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June 2, 2008 By Chad Vander Veen
The other day I was going through my morning ritual of visiting certain news sites - in a certain order - to get a quick sense of what's going on in the world. One Washington Times headline, in particular, caught my attention: "Michigan primary revote chances diminish." How is it that in 2008 this nation still can't cobble together a decent, sensible system for electing people to office?
Though the race for the White House is certainly historic, it's also giving more Americans a good look at how dysfunctional our election process has become. The Democrats have gone out of their way to illustrate how cockamamie their system is. Florida, for example, moved up its primary to an earlier date, despite the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) threat to strip the state of its delegates if it did so. Florida did anyway, and now as of press time, the delegates haven't been awarded to either candidate, leading some party officials to call for a "do over."
But the DNC's problem speaks to a larger issue in American elections. Now, I'm as pro-states' rights as any person you'll meet, but it's high time this country seriously considers nationwide standards for electing candidates to national office. It doesn't matter whether it's a nationwide system of electronic voting or paper balloting - just that we design a simple process for casting a vote.
Much of this year's caucuses and primaries have proven themselves totally archaic, so too is the U.S. Electoral College. The time when representative democracy was needed has long since passed. Today direct democracy is socially, technically and logistically feasible, even with punch cards or paper ballots. Think about it this way: The Nielsen system for rating TV shows - in which viewers write down what shows they watch and send that data back to Nielsen - is outdated, inefficient and just plain sucks. But it still works better than the way we vote for president.
Now I know we don't technically live in a democracy. We live in a republic. And those who defend the Electoral College say it's the republic's way of making sure less populous states don't get left out of the process. Under a strictly popular vote system, Electoral College defenders claim large population centers, like Los Angeles and New York, would unfairly skew the state voting results in their favor. The solution, then, is to ignore state lines altogether. Let every eligible American cast a vote, then tally 'em up. The person who receives the most votes wins. Who cares about awarding states? States aren't voting, Americans are.
Sounds simple. But seeing as the DNC can't even hold a simple election for itself, your vote for president may never actually count.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/A-Vote-for-Sensible-Elections.html
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The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential 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 under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election. Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes 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). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes
Sir, you are quite mistaken in your assessment here. Although it is clear that change is needed, your suggestion of doing away with the electoral college seems poorly informed. I do not believe you truly are a proponent for state rights, since you quickly dumped that out the door. It is the political parties that should modify their systems -- and no, I do not believe the "will of the masses" as you suggest would solve the problem -- it is not always that the masses are the best way to direct the future of a nation, since we can often be gullible to deception and lazy in doing our personal research on the most important issues, beyond Britney Spears.
We need instant run-off elections. Fixing the problems of the electoral college is a good step, but it still doesn't prevent the election of a president with a minority of the votes, if there are three or more candidates. Instant run-off elections can fix this problem, also.
Exactly! Think of the millions of dollars that could be saved if the Primaries were held all on one day and only counting the popular vote! Then on to the General and only count the Popular vote. Our current system is ridiculous and doesn't reflect the will of the people. Obama got selected not elected.
The alternative to the "winner takes all" system is one in which delegates are apportioned. This has the downside that high population centers will get all the attention while Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii will never get a peek at a candidate. I think limits on elections should be strictly based on how much the nation can tolerate, not how candidates want to campaign. A sensible limit would be putting all primaries in one month and allowing conventions sort out the results. That is democracy.