9. Defending the Electoral College -- Selectively

Recently, many Republicans have been defending the Electoral College as the best means for choosing a President. But I’ve noticed that they are not defending all aspects of the institution, but rather just those parts that seem to help out their preferred candidate.

• I don’t see Electoral College defenders suggesting that we go back to the original system of choosing Presidential Electors by state legislatures – because state legislatures would not have chosen Donald Trump.
• I don’t see people suggesting that the Electoral College go back to its original purpose of judging among the presidential contenders independently and rationally, regardless of popular appeal – because this method would not choose Donald Trump.
• I don’t even see Electoral College fans endorsing a compromise approach where the Electoral College would ratify the voters’ choice under normal circumstances, but would override the voters in rare cases where the popular candidate was not qualified – because this year clearly offers such a rare case. 
• And I don’t see anyone suggesting that we choose Electors by giving votes only to white males who own property, as was the case when the Constitution was ratified. Such a suggestion would certainly help Trump, but might not be viewed as politically correct – even among Trump supporters.

Rather, there are just two aspects of the Electoral College that its advocates seem to really like, both of which seem to benefit Republicans:

• They argue that the system of weighing the Electoral College in favor of small states is a good system, since it prevents small states from being dominated by the larger states (i.e. it lets a minority of voters decide).
• And they endorse  the winner-take-all system -- something not even contemplated by the authors of the Constitution -- whereby voters in evenly divided states have much more influence than voters in states where one candidate is preferred overwhelmingly.

So when we hear how great the Electoral College is, let’s consider which parts of it are great -- and why.

8. History Repeats

I’ll end (for now) with a fun post. When my son took U.S. History at Natick High, I noticed some interesting material in his book and sent the following question to his class:

Which election was this? The Democratic candidate, a former Senator from Tennessee, won the popular vote, but in a highly controversial contest, lost the Electoral vote to the son of a former President born in Massachusetts.

7. Voting by Land

Link to Facebook post

Link to Facebook post

We've seen that the Electoral College embodies the theory that states should have voting rights regardless of population. A curious extension of that theory was put forward by a group called "Feel the Liberty" (first image above) apparently claiming that counties, or perhaps land area, should have voting rights. The creator of this graphic smugly concludes, "This is why we have an Electoral College. Civics 101. You're welcome."

The reason that states are granted representation beyond their population is because they gave up their sovereignty to join the union, and this doesn't apply to counties, and certainly not to land -- but no matter. Nor does it seem to matter that vast areas of Alaska have no people at all.

Emma Mears responded to posts such as this one with a well-researched graphic (second image above), showing clearly that the most populous counties do not vote as a block, nor do the remaining areas. This graphic shows that there are few "red" or "blue" counties. Most are various shades of purple.

Once we realize that counties do not fall into binary categories of red or blue, we start to realize that states are the same way. The Electoral College is built on the premise that Wyoming needs extra representation because its citizens need to be heard, and they would otherwise be drowned out by the larger states. This assumes that all Wyoming citizens hold the same opinions -- which they don't. And it assumes that people in others states don't feel the same way as Wyoming -- which they do.

The right to vote should not be held by states, by counties, or by land. The right to vote belongs to the people.

6. The PragerU Video

First Facebook discussion

Second Facebook discussion

There has been much interesting discussion around a 2015 video from PragerU explaining the purpose of the Electoral College, and somehow anticipating the controversial results of the 2016 election. In my Facebook circle, Dirk Coburn shared this video on Oct. 25, two weeks before the election, and also on Nov. 17, and each post generated a wealth of interesting debate. I’ll comment briefly here, and invite you to read the full discussion on each link.

Prager University is not actually a university at all. As it states on its own web site, "Prager University is not an accredited academic institution and does not offer certifications or diplomas." Rather, it is a distribution channel for 5-minute videos organized by right-wing talk show host Dennis Prager. Be that as it may, the content has much factual material, although it should be open to critical analysis.

The video asserts that a President or Congress elected by the majority could abuse its power and treat minority interests unfairly – what has been termed “tyranny of the majority.” Our three branches of government, with its system of checks and balances, serve to protect us from that. Agreed.

The video then asserts that the Electoral College does a similar thing in the Presidential election by “encouraging coalition building” whereby candidates must gather votes from a large number of states, and supposedly from diverse types of states. Well, instead of “tyranny of the majority” we can have “tyranny of the minority.” Already some people have asserted that the Republicans will try to punish the states that voted for Clinton, and, while I don’t subscribe to this fear, it certainly is possible.

Actually, our system of checks and balances also provides protection against Presidential abuse, since most actions also require the consent of Congress, including the Senate, which gives each small state as much representation as large states, and where actions can be stopped by just 41 members.

The video makes a final point that the Electoral College discourages fraud, since tricksters wouldn’t know in advance which states are the critical ones in which to commit fraud. This makes little sense, since the Battleground States are well known to everyone in modern elections.

Meanwhile, the video ignores the main reason the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College: to ensure that the President is chosen by knowledgeable and rational individuals -- a purpose that Republicans are choosing to ignore and something that clearly did not occur in the current election.

5. Winner Takes All

Clinton headquarters in Manchester NH

So if Trump didn’t win because of either of the two reasons that the Electoral College was created, then what happened? It turned out that he won because of a third factor, which the Founding Fathers did not even consider: the winner-take-all approach that is followed by all states except two (one being the strange Electoral Vote split in Maine).

The obvious result of such a system is to give more power to voters in close states. They are called "swing states," “key states,” or “battleground states.” In recent years, as campaigns have gotten more sophisticated, these states have become increasingly important, until these days these are the only states that the media or the candidates seem to care about. An obvious example is here in Massachusetts, which was ignored by the media and ignored by the candidates. Everyone from Massachusetts, myself included, flocked to New Hampshire, which has one-fifth of our population. Rather than talk to our family or neighbors, we made the one-hour drive across the border to canvass voters we didn't know. While we were there, we got to see Secretary Clinton, who, as far as I know, never set foot in our own state. We have a system where the candidates ignore the voters, and perhaps the concerns, of the people in the majority of the states.

But the unfairness could go even beyond that. According to the MetroWest Daily News editorial, “Leaders of the National Popular Vote movement point to the disproportionate attention presidential candidates pay to a handful of states during the election - and after. According to NPV's research, battleground states get more federal grants, more federal disaster declarations and more waivers from certain federal regulations.”

So why should this hurt Democrats more than Republicans?  For some reason, Democrats tend to win states by wider margins than Republicans. Look at the four states with the largest plurality in 2016 (i.e. the largest difference between one party and the other). (Source: David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, data as of 11/18/16) All were won by Clinton:

	California	3,218,676
	New York	1,509,506
	Illinois	915,338
	Massachusetts	881,699

All of these votes can be considered “wasted votes,” since these people could have stayed home without changing the outcome. No wonder we kept hearing people in Massachusetts saying that they would not vote -- or they would vote for a third party -- because their vote didn’t count anyway. On the other hand, when we went to New Hampshire, everyone knew that one vote was critically important.

Some have suggested that small margins in a lot of states are better than large margins in a few states – that this somehow represents a “diversity” of supporters. Jeff Jacoby stated in his Boston Globe column (Nov. 16), “No one becomes president without commanding the support of many states.” Sounds good – but one could also argue the opposite point: that several passionate states give a more definitive statement than a bunch of indecisive states. But both of these viewpoints miss the central question: Does the President represent states or does he represent people?

Donald Trump has rightly stated that if the rules were different and the popular vote mattered, he would have campaigned differently. George Bush made the same point after the 2000 election. Yes, if we got rid of the Electoral College, candidates would campaign differently. They would visit all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They would address the issues and concerns of all of us – because every vote would count. We would see the candidates in Massachusetts as well as New Hampshire. Someone will have to explain to me why that’s such a bad idea.