The Electoral College and the Election of the President

There’s a ballot initiative on the ballot in Colorado that takes aim at how the Electoral College works. It’s called Proposition 113 and it would do the following: it commits CO to an alliance of states that have taken a similar position and when that alliance represents so much electoral power that it’s Electoral College members could elect the President, CO’s electors will vote in the EC for whichever candidate won the popular vote even if that candidate didn’t win CO.

I don’t like how America places someone in the White House. In 2000 and 2016 that person did not win the popular vote, and look at how many people have been placed on the Supreme Court partly by the two Republicans I am talking about- George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If Trumps wins the EC, he’ll again do so without winning the Popular Vote (although that would be the least of our constitutional problems if he wins  the EC).

At one level, we should simply put in the White House whoever wins the popular vote. But A) there are other problems with the EC and B) I have heard one argument about what Prop. 113 would do that prompted me to vote against it.

First, that argument is that if the EC were abolished and the popular vote placed a candidate in the White House, there would be recounts (possibly recount after recount) in all 50 states after the election. It seems quite possible it might take weeks to stop the recounts after they’ve become excessive- it might be what happened in FL in 2000 but 51+ recounts instead of just one (I am not sure how many others there were, but I’m pretty sure that only one made it to the SCOTUS).

There are 1-2 reforms of the EC that would satisfy me and which would help us avoid that possible nightmare scenario and still have more respect for the intent of the voters.

The first one is not the one I feel strongly about. It’s doing half of what Maine and Nebraska do where there are two EC votes that reflect the majority of the state overall and one vote per Congressional District that goes the way each District goes. I like the second part, about the districts. It could be called proportional representation compared to what happens when ALL the Electoral Votes of a state (with more than one District) go to the same candidate.

The important part is that all the states need to shed the two extra EC votes they get because they have two senators. These two extra Senate-based votes create a small but false and undesirable degree of equality between the big states and the small states. California should have 53 times the power in the EC that Wyoming has (CA has 53 Districts, and WY has one). As it is right now, CA has a little more than 18 times more power in the EC, but it has 69 times the population.

I’ve read some good sources that say Gore actually WON Florida in 2000 when all the votes are counted. But let’s say he lost FL fair and square. Someone did the math and if it weren’t for these two additional votes that every state gets, if all they got were just based on Congressional Districts, he could have lost FL by a landslide and still won the EC. To one extent or another, depending on how you define a small state (I draw the line at them having more than 9 congressional districts) about half of the the small states are reliably conservative, and a minority are reliably liberal, and a few are battleground states, although those numbers could change.

Right now, if these Senate-based votes were eliminated 220 Electoral Votes would be needed to win the election. Although I’m open minded that they may be biased with polling information, I like following the polls and the averages of the polls on the web-site Real Clear Politics, a site that is generally leans to the right. If you strip away two from each of the numbers they use, the total EC votes that Biden would have locked down in the Solid Democrat, Likely Democrat, and Leans Democrat states would be 185. Right now, 10/13/20, Biden is doing very well in WI (8 Votes), MI (14), PA (18) and NV (4). Looking at just those four states, Biden has two instead of just one path to victory (WI could be replaced by NV and Biden could still win; the way things are actually set up, MI, PA and NV wouldn’t be enough).

In general, shedding those Senate-based votes makes it easier for the Dems for the foreseeable future. And even when that ceases to be the case with shifting political trends, it would just be more (small-d) democratic if the EC were without those Senate-based votes.

I don’t feel strongly about the first reform I described (that NE and ME do). And I don’t think that Prop. 113 is horrible. But I think that getting rid of those Senate-based votes is incredibly important. One reason I bring this up is that it also exposes how messed up the Senate is- as i’ve said elsewhere, the Senate needs to be reformed. I think that each senator should get a number of votes equal to the number of Districts in their state, and that number should be used for everything in the Senate, including committee votes.