You probably did not think that a key reason why the current Supreme Court is so out of whack with much of America is because of gerrymandering. This is so because the makeup of every Court is determined by the two other gerrymandered branches of government, the executive and legislative.

Twelve of the last fifteen justices have been appointed by Republican presidents, and that is not an accident. With our Constitution, it is virtually impossible not to have partisan Supreme Courts when we choose our presidents and legislators in ways that are mired in a deep gerrymandering pie, or cesspool.

Here’s how it works:

The U.S. Senate is perhaps the most insidious form of gerrymandering that we have. A good working definition of gerrymandering from Merriam-Webster is “the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections.” At the time that the American constitution was created, there were no political parties. But there were political interests. The most significant of these interests was what powers would individual states have as opposed to the federal government.

For example, who would be responsible for determining whether a road should be built, or whether it would be legal for a sixteen-year-old to drink whiskey? Who would be able to levy taxes, or even tariffs? At the time that the constitution was being written, there were two key interests within the states that created the groundwork for gerrymandering:

1. The smaller states such as Rhode Island or Delaware did not want to be overpowered at the federal level by larger ones such as New York or Virginia.
2. The states where slavery was legal and was commonly used wanted to have equal power to the states that did not have slavery.

Many of the founding fathers were leery of direct democracy, meaning direct votes by the people. In order to prevent runaway “popular democracy,” the founders created a Senate to go along with the House of Representatives in the Congress. The Senate was undemocratic in two ways, both of which impacted the Supreme Court.

1. Initially, Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not the people. This would be a way of better ensuring that the interests of the states, as opposed to the people, were represented in the Senate. This was clearly undemocratic, and in 1917, the 17^th Amendment was passed, allowing the people to vote for their Senators. But at that time, “the people” were essentially only white males.
2. Each state has two senators. That ensures that there is equal representation among all the states in the Senate. At the same time, it ensures that at least one house of Congress does not include equal representation of the people. For example, California has a population of nearly 40 million people while Wyoming has less than 600 thousand. For each person in Wyoming, there are over 60 in California. What that means in the Senate is that each person in Wyoming has as much power as 60 people in California. That is terribly unfair, and it means that states like Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, etc. have far more power in the Senate than states like California, Texas and New York. The same is true for southern states such as Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina which are relatively small by population. Additionally, these states are no longer politically competitive. Conservative Republicans win virtually all state-wide elections including for the Senators.

Right now, the U.S. Senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. But Democratic Senators represent nearly 57% of the population, whereas Republican Senators represent around 43%. If the Senate was democratic, the Democrats would have a large majority. But in today’s real world the Democrats will probably lose seats in the 2022 mid-term election and once again be a minority.

We should also point out that the House of Representatives is gerrymandered in a different way. Take Missouri for example. It has eight Congressional seats. Recently, the state has voted between 50% – 60% Republican. Even at 60%, Republicans should get only five of the seats. However, they get six and some tried to get them seven. Why does it come out this way?

It is because in Missouri the districts are drawn by the state legislature. The Missouri General Assembly is currently veto-proof Republican. What the legislature has done is to draw two “minority majority” districts. This means districts in which some minority constitutes a majority of the voters. In Missouri, it is African-Americans. One district is in the eastern part of the state, St. Louis, and the other in the western part, Kansas City. None of the other districts is competitive.

Similar to the legislative branch, the executive (presidency) is deeply influenced by gerrymandering. The way in which the founding fathers took care of that was by creating the Electoral College. The E.C. is not really a college. It is a barely known organization that only exists every four years, when there is a presidential election. The number of representatives that each state has in the E.C. is somewhat based on population, but not entirely. What is important to know is that when the Electoral College works properly, the electors from each state vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state. In other words, the electors in Alabama vote for whomever carried the state and the electors in California vote for whomever won that state.

Where it gets undemocratic is let’s suppose that Candidate A carries Alabama by one million votes and loses California by a 400,000 votes. You might think that Candidate A would be ahead at that point, because she has 600,000 more votes than Candidate ‘B.’ But with the Electoral College, Candidate ‘B’ is ahead with 55 Electoral Votes from California as opposed to Candidate ‘B’ who has the 9 Electoral Votes from Alabama.

The fact that a candidate can lose the popular vote and still be elected president through the E.C. is not just hypothetical. It has happened five times in our history. The two most recent are the two most consequential. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote from George Bush by over a half million votes. However, Bush won the Electoral vote when the Supreme Court made a decision that gave Bush Florida’s electoral votes. That would not have mattered if the decision had been made by the popular vote.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than three million votes. However, Trump narrowly won “battleground states” such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and that propelled him to an Electoral victory.

It’s possible that two of our worst presidents ever were elected by the Electoral College than the popular vote. These two presidents are also responsible for five of the current six conservatives on the Supreme Court. Bush nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito; Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

This is how the Supreme Court became impacted by gerrymandering. Without a gerrymandered presidency and a gerrymandered Senate, the Supreme Court would have been more balanced and reflective of the values of the American people.

To make matters worse, the Supreme Court itself has recently refused to overturn the creation of gerrymandered districts by the states.

The political ramifications of the gerrymandering dynamics is that Republicans are helped in all three branches. Theoretically, the three branches of government are supposed to restrain one another through a system of checks and balances. But that does not work when all three branches are dominated by one party, and that particular party is intent on thoroughly dominating government and extending very few levers of power to minority parties.

How can this change? At the moment, it’s difficult to conceive. Trump Republicans have a number of plans to further a radical right agenda in America. For our government to become more balanced it will require challenging victories by non-Republicans in congressional and presidential races. Stay tuned to see if that happens.

The post The Gerrymandering Virus – It’s Everywhere! appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Our political system is structurally stacked against Democrats. The U.S. Senate gives overweighted power to small states, helping Republicans. The Electoral College is equally advantageous to Republicans.

Republicans have held the White House for sixteen of the 34 years since 1988, yet in only one of those eight elections since then have they won the popular vote (George W. Bush in 2004). There is little that can be done about either of these discriminatory sets of rules, short of constitutional amendments.

There is one area in which Democrats can act alone, and that is how they operate and schedule their presidential primaries. Right now, the Democratic primary / caucus schedule is heavily weighted towards small and predominantly white states. First on the list of contests in Iowa, then usually followed eight days later with the New Hampshire Primary. Both of these contests favor candidates who can attract a lot of early volunteers, because door-to-door canvassing is feasible and effective in such small states with months, even years, of lead time in advance.

For candidates whose predominant appeal is to metropolitan voters in blue states, it is an excruciating wait until primaries occur in such states. By that time, they are often out of the race because (a) they did poorly in Iowa and/or New Hampshire, (b) the media minimizes their chances, and (c) they run out of money.

Democrats could fix this by establishing their own schedule for primaries. One idea that has been suggested is setting up a series of four regional primary days, (a) Northeast, (b) Southeast, (c) Northwest, and (d) Southwest. Or, the regions could be completely different, though it helps to have clearly define geographic areas. Also, the order of the regional primaries could change in each quadrennial election year.

By changing how their party selects its presidential nominees, Democrats would demonstrate to the American people that they truly support democratic processes. It might eventually help in changing the Electoral College and bringing needed reform to the Senate.

Regrettably, when it comes to doing the heavy lifting to modify the Electoral College and the Senate rules, the Democratic Party is the equal to the Republican Party in perpetuating the status quo.

This and other systemic obstacles to Democrats is eloquently stated in Jedediah Britton-Purdy’s recent guest essay in the New York Times.

At a more basic level, today’s Republican Party succeeds only because the Electoral College, the Senate and the Supreme Court all tilt in its favor. That system has handed conservatives a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, despite the fact that only one Republican has won the presidential popular vote after 1988.

The Electoral College is like the Senate; it favors small states and is tone deaf to the margins by which candidates win individual states. Wyoming, a Republican state, has equal representation in the Senate to California, a Democratic state. Equal representation, but California has fully fifty-seven times as many people. That means that each person in Wyoming has fifty-seven times as much power in the Senate as individuals in California.

Democrats are nearly as responsible as Republicans for the perpetuation of the antiquated Electoral College. While many rank-and-file Democrats would like to see it abolished, party leaders are radio silent about it. They need to take the lead in either abolishing the Electoral College or passing the National Popular Vote Act in states totaling more than 270 Electoral votes. That act, which has passed 16 states with 195 electoral votes, instructs electors to vote for whomever wins the national popular vote. But that might be dicey now with how Republicans are trying to take power away from the electors and give them to state legislatures in Red States.

So, if Democrats wish to advance democracy without opposition from the Republicans, they may well want to focus on how they plan their primaries. Time is actually short, as plans for the 2024 primaries are already being made.

The post What Dems can actually do without Republicans appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Democrats / liberals have good reason to want to jump all over Howard Schultz. The Starbucks owner and potential independent presidential nominee in 2020 could totally turn over the apple cart as Democrats work hard to oust Donald Trump from the White House, or whomever else that Republicans might run in his place.

Ralph Nader ran as a third-party candidate in 2000. Had he not, in all likelihood, Al Gore would have defeated George W. Bush. Imagine if on September 11, 2001 the United States had a president who wanted to avoid war and who could bring reason to the American response to the terrorists who hijacked those planes and killed nearly 3,000 people. Further, imagine that when Al Gore was elected, he would have paid proper attention to the intelligence warnings, as Bush did not, and the whole debacle could have been avoided.

We often hear terms like “facts matter” and “words matter.” There is no arguing this wisdom, but we can also add “judgment matters.” When we think of 9-11 and its aftermath, there are two key decisions that allowed dysfunction to occur. First, Bush was “elected” (not by the popular vote) and Gore was not. Second, Ralph Nader set the table for all of this to happen.

As brilliant as Nader may have been, his hubris exceeded it. He talked about there not being a dime’s worth of difference between Bush and Gore, and even after 9-11 when it was crystal-clear, he did not acknowledge the deficiencies of his actions.

So, if Howard Schultz wants to run as an independent in 2020, I will beg to differ with other progressives and say that it’s okay, but with a major caveat. That condition is that if he should reach a level of viability that he would pose an electoral threat to the Democratic nominee, he will have to withdraw. And, in fact, he has indicated that he would do that as has possible campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, someone of enormous political acumen (particularly when he is operating as a journalist).

But that’s not all. Schultz could have an opportunity to educate the American people about ways to permit non-Republican and non-Democrat candidates to run for president, without posing a fatal threat to one of the two-party candidates. The key to this is opening the eyes of Americans to two structural changes in the way in which we elect or leaders:

1. Abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a direct popular vote. According to PRRI, by roughly a two-to-one margin, Americans say they would prefer if presidential elections were decided by the national popular vote as opposed to the Electoral College. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Americans believe that presidential elections should be decided based on the national popular vote, while about one-third (32%) believe they should be decided through the Electoral College. The entrenched politicians in each party don’t like abolishing the Electoral College because they have become experts in gaming the undemocratic system that we call the Electoral College.

The way that the system works now, if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes (270 or more), the election is thrown into the House or Representatives. This happened in 1824 and 1876 and the results were not pretty. So, the question would be, what do we do with a direct popular vote in which no candidate receives a majority.

2. Adopt a very viable alternate system called 1-2-3 voting. This is where each voter gives his or her first, second and third choice for president / vice-president. If a voter’s first preference does not win, then the second choice of the voter is added to that candidate’s tally. The same would be true for third choice, and so on. This system is frequently called ranked choice voting (or instant run-off voting), but those terms are harder to remember than 1-2-3 voting.

Here is an animation of less than two minutes that show how 1-2-3 voting works:

Now we can see how Howard Schultz could play a remarkable role in American politics. His popularity could be potentially high enough so that he could put a scare in a lot of Democrats and Republicans (particularly Democrats). But unlike Ralph Nader and others, Schultz could use his standing to point out how the problems that he created require solutions others than despising the messenger. What is needed is for the Electoral College to be abolished and for a 1-2-3 system of voting to replace it.

Schultz is 65-years old, so this would probably be his final chance to become president. But he would have to be truly out of touch with reality to think that he could win in 2020 as an independent. He has already had a remarkably successful life. He won’t become president, but he could be the person who brings the kind of reform to American politics that have been needed for centuries. That would be a crowning achievement.

The post Let’s not demonize Howard Schultz, rather help him do no damage appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I’ve just sent the following letter to all 10 of Missouri’s presidential Electors. Missouri is so deep, deep red that I doubt that I’ll convince anyone. But in my letter, I’m trying to appeal to the elector in any way I can. To stop Donald Trump from wrecking everything he and his cronies can, we need 37 electors—nationally—to switch their votes. So even one from Missouri could help. It may be a fool’s errand, a wild-goose chase, a hail Mary, or any other phrase you can use to describe a steep uphill climb like this one. But I would feel terrible if I hadn’t at least tried.

Here’s my letter. Feel free to excerpt, plagiarize or write something totally different. Just do it. Before Dec. 19.

I’m writing to you in hopes of convincing you that your vote in the Electoral College on Dec. 19 could play a role in protecting our democracy. As an engaged, knowledgeable citizen, you have probably already observed Donald Trump’s erratic behavior in the transition period before Inauguration Day. You may even be among the large percentage of American voters who–before the election– deemed Donald Trump to be temperamentally unfit to be President.

You already know that, in Missouri, you are not bound to vote for the candidate who won the state. And, although Donald Trump won Missouri’s popular vote, he did not gain the majority of popular votes nationwide. Many states have already passed a bill that would allocate their Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote–if enough other states pass a similar bill. And while National Popular Vote has not yet been passed by enough states, there is clearly a movement in that direction. With that in mind, I would urge you to consider casting your Electoral vote for someone other than Mr. Trump.

Also, it seems to me–based on the appointments he has already made to his Cabinet–that despite his campaign promises to help lower-income people–Mr. Trump’s policies have the strong potential to hurt precisely those people whom he promised to help. In other words, he will be hurting Republicans as well as Democrats, and will end up alienating the very voters who expanded the reach of the Republican party during the 2016 election. Among those policies are the privatization of Medicare and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act–a move that would take away health insurance from 20 million people who previously lived with the precarious, dangerous status of not being insured.

You have in your power the ability to keep our country great by preventing an unqualified, temperamentally unfit man from taking the reins of power and leading us in an unpredictable direction.

I urge you to consider your Electoral vote very carefully, and put our country ahead of party loyalty. Your vote can make the difference. .

The post Here’s my letter to Electors: Now it’s your turn appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I used to think that Donald Trump might be the lesser of multiple “evils” among Republican choices for president. At best, he might be called whimsical and that might lead him to occasionally do a few things that would benefit the country rather than damage it. With his selections for “leaders” in the area of national security, I have become increasingly concerned about Trump’s finger being near the nuclear trigger. If it’s not nuclear war, it will be some other foreign or even domestic calamity.

The electors who actually cast the final votes for president of the United States do not “meet” or officially cast their ballots until Monday, December 19, 2016. In eleven states including Missouri, the electors are legally allowed to cast the votes for someone other than the candidate who carried their state’s popular vote. In other states, the electors may also be able to do so, but at limited legal liability.

I have written to the ten Republican electors in my home state of Missouri. I suggest to them casting their votes for someone other than Donald Trump, perhaps Mike Pence. Mike Pence certainly would not be my choice for president of the United States, but the individuals who I would favor are completely unacceptable to Republican electors. At this point, I simply want to try to spare the country from Trump. Perhaps you will consider writing a similar letter or e-mail to your electors.

Dear Elector,

I am writing you about the upcoming election of president of the United States by the Electoral College, of which you are an honored member.

I am not a Republican, but like you, I care more about our country and the world than any political party to which I am a member. I am quite concerned about what Donald Trump could do to our country and the world, if he is elected president. I understand that Missouri is fortunately one of eleven states where electors are not bound by law to vote for the popular vote winner in their state.

I recognize that Missouri clearly voted Republican on November 8. I am urging you to consider voting for another Republican for President. If 37 electors from states that Donald Trump won choose to vote for someone else or simply to abstain from voting, then the election can be thrown into the House of Representatives.

The rules for such an election in the House highly favor any Republican candidate. Certainly Mike Pence would be a viable candidate as would a number of other Republicans.

I am very concerned about Trump’s temperament and impulsiveness. While he may have many qualities that could make him a good president, I do not think that we can afford anyone who we cannot fully trust with the nuclear code. We live in an era where many world leaders do not appear to be stable. This includes President Putin of Russia as well as irrational heads of state in North Korea, Syria and Iran, all of whom put the world further at risk.

I also fear that Mr. Trump’s erratic behavior will do long-term damage to the Republican Party as well as the new voters who are putting faith in the party.

I apologize for this invasion of your privacy and hope that you understand that I do it now only because for these few weeks you are a very important public figure in an elite group that determines the future of our country and the world.

I hope that you will consider not voting for Donald Trump for president.

If you wish to communicate your thoughts to electors in the state of Missouri, here is their contact information:

The post There is still time to write to your electors appeared first on Occasional Planet.

One way to stop Donald Trump from taking office is to block him in the Electoral College. Sure, it’s a long shot, but we are already seeing defections from electors who can’t, in good conscience, cast their votes for him. So, it’s worth a try. Below, you’ll find the names and contact information for Missouri’s 2016 electors. I urge you to call them and try to get them to either vote for someone else or to abstain from voting [which is a tactic that is included in the rules.]

Talking points

What will you say when you talk to them, email them, or leave a voice-mail message? Here are some suggested talking points:

Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States. [We already know that a large percentage of people who voted for Trump in November view him as unfit. We also have evidence of his un-presidential temperament, via his threats to the press, his vindictiveness regarding people who are not loyal to him, and his impulsive, thin-skinned reactions to perceived insults. His unpredictable nature represents a threat to world security.]

Donald Trump is going to harm the Republican party. [He is voicing support for policies that will hurt the very voters who supported him—lower-income voters who strengthened the reach of the Republican party in the 2016 election.]

Donald Trump is a walking conflict of interest who has stated that he is above the law. .[His international network of businesses represents a dangerous conflict of interest that may violate the US Constitution and will, undoubtedly, engender controversies and legal challenges that will entangle his Presidency for years. He has indicated no intention of distancing himself from these conflicts and has, in fact, bragged that he can be President and head of the Trump Organization at the same time.

We need to stop this unqualified and unfit man from taking office, before it is too late. Electors have the power to do this.

Can Electors actually do this? Yes. Missouri is one of 11 states that do not require Electors to vote according to the popular vote in the state.

Please contact your Missouri Electors as soon as possible [they vote on December 19], and urge them to put country before party.

Contact information

Here are the names and contact information for the 10 Missouri electors.. Hat tip to my partner in political commentary, Arthur Lieber, for doing the research on these and beta-testing the email addresses and phone numbers.

The post Contact your MO Electoral College members now: Here’s how appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What should be done about the Electoral College, now that, for the fifth time in US history, one candidate has won the popular vote, but lost to the candidate who won the electoral vote? How about giving Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner?

Over the years, three strategies for Electoral College reform have emerged:

Abolish the Electoral College

The most prominent of these strategies is simply to eliminate the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. Unfortunately, that is not a “simple” solution, both for Constitutional and political reasons. To do it, you’d have to pass an amendment to the US Constitution—and that is not likely to happen any time soon. It’s also a big stretch to think that Republicans, who will have control of all three branches of the federal government after Inauguration Day 2017, would even put Electoral College reform on their agenda: The Electoral College system worked perfectly for their candidate this time around. In these circumstances, abolishing the Electoral College—as fair as that strategy seems—is probably dead on arrival.

Proportional electoral votes

A second strategy would be to award electoral votes proportionately. In the current system, as was made painfully clear on November 8, 2016, electoral votes are a winner-take-all deal. In a proportionate system, states would split their allocated electoral votes according to the percentage of popular votes that went to each candidate. That change would be up to state legislatures. Unfortunately, with the majority of state legislatures controlled by Republicans—who have just seen the winner-take-all structure work to their candidate’s advantage—that’s not going to happen, either.

National Popular Vote

A third idea—which has not been as widely discussed recently—is to award Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This is not a brand new idea: The National Popular Vote bill has been circulating in state legislatures for more than 10 years. Under this plan, states would award all of their electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes in the national tally. This process is different from the current system, in which states award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote within their state.

According to the organization called National Popular Vote, the bill would:

 …guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide (i.e., all 50 states and the District of Columbia).

And it has momentum.

It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more electoral votes [for a total of 270, the amount needed to be elected President.].

The bill has passed one chamber in 12 additional states with 96 electoral votes. Most recently, in early 2016, the bill was passed by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House, 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, 57–4 in Republican-controlled New York Senate, and 37–21 in Democratic-controlled Oregon House. One of the first states to pass it was Maryland, in 2007.

If you add it all up, the National Popular Vote agreement is already more than 60 percent on its way to activation.

Is this constitutional?

Yes, says Fair Vote:

The Constitution gives states full control over how they allocate their electoral votes. The current winner-take-all method, in which the winner of the statewide popular vote wins all of that state’s electoral votes, is a choice—and states can choose differently.

The drawback, of course, is that the National Popular Vote bill is contingent on enough states passing it.

According to Fair Vote:

This [agreement among states[ takes effect only when enough states sign on to guarantee that the national popular vote winner wins the presidency. That means states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes—a majority of the Electoral College—must join the compact for it to take effect.

And that’s the catch, unfortunately. If you’re a Republican legislator in a Republican-dominated state, and you want make yourself appear to be in favor of more fairness in the electoral process, you might just vote for it, because you’re pretty sure that it won’t reach its critical mass.

[Yes, that is a cynical view. But three days post-election, cynicism seems justified.] I admit that, before Election Day, I was glad that the Electoral College was in place, because I thought it would act as a circuit-breaker preventing a dangerous candidate from being elected by a duped population. But of course, it was my own ox that was gored this time, and as the night wore on, I switched sides. You can call me a hypocrite, and I can’t fight back on this one.

But we should all realize that the electoral-popular vote disconnect can happen—and has happened—to candidates of both major US parties. National Popular Vote seems like a doable, fair solution—which would best be enacted long before the next presidential election.

We just need to find enough state legislators who give a damn about fairness and democracy to make it happen—before the next time our screwed-up electoral system gets us into this mess again.

The post Let’s award electoral votes to the national popular vote winner appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The selection process of party nominees for president of the United States reveals many of the undemocratic components of the American political system. As we near the end of March, we have another slew of state caucuses. Only a tiny fraction of voters attends these burdensome meetings. For example, In the state of Nevada, there are nearly 1.5 million registered voters but only 11.984 Democrats and 74,078 Republicans engaged in the February, 2016 caucuses. That’s a participation rate of under 6%.

Democrats award delegates proportionally according to the popular votes of the candidates. But Republicans have numerous Winner-Take-All (WTA) states including large ones from March 15 such as Florida and Ohio. They have upcoming WTA primaries in Arizona, Wisconsin, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota. In Ohio, Governor John Kasich won 46.8% of the votes but collected 100% of the delegates. If this seems unfair, it is no different from the actual method that we have for electing our president on Election Day. We call it the Electoral College.

Three times in our nation’s history we have “elected” presidents who won the Electoral College, but not the popular vote. As FactCheck reports:

In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election (by a margin of one electoral vote), but he lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 ballots to Samuel J. Tilden.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Grover Cleveland’s 168, winning the presidency. But Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 votes.

In 2000, George W. Bush was declared the winner of the general election and became the 43rd president, but he didn’t win the popular vote either. Al Gore holds that distinction, garnering about 540,000 more votes than Bush. However, Bush won the electoral vote, 271 to 266.

Most reformers would like to see changes to the way in which we elect or presidents. If we go back to our last presidential election, the record shows that President Barack Obama was reelected in 2012 by defeating Mitt Romney in the Electoral College by a vote of 332 to 206. Even though Obama won the popular vote by a single percentage point (50% to 49%), many consider the election to be a landslide, because Obama’s margin in the Electoral College was 62% to 38%.

What’s wrong with the way things are?

There are those who would like to see the Electoral College abolished. It has several clear shortcomings. First and most importantly, it is not based on the popular vote of the people. As recently as 2000, Democrat Al Gore received more than a half million more votes than George Bush. However, with the shenanigans in Florida, Bush won the Electoral College, 271-266. In a country that prides itself on one person-one vote, this was clearly a travesty.

Second, in recent elections, approximately ten states have been considered swing states. This means that there is considerable uncertainty about whether they will go to the Democratic or the Republican candidate. The remaining forty states are considered to be solidly for one candidate or the other. They are considered to be sure bets for one candidate or the other. This is what happened in 2012.

The three largest states in the country, California, Texas, and New York (actually tied in size with swing state Florida at 29 votes) were essentially ignored by the candidates, except for fund raising purposes. California and New York were solidly for President Obama; Texas for Governor Romney. The 82.6 million voters in these states, representing one-fourth of the population of the entire country, received virtually no visits from the candidates. There were no big rallies or parades in these states. The citizens had no value to the candidates, except for a few fat cats who provided money to the candidates’ campaigns, or the Super PACs that worked on their behalf.

Abolish the Electoral College?

The idea of abolishing the Electoral College has been around for a long time and it makes a lot of sense since we’re talking about a national election. However, the existence of the Electoral College is clearly stated in the Constitution. Article II, Section says:

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.

To change this would require a constitutional amendment. The process for that would be for an amendment to be proposed in either the Senate or the House and then have it approved by two-thirds of the members of each chamber. That is hardly the end of it; the proposed amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states, meaning now thirty-eight of the fifty states. Amending the U.S. Constitution is a cumbersome process and has not happened since 1992 when the 27th Amendment was passed. It was a relatively minor one regarding congressional salaries.

Award electoral votes proportionally by state popular vote?

The other way to change how we vote for president would be for each state to change the way it instructs its electors vote. Forty-eight states require that all electors in their state vote for the candidate who received the largest popular vote in their state. The other two states, Maine and Nebraska, use a somewhat different system, which at most can only change one electoral vote for the entire state. However, if each of the states agreed to allot their electors proportionally to the popular vote in the state, we would have a completely different outcome from what normally happens in presidential elections. It would be very close to the outcome of a popular vote election:

2012 Electoral Vote: Obama 62%; Romney 38%

2012 Popular Vote: 50%, Romney 49%

2012 Proportional Electoral Vote by State: Obama 51%, Romney 49%

Beneath these numbers is the reality that with proportional electoral voting by state, the outcome would be just one percent different from the popular vote. It would be much closer to the will of the people than the present Electoral College. It would clearly be a much more democratic process. However, this method would only work if all fifty states agreed to allocate their electors proportionally. The likelihood of that would be less than that of passing a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with the popular vote.

Some people have suggested proportional electoral voting in each state. However, the conclusion is that while it would advance the cause of democracy, it is not a realistic proposal. Until both the federal Congress and the state legislatures see the wisdom of amending the constitution to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote, we will continue to have both an undemocratic system and one in which one candidate can win the popular vote and another the Electoral College. There has to be a better way to build a democracy.

PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL VOTES BY STATE, 2012

This story was originally published in 2012. It has been updated to 2016.

The post What if electoral votes were awarded proportionally? — updates appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The record shows that President Barack Obama was reelected in 2012 by defeating Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes to 206. Even though Obama won the popular vote by a single percentage point (50% to 49%), many consider the election to be a landslide, because Obama’s margin in the Electoral College was 62% to 38%.

What’s wrong with the way things are?

There are those who would like to see the Electoral College abolished. It has several clear shortcomings. First and most importantly, it is not based on the popular vote of the people. As recently as 2000, Democrat Al Gore received more than a half million more votes than George Bush. However, with the shenanigans in Florida, Bush won the Electoral College, 271-266. In a country that prides itself on one person-one vote, this was clearly a travesty.

Second, in recent elections,approximately ten states have been considered swing states. This means that there is considerable uncertainty about whether they will go to the Democratic or the Republican candidate. The remaining forty states are considered to be solidly for one candidate or the other. They are considered to be sure bets for one candidate or the other. This is what happened in 2012.

The three largest states in the country, California, Texas, and New York (actually tied in size with swing state Florida at 29 votes) were essentially ignored by the candidates, except for fund raising purposes. California and New York were solidly for President Obama; Texas for Governor Romney. The 82.6 million voters in these states, representing one-fourth of the population of the entire country, received virtually no visits from the candidates. There were no big rallies or parades in these states. The citizens had no value to the candidates, except for a few fat cats who provided money to the candidates’ campaigns, or the Super PACs that worked on their behalf.

Abolish the Electoral College?

The idea of abolishing the Electoral College has been around for a long time. However, the existence of the Electoral College is clearly stated in the Constitution. Article II, Section says:

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.

To change this would require a constitutional amendment. The process for that would be for an amendment to be proposed in either the Senate or the House and then have it approved by two-thirds of the members of each chamber. That is hardly the end of it; the proposed amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states, meaning now thirty-eight of the fifty states. Amending the U.S. Constitution is a cumbersome process and has not happened since 1992 when the 27th Amendment  was passed. It was a relatively minor one regarding congressional salaries.

Award electoral votes proportionally by state popular vote?

The other way to change how we vote for president would be for each state to change the way  it instructs its electors vote. Forty-eight states require that all electors in their state vote for the candidate who received the largest popular vote in their state. The other two states, Maine and Nebraska, use a somewhat different system, which at most can only change one electoral vote for the entire state. However, if each of the states agreed to allot their electors proportionally to the popular vote in the state, we would have a completely different outcome from what normally happens in presidential elections. It would be very close to the outcome of a popular vote election:

2012 Electoral Vote: Obama 62%; Romney 38%

2012 Popular Vote: 50%, Romney 49%

2012 Proportional Electoral Vote by State: Obama 51%, Romney 49%

Beneath these numbers is the reality that with proportional electoral voting by state, the outcome would be just one percent different from the popular vote. It would be much closer to the will of the people than the present Electoral College. It would clearly be a much more democratic process. However, this method would only work if all fifty states agreed to allocate their electors proportionally. The likelihood of that would be less than that of passing a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with the popular vote.

Some people have suggested proportional electoral voting in each state. However, the conclusion is that while it would advance the cause of democracy, it is not a realistic proposal. Until both the federal Congress and the state legislatures see the wisdom of amending the constitution to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote, we will continue to have both an undemocratic system and one in which one candidate can win the popular vote and another the Electoral College. There has to be a better way to build a democracy.

PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL VOTES BY STATE, 2012

The post What if electoral votes were awarded proportionally? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Barring feasible foul play by Republicans, Barack Obama will probably win the Electoral College in 2012, which means that he will serve for another four years as President. Much is being said about Ohio as a swing state, along with Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Colorado. Obama carried all of them in 2008, along with North Carolina, a onetime swing state. As of Sunday, October 28, 2012, Nate Silver of www.fivethiryeight.com gives Obama a 73.6 percent  likelihood of winning the Electoral College with 295 votes, twenty-five more than is needed for victory. However, Obama’s lead over Romney in the popular vote is only 50.3% to 48.7%.

There are a number of progressive issues that President Obama passed or tried to pass in his first term. This list does not include abolishing, or at least reforming the Electoral College. In the history of the United States, there have been three elections in which the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency in the Electoral College. The most recent was 2000, when Al Gore had nearly a half million more popular votes than George W. Bush. Had the election been decided by the popular vote, it would have been of little consequence that Bush supposedly received 537 more votes than Gore in Florida.

So let’s suppose that Mitt Romney wins the popular vote in 2012. This would be an increase of only 1.4 percent of the vote. At the same time, President Obama triumphs in the Electoral College and wins a second term. Conceivably, this could make the Republicans mad enough that they would feel that they were gypped, because their candidate received more votes than the Democratic candidate. At the same time, Obama along with other Democrats would continue to recognize that the Electoral College is extremely unfair and essentially disenfranchises voters in the more than 40 states that are not considered swing states.

While the President is not involved in the process of amending the Constitution, there could be bi-partisan support for an amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with the popular vote. Republicans would have the motivation of thinking that they had been cheated in 2012; Democrats would have the motivation of advancing the cause of true democracy.

In practicality such a change would probably help the Democrats in the short run. With intense campaigning in states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Maryland, they would pick up millions of popular votes. The Republicans would pick up at least hundreds of thousands of votes in Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri. The raw numbers would favor the Democrats, but as each census reflects the migration of Americans from the north to the south, the long-range advantage would go to the Republicans.

It is indeed difficult to handicap to party would benefit most from a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with the popular vote. However, each party would have convincing reasons to feel that it would benefit in the long range. The one winner would be American democracy. President Obama, please put this measure on your second term agenda.

The post Perverse best-case scenario: Romney wins popular vote, Obama wins Electoral College appeared first on Occasional Planet.