There’s been no lack of political commentary as the Presidential campaign has heated up, much of it thoughtful (and lots of it not), but I was struck with a point made in the Bulwark–a point about the systemic, structural issues that so often muffle or stymie the electoral voice of We the People.
In a commentary on the competing theories of the two campaigns, Jonathan Van Last noted that
Trump is running to get to 47 percent. Harris is running to get to 52 percent.
But there’s something deeper going on here.
The reason Trump is aiming for 47 percent is because the Electoral College makes minority rule possible for the rural party. Which incentivizes the rural party to be insular and to focus on energizing—not expanding—its coalition.
By disadvantaging the urban party, the Electoral College incentivizes it to broaden its coalition. Which means that the Democratic party of this moment must be constantly seeking to expand its reach and bring in new constituencies if it is to have a chance at holding executive power.
In other words: The Electoral College distorts the character of our parties, nudging one of them to be a majority-seeking organism and the other to be a base-pleasing organism. The character of our two parties today flows from the system architecture used to allocate power.
Which explains why Trump’s campaign is focused on maneuvering to win the Electoral College, not on trying to build a national majority. Trump doesn’t think he needs to expand his base, despite the fact that it is a minority of American voters. He just needs to energize them. America’s systemic “allocation of power” protects government by the minority. That’s what allowed Donald J. Trump to “win” the Presidency while losing the popular vote by some three million votes.
The Electoral College substantially advantages white rural voters. Research suggests that every rural vote is worth one and a third of every urban vote. Small states already exert disproportionate power by virtue of the fact that every state–no matter how thinly or densely populated–has two Senators. This system adds to that undemocratic advantage.
Trump likes to claim that our elections are rigged. They are–but thanks to the Electoral College and “winner take all” state election laws–they’re rigged in ways that unfairly benefit him. As legal scholars have reminded us, no other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like the Electoral College.
It isn’t just the existence of the College–there’s also the way states implement it.
If we fall short in the current effort to neuter the Electoral College with the Popular Vote Compact, we should mount a national effort to address a less-understood aspect of it’s unfairness: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws (which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never suggested by the Founders) most states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state.
That erases all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the winning candidate. Even if only 50.1% of voters in a state vote for candidate A, the 49.9% of voters who opted for candidate B are unrepresented–all of that state’s Electoral College votes will be cast for candidate A.
It would be far fairer to award Electoral votes proportionally. If 60% of the votes are cast for candidate A, candidate A should get 60% of the state’s electoral votes–not 100%. People in the political minority in a state would suddenly have an incentive to vote–an incentive that doesn’t exist now. Today, absent a “wave” election, a presidential vote by a Democrat in Indiana or a Republican in California simply doesn’t count.
Think about it.
Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. That’s why most are considered comfortably safe for one party or the other. That “safety” leads to the current disenfranchisement of voters in states like Indiana. The only states that matter to either party in a national election are the so-called “battleground” states — especially bigger ones like Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. We saw this in 2016, where Trump’s incredibly thin wins in three states (just under 80,000 votes in total over the three states) gave him the White House.
If newly hopeful Democrats can produce a “wave election” in 2024–if they can manage a trifecta at the national level–this systemic unfairness can be changed. The John Lewis Act can be passed. Gerrymandering can be outlawed. Winner-take-all laws can be addressed.
If enough of us vote Blue, we can restore small-d democratic accountability.
To me, the blatant truth has always been in Trump’s response to what his vote will be on vital issues, his response is that he will leave it up to the states. This has been his response so often that it appears if he is back in control the states will be autonomous and federal government will have no control over them…that would mean the loss of regulations as well as federal funds. Leaving Trump to dispense accountability and the money as only he sees fit. Stating at this time that he will give states control is to get the Electoral College vote sewn up as he did in 2016. Rudy Guiliani began announcing repeatedly three days before the election that Trump had the election sewn up using the states which could only mean the Electoral College. Trump lost the popular vote early and easily reaped the 270 Electoral College votes and ended the election with his victorious appointment to the Presidency.
“Trump likes to claim that our elections are rigged. They are–but thanks to the Electoral College and “winner take all” state election laws–they’re rigged in ways that unfairly benefit him.”
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz need to concentrate campaigning not only in the “swing states” but in states like Indiana where the red state election outcome is already a given. How many presidential campaigns have bothered to come to Indiana in recent decades?
“If enough of us vote Blue, we can restore small-d democratic accountability.” We could also restore large-D Democratic accountability.
There was an enlightening post of Facebook this morning questing why, with Trump’s unending rants and threats on all issue, including Hanabal Lector; why has he NOT spoken about his alleged assassination attempt???
The Electoral College has always driven me crazy, but I hadn’t ever factored in the winner-take-all aspect, which can be changed to a system of votes awarded proportionally, as you point out. The idea of EC elimination bring out of the question, altering it to effectively prevent minority rule works for me.
Now about the Senate…..you know, where a state with a population of half a million has the same senatorial representation as one with 40 million, etc., the purest form of minority rule
The United States is ranked 139th out of 172 countries in voter participation. VOTE BLUE, VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR HARRIS/WALZ
oops…BEING out of the question
With sadness I announce the passing of one of our long-time contributors and the gentleman who introduced me to this blog, Gerald Stinson. He was a WW II veteran who fought in the Pacific campaigns and a very solid citizen and visionary. He and I often conversed away from this blog and I am the better person for it. Amen.
Yes, the EC must go for the sake of democracy and the rational people who don’t see grievance, have no fear of government and understand the meaning of compromise.
BTW, consider this: in 2016, trump won the Electoral College vote – and of course the Presidency, 306-232, while LOSING the popular vote by nearly 3million votes. In 2020, Biden won the Electoral College vote by the same margin, 306-232, while WINNING the popular vote by 7 million votes. Hmmm…..
OK, I can’t let this go.
Our law making system of government was designed so that the CITIZENS were represented proportionally in the House Of Representatives. The STATES were represented evenly in the Senate. This ensures that the States are equal to each other in the Senate and each citizen is equal to one another in the House.
Our founding fathers were ingenious in this matter. The heart of it all is that no one person or group of persons or state gets to run the whole show. It forces compromise and cooperation. It’s a good thing.
The facts as they are should only make us double down on our efforts to GOTV.
It will be very soon when the states will draw the maps. We have the best chance that I have seen in my years in Indiana to effect so many needed changes in the state and the federal levels of government, but we must GOTV!
Vernon; it grieves me to learn we have lost Gerald’s wisdom and patriotism he shared with us from his personal experience. His personal knowledge spoke truths we needed to hear from someone who was part of our history when America was a world leader, even with our imperfections. I looked for his comments every day; knowing there was something important he wanted to share. I will miss him; he represented a generation of Americans who understood the importance of democracy, Rule of Law and supporting our Constitution. His generation, and mine, is dying out; do we understand what we are losing with their passing?
It seems our founding fathers were just a little bit naive. They failed to see the possibility that one day we would have a snake oil salesman as President, despite being the most literate men in the country and having a good knowledge of history.
Even the most polite society will produce scoundrels and sociopaths. If they had foreseen the possibility of a turn in history like what we know has happened, with a leader and his cult, one would hope they would have called for proportional representation in the EC.
RIP, Gerald Stinson
This is a tough time for our country. We need to change the Electoral College power. It is time for us to respect the will of the people – all of them. We owe that not only to the United States, but to the world.
My understanding is the the EC was set up so as to give an edge to the prominent and wealthy, even back in the day.
It is a dinosaur that needs to be retired.
I and many others who write here will miss Gerald Stinson. May he rest in eternal peace.
Vernon – Thank you for letting us know about Gerald’s passing. I am sure he didn’t want to miss voting in this election. I will miss reading his wise words on this blog and wondered why he hadn’t posted lately. His wisdom is a great loss to our state and beyond.
Sheila – Thank you for the stats and info today. I was completely unaware of the Popular Vote Compact and have already started reading the info in the link.
RIP – Gerald Stinson! I always looked forward to Gerald’s posts on this blog.
As someone above mentioned, the Founders were oligarchs. They didn’t trust the people and democracy just like most oligarchs throughout the world at that time. The Senate comprised of oligarchs or oligarch appointed representative while the House was comprised of the people’s representatives.
The EC was to protect the oligarchy from the people because “we the people” might vote to take away their slaves or other valuable property. We also might vote to tax them fairly and write laws that benefit the people vs the self-important oligarchs. The Founders wanted a system of government that would protect their wealth. Period.
Due to labor unions, we tilted the country in our favor under FDR but he stopped short of collapsing the oligarchy and capitalism. The oligarchy has fought back ever since. It’s now so far tilted to the oligarchy that the people are oppressed and don’t even realize it because the media is just mere propaganda for the oligarchy.
Meta’s Zuckerberg just admitted to censoring Facebook for Biden/Harris and said he “resented it.” Why admit it?
There is a hack and leak out of Israel which details how Israeli advocacy and legal groups have used Zuckerberg to censor anti-Israel accounts (pro BDS movement and anti-genocide members) while promoting pro-Israel accounts. The oligarchy controls all the levers of power at the moment. There is way too much at stake for them to lose control.
P.S. Now that the university systems are back open, keep an eye on all the federal and state laws enacted over the summer to prevent the pro-Palestine movement, including BDS. Not just state laws but school policies were rigged over the summer to prevent college campus protests.
Who holds that much power over the university systems in this country?
When the Constitution was written, were the members of the EC bound by law to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state? Are they now so bound? It’s been a long time since my high school civics class, but I seem to recall being taught that one reason the EC was established was to prevent a wildly unfit candidate from being swept into power on the backs of an undereducated, gullible mob. It was thought that a more elite group of men could provide a buffer against that happening if they were given the power to do so.
Did my civics teacher just make that up? Calling on a scholar of Constitutional history for enlightenment.
The Greeks had a failed system of a democracy. The Romans put in a better system of a democratic republic that was adopted by the intelligent, well educated, godly, wise, humble, forefathers of the US. This is where the wealthy states cant rule over the poor agricultural states.
Theresa — I get your point about the House and the Senate representing 2 different entities. But this is for the purposes of governing and making laws, and should not be used for electing the president. It skewes the results as we’ve come to see.
RIP – Gerald. You will be missed.