Electoral Map
Politics 04/30/2003 |One of the things that really bugs me about our current governmental system is the Electoral College. When I was growing up, democracy (and, thus, the U.S. Government) was always explained to me as one vote per citizen, majority rule. This makes sense to me.
What I’ve never understood is the Electoral College (and, therefore, I may have the following summary somewhat incorrect — please correct me if so). Rather than tallying the votes cast by the American public in a presidential election, the EC votes are used to elect the President. The number of possible EC votes is finite, determined by assigning a certain number of EC votes to each state, based roughly on its population. Furthermore, when it comes to actually casting the votes, each state puts all of its votes behind one candidate, depending on what the majority of voters in that state voted for.
For instance, Alaska has a population of roughly 500,000, and gets three electoral votes. If just over half of Alaska’s voting population votes Republican, then as far as the Electoral College is concerned, all of Alaska votes Republican, as all three EC ballots are cast for the Republican candidate.
To the right you can see a map of the United States, with each state distorted as to how many EC votes it gets. (The graphic was taken from an excellent interactive electoral map that allows you to click on each state, seeing how many EC votes it gets and switching them from Democrat to Republican to play with election possibilities.)
I have never understood why the Electoral College system was considered a good idea when it was implemented, nor why it continues to be used. The Bush/Gore upset of 2000, when Gore won the popular vote but Bush took the Electoral College (and therefore the presidency), just made it more clear to me that this is a highly imperfect system for a “democracy” to use as its voting system. My grumbling isn’t going to get the system changed, but I’d sure like to see it changed — preferably to the very simple, easy to figure out, doesn’t cause problems, one voice equals one vote.
[See also: Suggestions: Good candidate overview sites? | I just don’t get it. | State votes ranked by IQ | Kodak moments | Michael Hanscom for Governor of Washington ]
11 Responses to “Electoral Map”
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Michael Hanscom
jer@nyquil.org
April 30th, 2003 at 10:35 am
Actually there is a good reason for the electoral college system - sorta. When California has so many damn votes, they can swing their weight around like nobody’s business, but they’re still kept in check by a number of smaller states. It’s like saying - Okay Alaska, you have a miniscule population compared to California, but we’re still going to give you a half decent number of votes. If it was truly one person, one vote, hugely democratic states like California would dwarf out small republican states like Alaska without question (not that I’d complain…). It also helps to retain the power of the state against the Union.
What I have heard that seemed like a good idea was that some state in New England (Maine, maybe?) splits their electoral votes according to the percentage tallied. So if 33% of Alaskans voted Democratic, one vote would be thrown in that direction while the other two would be thrown Republican. This allows Alaska to still pull a little weight against the big boys - but those Alaskans (like ME) who feel disenfranchised with voting for President in a state where Republicans are so likely to throw the ticket would be given the voice they deserve.
April 30th, 2003 at 6:12 pm
Silly Boy ! You probably still think that the government is “of the people by the people for the people”.
The president is nothing but a figurehead for big business. Nothing more nothing less. Some do a little better than others at pretending they run things and can help the common people and others like Bush, get the job and just set themselves and their friends up… for life. Every once and a while a real person gets the job. ( Carter ) But hey… shit happens. But what big business did was throw the country into a deep, deep recession with prime interest rates at 23-25% just to fuck with the little guy and piss him off enough to be glad to get rid of Carter and install a real figurehead (Reagan). Go back and look at the end of Carter’s presidency we had hostages in Iran that got released the very minute Reagan took office, in fact as Reagan was sworn in. It wasn’t blind luck, It was a set up, plain and simple.
Company are collapsing and the CEO and board members are raking it in. United Airlines is going under and the CEO get what ? 11 million dollars in bonuses? Not salary…bonus. Yes, yes I know he just got canned, but that was only after the public made a big stink. For the most part it happens all the time. How many ” Bonuses ” did he get as he ran the airline into the ground?
Nixon wasn’t the only crook in the White House he was just the one that got caught.
We have some say, and sometimes do better but in the end its big business all the way. Auto Insurance is mandatory. Why? Because it’s good for the people ? Hardy har… har… Its good for Insurance companies.
If we had a 15% flat tax the government would pull in four times as much revenue than it does now and everyone you and I know would pay LESS taxes. Why don’t we have it ? Big business and the very rich wouldn’t have loop holes and might have to really pay taxes.
I’m not a pessimist, just a realist. Can one person make a change? You bet ! but you have better odds winning the lottery.
If the people run the country and the elected officials work for us? Why did we have a 55mph speed limit ? Nobody liked it, everybody hated it! everybody drove faster anyway. If the entire country wanted it to end why did we have it? I believe the phrase your looking for is “revenue enhancement”.
If I insure my car with two insurance companies and file two claims when I have an accident I’ll go to jail for fraud. If I loan my car to a friend and he wrecks it ( thanks Scott ) His insurance goes up because he had an accident AND my insurance goes up because I had a claim. Its called double dipping, Insurance companies can do it, but you and I can’t.
And I’m not picking on Insurance ( they deserve it ) they are just one of many.
Damm… I have to stop now or my head will explode! And I don’t have insurance for that.
April 30th, 2003 at 6:17 pm
Sorry, I got off on a rant ! we have the Electoral College because they ( business ) don’t really want us to elect a president, we might pick someone they don’t like.
January 28th, 2004 at 5:12 am
And dont forget the UFO cover up and the Kennedy cover up and and and ( I think I wet myself…….)
Grow up, the President exists to provide a foriegn policy , and spear head for national initiatives (bill and budget propoasals).
also noting the states rights is dead on, if a few states controlled the presidency the the others issues could be ignored by BOTH
parties candidates (and would be). The system was established so the president had to represent the WHOLE country and not just a
few populous states. (at the time of the constitution it was Virginia that would have controlled policy.)
January 29th, 2004 at 5:40 am
In my country we have a system whereby a list of nominees are voted with a score of 1 for your preferred candidate down to ‘whatever number’ for the last candidate. You can choose not to score a certain candidate at all if you really don’t like her (but this is thought to be a waste of your vote). Your vote is given to your ‘number one’ choice. If she is losing and concedes, your vote is passed on to your number two choice - and so on until you have no numbers left. In this way you can set your preferences for who gets in and who doesn’t.
Given that this country is quite young, we have been able to benefit from more current theories of the electoral process. Our system is considered one of the most representative and ‘fair’ systems in use today. Our two main problems are that the quality of persons stepping forward for positions is mediocre at best and, secondly, that the fairness of the system waters down the policies. I feel that some of the greatest steps forward in policy, internationally, have been taken when there is a safe majority allowing a weight behind the decisions being made. This majority is created by systems like the US system.
On another point, most countries in the world operate like individual US states. Remember that the United States is a conglomertaion and that you are voting for a President to represent all States. It is something like me voting an ‘overseer’ to govern Australia, Mexico and Canada and Japan. While united, these countries remain autonomous to a great extent as should the states, so you are not just voting for yourself - your voting for everyone.
Where am I going with all this? I think that the US Constitution is a marvellous document, far ahead of it’s time (possibly like the New Testatment was 2000 years ago), while being outdated. It is now seriuosly over-interpreted and re-interpreted to apply to a society which it could not forsee. But it ties itself (like the New Testament again) into certain root values that will probably always be true. This forms the basis of the United States - which is an idea, a concept like anything else. This constitution is not the constitution of a world power. It never meant to form the ideaology of a country that would throw itself upon the world. It is a declaration of the autonomy of a group of provinces and their inhabitants. The Electoral College allows these provinces to elect a representative who can act as the majority to give weight to certain decisions which may apply to all provinces.
Unfortunately it is now 200 years later, we have nuclear weapons, trade in the trillions, ‘world issues’, invisible wars and mass economies/killings/protests. This is where this representative now exerts influence and power, as he (arguably) should. But your finding out that the election process doesn’t seem to reflect the importance of selecting this representative - I don’t think it does either. But then what would? What can you really do? It’s so huge. Would updating the process somehow fundamentally change the basis of the Constitution? It’s mammoth. Could there be secession or revolt? - Unlikely.
But here’s the comfort. The president of the United States is a figurehead of a huge institution. He does not make decisions on his own. He has organistaions, departments, offices, teams, groups all feeding input into nearly every decision he makes. He reaches decisions for his country based not on his upbringing in Utah, Texas or Mississippi but on the information he is fed. That’s why President G. W. Bush can’t go far wrong. You don’t think President Clintion might have done the things that Pres. Bush did around Iraq? Maybe not the same, but it could have been similar. I strongly disagree with your country’s policies but I also I think you’re doing just fine for yourselves. You have a lot of people working to make it good for themselves and therefore you.
January 29th, 2004 at 7:16 pm
To understand the electoral college process you have to understand the founding fathers rationale. We are a democracy right?!!! Wrong!!! In fact the founding fathers ( hereafter FF) despised the idea of democracy for good reasons. We are a “Constitutional Republic”
The FF’s correctly considered “democracy” as mob rule…
“Democracy is like 3 wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner…Ben Franklin
A mindful look at this reveals as in the above example that democracy does not protect the rights of the individual or the state ( state actually meant “country” in the FF’s world not just a political subdivision as states are today ). Without the electoral college, major population centers would control the federal government not the nation as a whole. Hence, states like Alaska or Rhode Island or Nevada etc. whose interests may be drastically different than New York City and Los Angeles would lose there voice at the hands of the larger populations of these localized areas. ( I’m guessing that people in NYC would not have alot of passion about protecting Alaskan Salmon migration or Los Angeles would not care about policies surrounding grain production in Nebraska )
So you see (I hope) that the electoral college is designed to balance the diverse interests of a large nation and protects us all. Although it might seem convenient in the short term ( i.e. the complaint that your candidate for president wins the “popular” vote but lost the election )to subvert the FF’s intentions, it could quickly lead to the suppression of the rights of individuals and states.
February 11th, 2004 at 10:21 pm
Some of the reasons for Founding Fathers to set up Electoral system of presidential elections (proving just how smart they really were):
1) Essentially, the “winner take all” normally makes a lopsided win, so that there’s less frequency of “we were robbed” complaint by the losing party. When Mondale won only Minnesota and Reagan was reelected with every other state’s electoral votes, it hushes up the losing party until next election. Conversely, Clinton won the electoral vote when in fact he never won a plurality of the popular vote. But instead of people focusing on the latter, they’re forced through the electoral college to pay attention to the latter, and recognize the authenticity of his win.
2) Without the electoral college system, presidential candidates would never, and I mean never, waste their time anywher but CA, FL, NY, and TX. Electoral college makes it worth their while to visit ND and other small population states, since if they DO win that state, they win every electoral vote.
3) Electoral voting greatly reduces probability of voter fraud in individual states paying off. If you got a partial number of votes from a state that you didn’t win, then voter fraud at any level would have an incremental benefit. With the electoral system, it’s necessary to commit mass fraud in a variety of states, since you have to win the whole thing in each state. With just popular vote, tiny pockets of fraud would count every time, since every bit of popular vote would count.
4) Electoral voting versus popular voting balances the voting power of high population states, with the inherent power of a state (regardless of its population), much as the House of Representatives reflects population, and the Senate reflects the sheer number of states. In fact, the number of Reps and Senators from each state is the number of electors they have each election.
April 15th, 2004 at 2:32 pm
It’s the United States of America, not the United People of America. The Constitution doesn’t even give the people the right to choose the President. It leaves it up to the Lesislature of each state, who in turn has given the people the right to choose the delegates from that particular state, winner take all. We are a Union made up of sovereign states, not people.
May 5th, 2004 at 1:30 am
I THINK BUSH IS A CROOK HE DONT GIVE A DAMM ABOUT WHAT GOING ON IN THE US THE DAMM GAS IS A JOKE PEOPLE GOT NO JOB AND THAT ALL YOU HERE ABOUT IS THE WAR HE STICKING THAT GAS MONEY IN HIS POCKET I CANT BELIVE THAT PEOPLE WOULD PUT HIM IN OFFICE HE A DAMM CROOK IF SOMETHING DONT CHANGE IN THE US WE WILL BE IN A DREPPERSION HE LET ALL THE MEXICAN COME OVER AND TAKE OUR JOB WHAT JOBS THAT WAS LEFT HE A PIECE OF SHIT IN MY BOOK HE FOR THE RICH MAN ARE PEOPLE ON WELFARE NOT FOR THE WORKING MAN
August 25th, 2004 at 9:58 am
We all need to grow up and remember that we are one nation under god. Are life is allready writen and we are just waiting for the end. So stop all the dam crying and just live life.
October 29th, 2004 at 9:22 am
I LOVE BUSH!! (HES A HOTTIE) … WITH A WRINKLY BODY .. AN A HAIRY BODY LIKE A MONKEY ..