that change in your own state and the leave the rest of us aloone.

Idaho
Idaho, being a pragmatist, I agree that the change has to occur state by state because a constitutional amendment has little chance of passing. I've been advocating electoral college proportional allocation of votes reform for many years. But people never worried about it until the 2000 election, when the masses could see the undemocratic outcomes of the E.C. winner take all state statutes.

I disagree with your basis of the E.C. The slave states and slaves owners used the myth of protecting smaller states to hide their real reason for wanting the E.C., which primarily was to protect the continuation of slavery.

---BBB

BBC News
Q&A: The US Electoral College
An American president is not chosen directly by the people. Instead, an Electoral College is used. In a close election, the importance of the College grows.

Q: How does the Electoral College work?

A: Each state has a number of electors in the Electoral College equal to the total of its US senators (always two) and its representatives, which are determined by the size of the state's population. Technically, Americans vote for the electors not the candidate.

California, the most populous state, has 55 electoral votes. A few small states and the District of Columbia have only three.

There are 538 electors in the College. In all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, the College works on a winner-takes-all basis. The winner of the popular vote in a state gets all the Electoral College votes in that state.

To become president, a candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes. The winning candidate does not need to win the national popular vote.

Q: Why was the system chosen? [/B][/U]

A: When the United States was founded, a national campaign was almost impossible given the communications; states were jealous of their rights; political parties were suspect and the popular vote somewhat feared.

The framers of the Constitution in 1787 rejected both the election of the president by Congress - because of the separation of powers - and election by direct popular vote, on the grounds that people would vote for their local candidate and the big states would dominate.

Another factor was that Southern states favoured the College system. Slaves had no votes but counted as three-fifths of a person for computing the size of a state's population.

The original idea was that only the great and the good in each state would make up the electors in the Electoral College. Over the years the College has been changed to better reflect the popular will.

Q: Isn't it unfair that the winning candidate might get fewer popular votes?

A: This is seen as a major drawback of the system. In 2000 Al Gore won 48.38% of votes nationwide compared to George Bush's 47.87%. Ralph Nader took 2.74%. Yet Mr Bush won because he got 271 Electoral College votes compared to 266 for Mr Gore. The winning votes came from Florida whose 25 College seats all went to Mr Bush despite the difference between the two in the state's popular vote being only 537.

A similar thing happened in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison won in the College despite having fewer popular votes than Grover Cleveland.

Another drawback is that in many states the result is a foregone conclusion and there is thus little incentive for the individual to vote. It is also a disincentive for candidates to campaign there.

Q: So what are the advantages?

A: The Electoral College system is respected for its historical roots and because it does usually reflect the popular vote. It also gives greater weight to smaller states - one of the checks and balances the US Constitution values.

For example, the largest state, California, has 12.03% of the US population but its 55 Electoral College votes represent only 10.22% of the College total. Wyoming, a sparsely populated state, has 0.18% of the US population but its three seats in the Electoral College give it 0.56% of the College votes.

The College system also means that a candidate needs to get a spread of votes from across the country.

Q: What happens if no candidate gets a majority of Electoral College votes?

A: The decision is taken by the House of Representatives, because its seats are in proportion to the population and therefore reflects the popular will better than the Senate. Each state delegation, however, has only one vote, which means that the majority party in each delegation controls the vote. An absolute majority of states is required for election.

The vice-president is chosen by the Senate, with senators having an individual vote.

Q: Are the electors in the College bound to vote for their candidates?

A: In some states they have a free vote but in practice they vote for the candidates they are pledged to. In other states they are required to do so. From time to time, individuals or small groups, called "faithless" electors, vote for another candidate but this has happened only rarely and no result has been changed by it. In 2000 an elector from the District of Columbia abstained.

If the result is extremely close, a "faithless" elector could cause real trouble. The issue would probably have to be decided by the courts.

The electors are chosen by the parties before the election, often in a vote at a convention. The electors then meet in state capitals after the election (this year on Monday, 13 December) to cast their votes. The results are formally declared to the Senate on 6 January. The new president is inaugurated on 20 January.
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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/3736580.stm

Re: Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth


I agree that the Red/Blue comparison is based on the EC Allocation but I disagree that proportional allocation would eliminate the problem. It is much more likely that it would simply shift the focus from teh EC to the House of Representatives. Someone like Nadar could easily have run a campaign in such a way to win in only a handful of Congressional districts and eleiminated the possibility of an EC majority by any other candidate.

Instead of a divide based on EC delegates you'd have a divide based on party representation in the House. I'd be willing to bet that the map drawn after that wouldn't look much different that the maps drawn based on the EC as things sit right now.

First of all, going to the BBC for info on the way the US government works- couldn't we find a more relevant source?

Second, although slavery may have been one of the reasons, it certainly wasn't the only one, or the most compelling one. Link

If you think your vote doesn't count now, wait until we have no electoral college and presidential races are decided in NYC and LA and to hell with the rest of us. The fact is, if you look at the county by county maps, we don't have a state divide - we have an urban/rural divide. The electoral college is a fairly elegant way of ensuring the majority, while generally getting its way, cannot trample roughshod over the minority. It ensures the president is elected with a majority (of electors), ensures that voter fraud (if it occors) can extend only to the border of the state in which it occurs, keeps recounts localized (can you imagine a national recount - the horror!), and ensures that candidates pay some attention to more rural areas.

goooood post Idaho.

I just wish we could ban those annoying maps that show a county with 6,000,000 voters having the same impact as a section of Oklahoma that had 289 voters and 3,000 cows.

Joe (purple) Nation

Joe, you're all blue - from tip to toes.

Here's the Red State - Blue State myth revealed for the meme it is. This quasi-3D map originated as part of CBS Television's election coverage. The image shown here is the final rendition of what through the period over which election returns were reported had been a dynamically updating graphical depiction of voter preference distribution. As explained in this Information Week ARTICLE:



A much larger, high-resolution version is available HERE for those who wish to see it in greater detail. A Flash animation showing the map's night-long evolution condensed into about 30 seconds is available HERE (Broadband connection recommended)

As readily may be seen, far and away the greatest proportion of counties voted majority Republican, shown in red. Thats well known, and unremarkable. However, what is remarkable - striking, actually - is that, as shown by this map's 3D representation, by far the greatest proportion of the Democratic vote derived from America's largest metro areas ... which often were the sole islands of Democratic voter preference within an otherwise essentially "Red" state. The Democratic Party largely has become the party of urbanites, its core support all but isolated within the enclaves of megalopolises. Clinging to the myth of "An equally divided nation" does The Democratic Party no service whatsoever; quite the contrary, in fact. If The Democratic Party continues to fail to connect with the people who do not live in major cities, its prospects are bleak indeed.

And, as an aside, a more concrete example of the wisdom of our forefathers and argument for the Electoral College would be difficult to imagine. "The System" works as it was designed to work, and is itself a key reason The US and its form of government-of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people has been around over 2 centuries.

BBB
Did I say I wanted the electoral college eliminated by a constitutional amendment? No! I said I wanted states to change their laws to provide for proportional allocation of EC votes, which would reflect the popular vote. Why do you have a problem with that?

Why do you prefer winner take all EC votes? Do you acknowledge that winner take all changes the choices voters make?

Shouldn't the winner take all method apply only to the popular vote of all the states? Isn't that more democratic?

Why does the winner take all only apply to election of the president/vice president? If it is so great, then why aren't all elections handled that way?

BBB

BBB,

Your arguments are based on the assumption that "more democratic" is a good thing.

The best parts of our system of government, for example the Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court, are decidedly undemocratic-- that is they are designed to yield decisions that are not decided by the majority of people.

Our current problems are all caused by the fundamental problem of Democracy-- educated and refined citizens get the same voice as the less educated and less intellegent.

Don't you think that the people who know the world wasn't created in six days have a better idea of the direction our country should take? Doesn't education, civility and knowledge count for anything?

Our founding fathers knew that the uneducated and uncultured were not ready to lead a country in a civilized manner. Let's not continue to take away the protections they wisely gave us.

Repost from November 7, in another thread:

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And here's yet another different way to look at it.

After all, America isn't really divided up neatly in red and blue - not even after these elections. It's still, in varying degrees, purple.

Someone thought of a way to visualise that, too. Well, MSNBC did, apparently. And one Michael J. Totten posted it on his blog. Here we are:




Of course, if you can do it by state, you can do it by county. They thought of that, too.

From a Princeton Univ website (more precisely, from the 2004 Elections page of Robert J. Vanderbei), we get:




Check out the one he's got on 2000 too and look for the differences (not easy to spot). Also click that link to see a version of the map where he turned high-density population areas into "mountains".

BM

This is pretty funny. Apparently, some dumbkoff in Minnesota voted for Edwards instead of Kerry, and now Kerry will get one less electoral vote (251 instead of 252) LOL.

Freudian slip, perhaps? LOL. The guy then also votes for Edwards for VP (oops, against the Constitution).

And.....LOL....he spelled Edwards "Ewards"....LOL, as in "ewwww"? Too funny....y'all have to read it to believe it.



http://startribune.com/stories/587/5134791.html

The CBS cartograph posted by timber has been roundly trounced. It's not any more valid (in the mathematical/statistical senses) than the last time he posted it.

Re: BBB


Apparently, Colorado didn't think much of your idea.

Re: BBB

Em, I have a practical problem with it. It would guarantee an even bigger Republican majority in Congress than you have now. Just calculate it - how the EC vote would be dvided up by state and what that would make the totals - and you'll see. Sounds counterinstinctual, but its true.

Re: Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth



The experience in Canada would suggest that a minority government is one that gets more useful things done - the requirement to get co-operation usually results in sensible legislation.

nimh
nimh, you assume, incorrectly, that I want to change the system to favor Democrats.

WRONG!

My reason is for everyone's vote to count as they intended. Not to have anyone's vote changed by the winner take all laws in favor of someone they didn't support.

BBB

Re: Red & Blue States divide is a manufactured myth

Hm, but we're talking the Electoral College here, not parliament. The EC only ever votes once in the four years, I gather, to elect the President - they have no other function. So its not like the lack of a majority for any candidate in the EC is going to yield a third party the opportunity to "withdraw'' its support along the way, based on the direction the government is going, during the four years. Its just the one-time decision. So its a different animal.

Wasn't there a famous case in US electoral history where the candidate with the most votes (both popular + EC) did not get the presidency because the third party electors (quite unexpectedly) threw their weight down behind the second-in-place? I remember such a story, but I cant place it ... Set would know, if it was indeed America I'm thinking of ...