Major campaign underway to nullify Electoral College

[muon2]

I ran across a relevant article from Discover magazine in 1996. I'll have to look up the actual paper its based on, but the theory is interesting. It suggests that given that there are more uneven elections than there are even elections, voter power is maximized in an electoral college system compared to direct voting. Baseball fans will particularly appreciate the case study in the article.

[muon2]

Add David Broder, the senior columnist for the Washington Post to those opposed to this idea. His column today explains why.

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[muon2]

This idea won't go away and is even starting to gain a little momentum:
National Popular Vote plan cleared the Colorado Senate on April 17th.

Bills have been introduced in California, Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri. California and Missouri have scheduled hearings for April 25, and the senate and house bills in Illinois have 25 sponsors, including leading Republicans, Democrats and independents.

The House bill in IL has 18 sponsors (16 D, 2 R) and has not been scheduled for any hearing by committee. It would seem unlikely to move this late in the session.

The Senate bill has seven sponsors (5 D, 1 R, 1 I) and also has been left to die in Rules since it was filed.

[muon2]

In IL bills were filed in both the House and Senate. The Senate bill was never moved from the Rules Committee. The House bill was initially dead when it was not referred to any committee by the Mar 23 deadline. However, the Rules Committee acted on Mar 29 to extend the deadline to Apr 30 and it was assigned to the Elections and Campaign Reform committee. If it's heard and acted on by that date it has life and can move to the Senate.

[muon2]

The IL House passed the electoral college compact act earlier this week. In the end the voting was strictly along party lines with one exception. If that pattern continues then it should easily be approved by the Senate and Governor as well. However, the original Senate version was never released from Rules Committee, so the House version may or may not see the same fate.

I found it interesting that the debate had no effect, and few seemed to care at all about the ramifications in the decades to come when there might be three or four strong candidates in a race. The proponents didn't really want to consider any what-ifs. It was clear that in IL it was a purely partisan issue and Dems saw it as an advantage in the next one or two cycles and that was all that mattered.

[muon2]

The Hawaii Senate has overridden Lingle's veto. The House has adjourned and will consider overriding the veto in July.

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/05/03/hawaii-legislature-will-decide-on-national-popular-vote-plan-in-july/

The IL House passed the electoral college compact act earlier this week. In the end the voting was strictly along party lines with one exception. If that pattern continues then it should easily be approved by the Senate and Governor as well. However, the original Senate version was never released from Rules Committee, so the House version may or may not see the same fate.

I found it interesting that the debate had no effect, and few seemed to care at all about the ramifications in the decades to come when there might be three or four strong candidates in a race. The proponents didn't really want to consider any what-ifs. It was clear that in IL it was a purely partisan issue and Dems saw it as an advantage in the next one or two cycles and that was all that mattered.

Sen. Kirk Dillard (R) is supporting the Compact in Illinois, so it clearly isn't strictly partisan. Rep. Jim Durkin (R) cosponsored the compact in 2006; I assume he was the one not voting along partisan lines in the House this time.

One could of course argue that it was the Republicans who were opposing it because they saw partisan disadvantage, a position strengthened by the fact that some few Republicans supported it but no Democrats opposed it. Unfortunately, the immediate assumption is that the opposition, whoever they are, is seeking partisan advantage, so debate rarely achieves changes in votes anyway.

Durkin voted against it in the House this year. Rep. Froehlich was the only crossover.

[muon2]

They say that no idea is ever dead in the legislature. The IL bills with the electoral compact language had both been killed in Senate Rules before the constitutional deadline. In a common trick, another election bill was gutted and amended to have the compact language. Rules released it the day before the deadline and it was approved. The Senate vote was not quite as partisan with three R's voting in favor and 3 D's opposed. Since this was an amended House bill it now must return to the House for a vote to concur with the amendment. The House will likely take it up sometime next week.

[muon2]

Thought I'd bump this to mention that New Jersey passed the Compact a couple of weeks ago. Since the campaign seems to be dying down, I haven't been paying much attention.

Illinois is waiting on Blagojevich's signature, which I believe he has stated he will provide.

Technically it only arrived at the Governor's desk on Feb 7, as the Speaker held the bill the maximum number of days after its passage on Jan 9. The bill was called that day since there was a nearly full complement of legislators prepared to pass a major and somewhat controversial mass transit bill. The bill was passed on partisan lines with three votes to spare.

The Gov has up to 60 days to act on the bill from the day it arrived. Since the action on this bill is rooted in part on Obama's candidacy, there may be some timing on the Gov's part before signing.

[muon2]

it was a purely partisan issue and Dems saw it as an advantage in the next one or two cycles and that was all that mattered.

Come on, you know that this is trivializing this whole issue. If there had been a uniform 2.2% swing to Kerry in the 2004 election, he would have won Ohio and the election while losing the popular vote. Nixon tried to get rid of the popular vote. This current Interstate Compact campaign has former Senator Garn R-UT,  former Senator Durenberger R-MN, former Rep. John Buchanan R-AL, former Rep. Tom Campbell R-CA, and Republican and then Independent John Anderson for it.

I understand the national interest in the plan that often brings bipartisan groups together. If there was a threshold for success, like the 40% level originally proposed for the amendment, I could view this idea favorably.

However, I can tell you that in the IL legislature it was a partisan vote seen as one with partisan advantage. There are only a handful of votes each year that split the House exactly along partisan lines. When it does you can be certain that it was viewed in terms of partisan advantage, not based on national policy.

A cynic might also note that a legislature could rescind participation. If the polls showed a year like 2004 in the offing, with the possibility of a D win in the EC while losing the popular vote, it wouldn't be surprising if IL backed out of the compact.

[muon2]

He waited until the last possible day, but Gov Blagojevich signed the NPV bill today. That adds IL to MD and NJ for a total of 46 committed EV to the compact.

[muon2]

Vermont's governor vetoed the NPV today. The legislature has adjourned so no override is possible.

[muon2]

The pace to nullify the EC is picking up, so far this year:

Colorado House Passes National Popular Vote Bill
Oregon House Passes National Popular Vote Bill
New Mexico House Passes National Popular Vote Bill
Arkansas House, Washington House, and Vermont Senate Pass National Popular Vote Bill


I think there is a good chance this plan will be in effect by 2012

Even if enough states pass it, don't forget that tthis is done by state statute. Any legislature that doesn't like the way 2012 might turn out can just as easily repeal their state law before the electors would be certified. Only a constitutional amendment can change the system and not leave it open to partisan whim.

[muon2]

Even if enough states pass it, don't forget that tthis is done by state statute. Any legislature that doesn't like the way 2012 might turn out can just as easily repeal their state law before the electors would be certified. Only a constitutional amendment can change the system and not leave it open to partisan whim.

Not legally they can't. If a state wants to pull out of the compact they have to do so 6 months before the election. Otherwise, they are locked in for that election and would be breaking the compact if they did not allocate use the electors of the popular vote winner.

Generally a legislative act cannot bind a future legislature from changing that act. Other states cannot generally bind a legislature from withdrawing from an interstate compact. I'm also not sure how binding the compact is before the nominees are selected and their electors are filed on the ballot.

In IL special legislation was needed in 2004 and 2008 to allow for the GOP electors to be on the ballot since the convention was after Sep 1. Rules that provided for ballot access could not overcome that, so the law was amended.

[muon2]

muon2 and VP Meeker, according to national Popular Vote it is unconstitutional for a state to pull out of the compact during the aforementioned 6 month period (which is actually prior to innauguration, not the election like I had said). For sure this would be a court challenge. But presumably many Constitutional lawyers have assured them this is very much binding.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/faqitem.php?f=19

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I've heard that, but has the impairment clause been shown to trump other constitutional rights? For instance Art 2, Sec1 says "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, ..." which gives the state legislature supreme authority over its electors. I'm not convinced that a legislature can give away that right, especially if a future legislature wishes to exercise it in a different manner.

OTOH the specific FAQ referenced a potential change post election. Many if not all states would prohibit a late change in electors through their own state laws and decisions. I would expect it to be difficult to change the method once the electors are selected for the ballot after the convention, since they would be governed by the rules at the time they were filed.

[muon2]

FWIW (repost from Washington thread)

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The web page for the bill shows no amendments that were passed. It should go to the Gov next.

Some of the proposed amendments were quite interesting and might be improvements to the bill. However, a change in one state would render it useless until other states in the compact also accepted the change.

[muon2]

Hm. To me, it seems that there's a problem with a bare majority of the states deciding to completely change the way we elect a President, especially if the other states have opposed this compact. I really don't want half the states telling the other half of the states that they don't have a say anymore, especially if they have rejected this compact.

It strikes me that this is exactly why this plan is against the spirit of the Constitution. As you point out this would create a system where a number of states with the majority of electors decide the system for electing the President, effectively overruling the method in the Constitution. The appropriate means to change a constitutionally defined system is to amend the Constitution, but that requires 3/4 of the states as well as 2/3 of each branch of Congress. The proponents feel they have found a loophole that allows the constitutional system to be avoided.

The second problem is that in a close election, the voters of a state adopting this method may well feel disenfranchised. Essentially the legislature of the state has given away their power to determined the status of their electors to the will of the whole 50 states. Suppose you were a Democrat in IL in 2004 and Ohio had narrowly voted for Kerry instead of Bush. The compact then would have forced your state's electors to vote for Bush, even though Kerry carried your state by a large margin. My guess is that you would not have been be very happy at all with the result.

[muon2]

State governments don't deserve any representation. I don't care what the founders intended. State lines are artificial, why should I believe that precisely the lines that were drawn for states should determine the composition of the federal legislature? Why can't I divide New York into two parts and then demand that they get two senators each?

I only care about the people being represented equally.

The State of New York could petition Congress to do exactly that. We've had threads on California's referendum to split. Historically, the big states have preferred to stay together when presented with a choice to split. I might conclude that they feel their size outweighs the extra representation the public would get in the Senate.

Governments throughout the world deal with bodies that at best approximate equality. The Council of the EU has one member to each member state regardless of population, and uses unweighted votes for some actions. Even the weighted vote gives Italy the same vote as Germany even though it has only 3/4 of Germany's population. Poland has 27 weighted votes compared to Germany's 29, but Poland has less than half the population. Malta has 3 votes but about 1/200th of Germany's population. That gives a person from Malta about 20 times the voting power of a German.

Representative districts in other countries are usually less precisely divided than the ones in the US. Very few countries gerrymander districts to get exact population equality the way we do. I don't think that level of gerrymandering necessarily serves the public.

Closer to home in IL the elected Supreme Court give 3 of 7 seats to Cook County. The Cook seats are elected countywide which is dominated by Chicago. It effectively gives Chicago 43% of the Court with about 23% of the state's population.

[muon2]

Would you Democrats be OK with keeping the Electoral College if Gore would have won the EV and Bush would have won the PV? You know that many people considered this to be a serious possiblity right before the 2000 election.

Of course not. The Electoral College is an inherently undemocratic system, no matter who winds up winning it.

The executive branch isn't supposed to be fully Democratic, that's the congress' job. Just like a Prime Minister isn't directly elected.

Because it's Democratic to have the 21 least popular states block any legislation in the Senate.

That's an issue with the Senate rule, not the federal system. In principle, the House could have a supermajority cloture rule.

[muon2]

1. Ballot Access
The NPVIC strongly assumes that only the Republican and Democratic parties matter.  The agreeing States are not having to adopt identical ballot access rules (and even if they did, the non compacting States are not).  Not only that, but in the circumstances that major (i.e. they got EVs) third party efforts have been made, they regularly do not end up on the ballot in every state, and in some cases have displaced the major party candidates from the ballot in that State so that they were not on the ballot everywhere.

2. Close Elections
The NPVIC makes the problem of a close election national and provides no mechanism to effectively deal with it. In 1960, the national PV margin was less than 0.2%, a margin that in many States would trigger an automatic recount and in the remainder would usually allow the loser to demand a recount.  In 1880, the margin was less than 0.1%. Yet there is no provision for recounts being triggered in such a close election, and even if they were, no way to get the noncompacting states to join in on a recount.

I find point 2 troubling as well. I wonder what would happen to the electors of a state that provides for an automatic recount in close elections. With the NPVIC the electors would presumably need a recount from other states since the election depends on the national vote. This looks like certain litigation should it occur.

My other concern is related to point 1 but perhaps in a different way - there is no runoff provision for candidates in a large field. If there is an election with multiple candidates it's quite possible that none come close to a majority. There's no runoff or IRV in the NPVIC so there is no way to create a majority as the EC has presently. The proposed constitutional amendment in 1969 to replace the EC set a 40% threshold to identify a popular vote winner and a runoff otherwise; it passed the House but was killed in the Senate.

[muon2]

Very few people support this on principle, most just do because of bitterness over 2000.

Very few people support the popular vote determining who wins the election? I doubt that. Now granted, this is just a way to achieve that goal.....but the principle behind the idea is the same.

But again, some latte liberal in Massachusetts will support this until his state's electoral votes go to Sarah Palin.

The electoral votes are irrelevant under this system....they don't count for anything.

Actually they do count, they are just assigned differently than in the current system. Assume the compact is in force and take the given example of Palin over Obama. Under the compact MA would seat a slate of Palin electors to vote in the EC. The compact guarantees that if no electors are faithless, then the candidate with the highest popular vote total would command a majority of electors. The slates of electors remain a real part of this system, that's how it survives a constitutional challenge.

[muon2]

What is their rationale for opposing this ? "Democrats support it, so it sucks" ? Or "Electoral college will always help us in close elections" ?

There were two frequent rationales cited by the RNC members. One was that the system is not so broken that it needs this fix, which will likely have unintended consequences. The other was the recognition that the founders intended to provide an additional boost to smaller states in the republic, and NPVIC would alter that balance.

The Electoral College does not always help the GOP in close elections. OH was quite close in 2004, and if it had gone for Kerry then he would have won the EC with a larger PV deficit to Bush than Bush had to Gore.

One consequence I worry about is the emergence of a fringe candidate who can win with less than a majority. There was a PV Amendment floated in Congress 40 years ago, and it had a runoff provision to protect against this possibility. The NPVIC entirely lacks a runoff provision for candidates with less than a majority. Parliamentary systems require a majority to run the government. The EC system has a runoff in the House, and countries such as France have a direct runoff for president.

[muon2]

So there's talk now about how Obama is doing better in statewide polls than he is in national polls.  While it's quite a longshot, what do you think would be the impact on the NPV's prospects if Obama ends up winning reelection via the electoral college despite losing the national popular vote?  Would enough Republicans suddenly become supporters that it would start passing in heavily GOP states, and actually manage to reach 270 EV and be enacted by the end of the decade?

I don't see small GOP-controlled states going that way. The EC gives them more voice than NPVIC. It would be interesting to watch a state like TX, however. They could suddenly be on the radar for presidential campaigns with NPVIC in place.

I still think the proposal is deficient without a runoff clause, but most backers from either party aren't concerned about the unintended consequences. I imagine a multi-party race with an extreme candidate taking a plurality like Le Pen nearly did in the 1st round of 2002 in France.

[muon2]

I don't see a multi-party system developing any time soon.

Three-way races are not uncommon, and this type of proposal would encourage multiple presidential candidates. There's nothing wrong with that if there's a mechanism to provide a runoff. The EC does that in a pre-modern-technology way. Any modern proposal should be able to address an outcome with a small minority plurality, and relying on the fact that it hasn't happened recently does not provide me with comfort when it come to the presidency.

[muon2]

What we need is a Republican winning the popular vote and losing in the EC. With 2012 being closer, it could have happened. And it's even more likely to happen during the two elections before the next reapportionment.

In 2012 Obama built a structural majority in the EC. A look at the polling showed him running ahead in the EV even when losing the PV. Nationally the parties see things like the EC as they do gerrymandering - as a highly political tool. If the situation reverses 2000 in a future election, I expect you will see some Dem states push to withdraw from the compact.

[muon2]

This would make elections much, much fairer. I can sum it up in a couple points.

-Whoever gets the most votes, wins. (Does this not make sense to anyone? Is it fair that someone who got less votes than an opponent should win?)

-Every vote will have an impact in the election, not just the swing states. (cough, Ohio, cough.)

-It will almost entirely eliminate the practice of "pork barreling" e.g. giving undue attention to swing states in order to better your political party's standing.

-Every person's vote weighs the same, so Californians don't have to have barely a quarter of the voting power of a person from Wyoming.

When most people's votes don't matter at all (just look at all the states where the political parties didn't spend any money), you no longer live in a democracy, where every person's voice should count.

If you think a proportionally representational system doesn't work, all you have to do is look at, say, Sweden. Why would people want to stick with an Industrial revolution aged voting system like the Electoral College?
 

I presume that you are also then in favor of going to direct elections for PM of Canada (or Governor General?) based on your avatar.

If not, then wouldn't US electors elected by district, who then select a president based on the majority party, be equivalent to MPs determining who the prime minister should be based on the majority party? Certainly it's possible that the PM's party could have fewer total votes than the runner-up party as long as they win a majority of seats.