Electoral College Map With Numbers
Is it time to junk the Electoral College? By formulating such an arcane method of electing the executive, the founding fathers hoped to insulate the presidency from popular emotions while, at the same time, protecting thinly populated states from domination by the great cities. The College works by having the state legislatures pick people to vote for the President. Each state has the number of electors as it has representatives to the congress, both House and Senate. These were to be the most able people of the state...in theory. What quickly evolved was that each party would nominate a slate of electors. The political party that won the state's popular vote would have their slate of electors get the right to vote for President. A "win" was considered 50% plus one vote This has been the method of electing our Presidents since the founding of the republic. There have been consequences not intended by the founders. They have shaped what kind of party system we have. The structure of elections has determined the ways campaigns are run. They have even affected the way in which our government is organized. The "winner-take-all" system also shapes the campaign. Since only one vote more than the competing party is required, there is no reason to give campaign resources to states where a particular candidate is well ahead or too far behind to compete. The battlegrounds are those states that could go either way. In a tight campaign the votes of small states become critical in putting together an electoral majority. Because a state's entire electoral vote is determined by which party gets one vote more than the next, there is no advantage in voting for a party that will come short of that goal. Ten percent means no vote at all. It makes sense then that we have two parties because that's the surest way to win the privilege of casting the electoral vote. While third parties might have influence at the state level, it is almost impossible to have an effect at the Presidential level. A popular-vote election means Presidential candidates no longer visiting small, closely contested states. It reduces their influence. The electoral wars will be waged only in the large cities. The changes don't stop there. Remember, we now nominate candidates by state primaries. Electing people by a national popular vote would cause those to merge into a national primary. After all, if states no longer elect the President, why should they nominate the candidate? There's a whole new national campaign. college map college map A popular election of the President would change that. No longer would a national campaign be necessary. A President, political scientists tell us, could be elected in the six largest TV. markets. Campaigns would be waged in the large cities and their suburbs. Rural areas would be completely ignored. That is especially true for Democrats. The parties would spend their resources in those areas where they are already strong. Political professionals know it's easier to expand the percentage of your vote in places you're already ahead. That is seen today. Republicans don't waste their resources in mainly African-American areas. Nor do the Democrats campaign in strong Republican precincts. The process has become longer and more expensive. But, that's not the end. Would a party want its candidate to be one with only, say, 20% of the vote? Probably not. A national run-off primary will evolve to insure one candidate wins 50%.. Electoral college map with numbers
Another problem now rears its ugly head...the national election. Recall that the Electoral College and the winner-take-all system forced the parties to campaign state by state. Since only a one-vote majority was required to carry that state, third parties found it impossible to exist. They could never have an influence. Not so with a popular vote election. Here a small party getting fifteen or twenty percent could have a large impact on who is elected. In fact, the vote could be spread among several small political parties. Would the nation be content with the President being elected with, say, 30% of the popular vote? Maybe not. There is a way around the problem. The old One-Party-Democratic-South solved it. It's called the run-off election. Now there are four possible national campaigns: the first national primary, the run-off national primary, the national election, and the run-off national election. Another effect is one that strikes at the government itself. It's likely that a multi-party system would evolve with elected officials from many different small ideological groups. How would the government work? Our national government is organized around two parties. Could it accommodate coalitions? There is no way to tell. All of the governments that have multi-party systems are Cabinet governments. There are built in mechanisms for bringing down the government and holding new elections when the governing coalition loses public support. Our constitution has no provision for such a circumstance. It's possible the popular election of the President would force the U. S. to completely change its government from a Presidential to a Cabinet form. Some people argue that would be a good thing. It would, they say, make the government more responsive. They're right. But, it would also make it unstable. Our constitution creates government that is slow to respond because the framers wanted ideas to have time for thorough review and debate before they were made into national policy.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground” states. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,659 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes — 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
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The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current presidential election system.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by eight state legislative chambers in small states, including one house in Delaware and Maine and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by Hawaii.
Most of the medium-small states (with five or six electoral votes) are similarly non-competitive in presidential elections (and therefore similarly disadvantaged). In fact, of the 22 medium-smallest states (those with three, four, five, or six electoral votes), only New Hampshire (with four electoral votes), New Mexico (five electoral votes), and Nevada (five electoral votes) have been battleground states in recent elections.
Because so few of the 22 small and medium-small states are closely divided battleground states in presidential elections, the current system actually shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states. The New York Times reported early in 2008 (May 11, 2008) that both major political parties were already in agreement that there would be at most 14 battleground states in 2008 (involving only 166 of the 538 electoral votes). In other words, three-quarters of the states were ignored under the current system in the 2008 election. Michigan (17 electoral votes), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Florida (27) contain over half of the electoral votes that mattered in 2008 (85 of the 166 electoral votes). There were only three battleground states among the 22 small and medium-small states (i.e., New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Nevada). These three states contain only 14 of the 166 electoral votes. Anyone concerned about the relative power of big states and small states should realize that the current system shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states.
Recent polls show a high level of support for a nationwide election for President in, for example, Vermont (75%), Maine (71%), Rhode Island (74%), Kentucky (80%), Oregon (76%), Washington (77%), North Carolina (74%), and Arkansas (80%). More than 70% of the American people have favored a nationwide election for President since the Gallup poll started asking this question in 1944. The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This recent national result is similar to recent statewide polls in California (69%), Connecticut (73%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (70%), and Missouri (70%).
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When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Likewise, under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate could win 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
After more than 10,000 statewide elections in the past two hundred years, there is no evidence of any tendency toward a massive proliferation of third-party candidates in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by the office. No such tendency has emerged in other jurisdictions, such as congressional districts or state legislative districts. There is no evidence or reason to expect the emergence of some unique new political dynamic that would promote multiple candidacies if the President were elected in the same manner as every other elected official in the United States.
Based on historical evidence, there is far more fragmentation of the vote under the current state-by-state system of electing the President than in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the jurisdiction involved.
Under the current state-by-state system of electing the President (in which the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote wins all of the state’s electoral votes), minor-party candidates have significantly affected the outcome in six (40%) of the 15 presidential elections in the past 60 years (namely the 1948, 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections). The reason that the current system has encouraged so many minor-party candidates and so much fragmentation of the vote is that a presidential candidate with no hope of winning a plurality of the votes nationwide has 51 separate opportunities to shop around for particular states where he can affect electoral votes or where he might win outright. Thus, under the current system, segregationists such as Strom Thurmond (1948) or George Wallace (1968) won electoral votes in numerous Southern states, although they had no chance of receiving the most popular votes nationwide. In addition, candidates such as John Anderson (1980), Ross Perot (1992 and 1996), and Ralph Nader (2000) did not win a plurality of the popular vote in any state, but managed to affect the outcome by switching electoral votes in numerous particular states.