Imagine This Scenario

Pretend it's the first Wednesday after the first Monday in November . . . in other words, Wednesday morning after Election Day. You pick up the morning paper (or since you're a blog reader, more likely you sit down before your computer) and read the final vote tallies from a very close presidential election. As we found out in 2000, the total popular vote doesn't really matter. Presidents are elected by the electoral college. Senator McCain has won the following states: Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire -- for a total of 269 electoral votes.

Senator Obama has won the following states: California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine -- for a total of 269 electoral votes.

A few of those states are not likely to go that way (Mississippi and Idaho have not voted Democratic in a presidential election in quite a while). But on the whole, the scenario is within the realm of possibility. Fewer than 540 Florida voters in 2000 determined who would be the next president. (I voted for Bush in 2000 and I lived in Florida. . . if I and 268 of my fellow citizens had flipped and voted for Gore, the outcome of the election would have changed.) That really impresses me with how important each vote can be out of more than one hundred million cast.

This would be a good place to make a nice civic appeal for everyone to get out and vote this fall and be prepared to make a difference in determining our President. All of that is true, but it isn't my point today.

What concerns me now is the realization that in a very close election, millions of American voters are effectively disenfranchised by the structure of the electoral college system. Sometimes it is true that every vote counts. I've already mentioned Florida in 2000, but how many people realize the election in Florida wasn't the closest in the country that year? In New Mexico, Vice-President Gore won that state's five electoral votes by 366 popular votes. In an election where the electoral vote is close, every vote is crucial in hotly-contested states where the outcome is in doubt until the last minute. However, in many states one party or the other predominates. In my birth state of Alabama, the Democratic candidate has one won time since 1960. In my present home state of Washington, the last GOP presidential candidate to carry the state was Ronald Reagan in 1984. Neither of those states is likely to switch sides this year . . . so Democrats in Alabama and Republicans in Washington basically have no voice in choosing a new president. The same thing could be true for one party or the other in more than half the states in 2008. That does not matter too much when the candidate who wins the electoral vote also wins the popular vote, but on the rare occasions when the popular vote goes one way and the electoral vote goes another way, it is a travesty when votes that ought to matter are effectively discarded by the electoral college system. It is tyranny of the majority at its worst when up to 49.9% of the votes cast go for naught.
The obvious solution is to abolish the electoral college. With direct popular vote, Al Gore would have been elected president in 2000. I would not have been happy about that because, in my opinion, he was not the best candidate. However, in another way, I would have been satisfied that the will of the majority had prevailed. More people went to the polls and cast votes for Gore than did for Bush. Therefore, Gore should have been elected president. That is the only fair way.

The electoral college may have made some kind of sense when it was put in the Constitution back in the 18th century. Just like having state legislatures elect U. S. Senators might have made sense then, but almost a century ago people were wise enough to know that it was a better idea to let the voters choose their senators by direct election. We might not always like who gets elected but we acknowledge that it is a fairer system to let the people decide for themselves. The same thing is true when choosing the next President of the United States.

(Part II of this discussion will consider the traditional arguments in favor of the electoral college system; Part III will present ideas for revamping the primary/caucus process for nominating presidential candidates so voters across the country have a more equal voice in selecting their party's standard-bearers.)