Editorial: How to make votes in Kansas count

By Ian Stanford

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Kansas Obama supporters: your man won, but your vote for president didn’t have a thing to do with it. McCain won Kansas by a safe 16 percentage point margin.

Most of the votes in this historic election were cast in states where the outcome was already known. The votes in the seven battleground states were the ones that really elected Barack as our next president.

The Electoral College is the culprit of this reality. Our winner-takes-all-electoral-votes voting system seriously undermines the importance of individual votes in non-swing states, and as a result, voter turnout suffers. Counts from Tuesday haven’t been finalized, but in 2004, turnout in the swing states was 66.82 percent, more than six percentage points higher than the 60.1 percent national turnout. Kansas had 61.6 percent turnout.

Cries to abolish the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote were made after the controversial election decision in 2000, but these pleas never made it on the national agenda, according to Paul Schumaker, professor of political science.

Realistically, the abolition of the Electoral College was less likely than Obama winning Kansas. Its provisions are laid out right in the middle of the Constitution, and federal lawmakers aren’t going to violate our sacred document to throw out a voting system that reinforces the two-party system.

But reforming the Electoral College could achieve vote equality regardless of the voter’s location, and one of these reforms could be carried out without federal approval.

Reform No. 1: Allocate votes from states proportionally

A reform the states can take on themselves is to end the winner-takes-all procedure of awarding electoral votes in favor of proportional allocation.

Under proportional allocation, if half of Kansans vote McCain, one-third vote Obama and one-sixth vote Nader, McCain would get three of the state’s six electoral votes, Obama two and Nader one.

Proportionally allocating electoral votes is the only way to reap the benefits of a national popular vote without abolishing the Electoral College. The reform would enable a Democrat to cast a meaningful ballot in a Republican state, and vice versa.

States hold the power to institute this reform because states, not the federal government, are in charge of setting up the voting procedure of the Electoral College members in their state. The only reason we have the current system is because 48 states have decided on winner-takes-all (Nebraska and Maine use a different procedure).

Reform 2: Abolish the plus-2 rule

All other things equal, the plus-2 rule makes an individual voting from a state with a small population more powerful than someone voting in a state with a large population.

The rule dictates that the number of electorates in a state equals the number of districts in that state plus two. This means that each state has two electorates that aren’t represented by population, ensuring small states have fewer citizens per electoral vote, making their citizens’ votes more powerful. To correct this bias toward small states, each state should lose its two extra EC members so that the number of a state’s electoral votes is based solely on population.

A reformed Electoral College in which every vote holds equal power no matter the state would enliven our election process.

Voter turnout would increase. Third-party supporters would feel less alienated from mainstream politics because their candidates would actually make it on the electoral scorecard.

Instead of focusing almost exclusively on states with tight races, candidates would campaign in all states.

A reformed Electoral College would not only produce candidates that are more in-tune with national problems but also citizens who are politically energized and want to cast a meaningful vote.

— — Ian Stanford for the editorial board

Comments

fletch (anonymous) says...

The +2 rule is there to prevent the tyranny of the majority. It's based off one of the founding principals of the nation. Ignoring why its there in the first place is academically shallow. You're the Ed Board for one of the upper echelon student newspapers in the nation. Hold yourselves to a higher standard than throwing out shallow filler like this.

November 6, 2008 at 11:20 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

IStanford (anonymous) says...

Give me a scenario where abolishing the plus 2 rule or establishing a national popular vote, for that matter, leads to tyranny of the majority. I'd also like to hear why tyranny of the majority is a relevant fear in our 21st century democracy that has been plagued by tyranny of the few, not the many.

Finally, you know what sounds academically shallow? Claiming two things are linked by correlation, and then instead of actually linking them through explanation and argument, copping out by saying one of these things (tyranny of the majority) is a founding principle.

November 7, 2008 at 12:43 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

connerm (anonymous) says...

-I don't know, Ian. Fletch makes a legitimate point and is simply using the words of Alexis de Tocqueville when he says "tyranny of the majority." You did totally neglect the reason that the +2 rule exists.

The +2 rule is there for the same reason we have a bicameral legislature: It balances the power between populous and less populous states.

The idea here is that what may be good for New York, Texas, Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Mass. may not be good for the other 41 states. By taking into consideration each individual state and combining both attributes of population and credit for statehood alone, our electoral college gives each state closer to equal footing.

November 7, 2008 at 10:28 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

mvymvy (anonymous) says...

A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.

Every vote would not be equal under the proportional approach. The proportional approach would perpetuate the inequality of votes among states due to each state’s bonus of two electoral votes. It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).

Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.

There is a prohibitive impediment associated with the adoption of the proportional approach on a piecemeal basis by individual states. Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and reject this proposal in November 2004 by a 2-1 margin. This inherent defect cannot be remedied unless all 50 states enact the proportional approach (as would be the case with a constitutional amendment). This inherent defect cannot, for example, be remedied even if 10, 20, 30, or 40 states enact the system on a piecemeal basis. Suppose that as many as 48 or 49 states were to allocate electoral votes proportionally, but that one or two large closely divided battleground states did not. The one or two state(s) remaining on the winner-take-all system would immediately become the only state(s) that would matter in presidential politics. Thus, if states started adopting the proportional approach on a piecemeal basis, each additional state adopting the approach would increase the influence of the remaining states and thereby would decrease the chance that the remaining states would adopt the approach. A state-by-state process adopting the proportional approach would bring itself to a halt.

November 7, 2008 at 11:08 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

mvymvy (anonymous) says...

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. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. 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 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 bill is currently endorsed by 1,181 state legislators — 439 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 742 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

November 7, 2008 at 11:10 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

becsully (anonymous) says...

If you think abolishing the electoral college would result in candidates campaigning in places like Kansas, you are hopelessly wrong. Sparsely populated states like Kansas and many of the other red states (the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. spring to mind) would be completely ignored as Republicans would begin to go after voters in more heavily populated areas.

Also, I'm not sure why you've complained that the electoral college doesn't give fair consideration to voters in states like Kansas, but then move to abolish the +2 system, which gives rural votes a leg up on urban votes-- that advantage becomes especially important on issues like farm subsidies, free/fair trade, and inter-state mass transit (light rail, government-operated transit, etc.). Citizens of the coasts don't always know what's good for the Midwest, and just because more people live there than here doesn't mean an entire region and population should be ignored. That's exactly what the tyranny of the majority is and how it applies to this situation.

November 7, 2008 at 3:29 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

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