The Electoral College Should Go

One of the most upsetting things I hear each election year is the phrase, “Well, my vote doesn’t really matter” as a reason to not vote.  To this, I usually respond by saying, “Fine; if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”  

But it turns out that some of our votes really don’t matter, at least as much as we thought they did, and some of our votes are worth way more than we had ever imagined.  This is because of the system known as the Electoral College.

The framers designed the Electoral College as a sort of compromise.  Some delegates believed the citizens should be able to directly elect the President, yet some believed the ordinary American was too stupid too make such an important decision.  Therefore, some delegates proposed members of Congress elect the President.  The compromise would be that each state’s populations would vote for electors when voting for a candidate, and the electors would then choose the President. 

Why does America need these middlemen (and women)?  Are Americans still too stupid to choose whom they want to be the next President of the United States?  Are there inherent problems in the system that may favor one party over another?  And does the process disenfranchise citizens? 

So, let’s begin with “are Americans still too stupid to choose their President?”  That’s a pretty loaded question, and one that doesn’t really have a straightforward answer.  There would be a lot of people who would definitely answer yes. 

For example, Americans choose their Presidents for different reasons.  Some will vote based on whom they’d most like to have a beer with.  Others go for the most likable or most attractive candidate.  Still others make intellectual decisions based on policy differences between the candidates. 

Are any of these right or wrong?  Personally, I would say yes, but people are going to vote with those reasons whether the Electoral College is in place or not.  Again, they are just voting for electors, who in turn place their votes for the candidate.  The process doesn’t really act as a stupidity filter so much as it places an unnecessary roadblock between the people and selecting their President.

So whom does the Electoral College favor?  Well, to put it simply, it usually favors the winner of the popular vote.  In 1984, Ronald Reagan won the popular vote with a very respectable 58.8%.  However, he won the election with 97.5% of the electoral votes.  Similarly, President Obama won by a 7.3% margin in the popular vote, but by a 35.6% margin in the electoral vote.

But that isn’t always the case, as we have seen, most recently in 2000.  The system is flawed and can choose the wrong “winner”.  This is because of the way electors are divided between the states.  Every 10 years, the U.S. Government uses the census to determine the population of each state, county, city, etc.  Then, each state is awarded a certain amount of seats in Congress based on the population with respect to the rest of the country.  The number of electors for each state, then, is simply the number of Congressional seats in that state plus two (two Senate seats per state). 

You may be wondering at this point where everything went wrong.  I mean, it seems as though everything is accounted for; that everyone is equally represented.  Wrong.  Below is a chart of each state and its corresponding population, number of electoral votes, and percentage of each with respect to the nation.  Finally, the last column gives the percentage that a person’s vote in each state is worth.

State	Population	Electoral Votes	Population Share (%)	Electoral Vote Share (%)	Vote Worth (%)
Alabama	4,802,740	9	1.541	1.673	108.532
Alaska	722,718	3	0.232	0.558	240.412
Arizona	6,482,505	11	2.080	2.045	98.277
Arkansas	2,937,979	6	0.943	1.115	118.279
California	37,691,912	55	12.097	10.223	84.512
Colorado	5,116,769	9	1.642	1.673	101.871
Connecticut	3,580,709	7	1.149	1.301	113.223
Deleware	907,135	3	0.291	0.558	191.537
Florida	19,057,542	29	6.116	5.390	88.132
Georgia	9,815,210	16	3.150	2.974	94.411
Hawaii	1,374,810	4	0.441	0.743	168.508
Idaho	1,584,985	4	0.509	0.743	146.163
Illinois	12,869,257	20	4.130	3.717	90.008
Indiana	6,516,922	11	2.091	2.045	97.758
Iowa	3,062,309	6	0.983	1.115	113.477
Kansas	2,871,238	6	0.921	1.115	121.028
Kentucky	4,369,356	8	1.402	1.487	106.042
Lousiana	4,574,836	8	1.468	1.487	101.279
Maine	1,328,188	4	0.426	0.743	174.423
Maryland	5,828,289	10	1.870	1.859	99.372
Massachusetts	6,587,536	11	2.114	2.045	96.710
Michigan	9,876,187	16	3.170	2.974	93.828
Minnesota	5,344,861	10	1.715	1.859	108.360
Mississippi	2,978,512	6	0.956	1.115	116.669
Missouri	6,010,688	10	1.929	1.859	96.356
Montana	998,199	3	0.320	0.558	174.064
Nebraska	1,842,641	5	0.591	0.929	157.157
Nevada	2,723,322	6	0.874	1.115	127.602
New Hampshire	1,318,194	4	0.423	0.743	175.746
New Jersey	8,821,155	14	2.831	2.602	91.919
New Mexico	2,082,224	5	0.668	0.929	139.074
New York	19,465,197	29	6.247	5.390	86.287
North Carolina	9,656,401	15	3.099	2.788	89.966
North Dakota	683,932	3	0.219	0.558	254.046
Ohio	11,544,951	18	3.705	3.346	90.299
Oklahoma	3,791,508	7	1.217	1.301	106.928
Oregon	3,871,859	7	1.243	1.301	104.709
Pennsylvania	12,742,886	20	4.090	3.717	90.900
Rhode island	1,051,302	4	0.337	0.743	220.362
South Carolina	4,679,230	9	1.502	1.673	111.397
South Dakota	824,082	3	0.264	0.558	210.841
Tennessee	6,403,353	11	2.055	2.045	99.492
Texas	25,674,681	38	8.240	7.063	85.720
Utah	2,817,222	6	0.904	1.115	123.349
Vermont	626,431	3	0.201	0.558	277.365
Virginia	8,096,604	13	2.598	2.416	92.992
Washington	6,830,038	12	2.192	2.230	101.756
West Virginia	1,855,364	5	0.595	0.929	156.079
Wisconsin	5,711,767	10	1.833	1.859	101.399
Wyoming	568,158	3	0.182	0.558	305.813
		0% - 100%
		100% - 125%
		125% +

As it turns out, the more populated a state is, the lower its citizen’s vote is worth, and vise versa.  For example, a person’s vote in Wyoming is worth exactly three times that of neighboring Colorado when determining who should win the Electoral College. 

Conversely, a Californian’s vote for the Electoral College is worth only 84.5% of a popular vote.  It gives a whole new meaning to the 3/5^th of a man clause…

So why does this happen?  Well, it turns out we’ve already discussed that.  Wyoming and many other states with very small populations get three electoral votes automatically (one for their member of the House and two for the Senate), yet they hold much less than that share of the total U.S. population.  Those extra electoral votes come from somewhere; they come from the larger states, which are given fewer electoral votes than their population requires.  For this reason, the Electoral College seems to favor Republicans, as most states with smaller populations are Republican-leaning. 

So big deal.  Find a way to better allocate the electors, right?  Wrong again.  The system has yet another, and potentially larger problem.  That is, the winner of each state gets that state’s entire allotment of electoral votes.  Why is this a problem? 

Well, for starters, the entire state didn’t vote for that candidate; a fraction of the state voted for that candidate.  This allows for the possibility of candidates just barely eking by in some states while losing huge in states that were foregone conclusions.

For example, a Democratic candidate could win by less than 1% in all the major swing states while losing by 30%+ in solidly GOP states.  In fact, this is more often the case than not.  Democrats often win their “base” states by a much smaller margin than Republicans win their “base” states.  In this situation, it’s advantage Democrats. 

Finally, the Electoral College discourages third party candidates.  Sure, there are always those candidates on the ballot, but the last time a third party candidate won an electoral vote was in 1968, when George Wallace took 13.5% of the national vote and 8.6% of the electoral vote.  Since then, only Ross Perot has come close. 

I write this article because there is a larger than normal chance of the Electoral College picking the wrong President.  Nate Silver, creator of the electoral prediction website FiveThirtyEight, currently says there is about a 5.2% chance of the winner of the popular vote differing from the winner of the electoral vote.  In past months, that number has been even larger. 

The conventional wisdom says Obama will likely be the benefactor, if any, of an Electoral College win but a popular vote loss.  His numbers in swing states are better than Romney’s but Romney’s numbers in GOP states are stratospheric.  Therefore, getting rid of the Electoral College would likely help Mr. Romney.

But this shouldn’t be about whom it will most help or hurt in this election or in any elections down the road. The Electoral College needs to go because it is undemocratic, disenfranchises the electorate, and it has the potential for large errors.