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| A popularity contest that can't succeed |
| 2008-07-14 |
| THE MASSACHUSETTS Senate will be making a serious mistake if it joins the House this week in adopting the National Popular Vote system, which is designed to circumvent the Constitution's prescribed method for choosing the president. Under the system, which will go into effect only if it is adopted by states that together possess a majority of the nation's electoral votes, the electors in each state will be required to vote for whichever presidential candidate finishes first in the national popular vote - regardless of the choice of a majority of the state's own voters. Four times in our history, a candidate has become president after receiving somewhat fewer popular votes than a rival. For decades, critics of the Electoral College system who lamented its "undemocratic" nature have sought to replace it by means of a constitutional amendment. But all such attempts have failed. The National Popular Vote device is intended to bring about the same result without actually having to go through the amendment process. It is the brainchild of Stanford engineering professor John Koza, whose chief complaint about the existing system is that voters in solidly "blue" or "red" states, such as Massachusetts or Texas, receive relatively little attention. Presidential candidates instead focus on winning the dozen or so "battleground" states that are likely to decide an election. Although Koza's proposal has been endorsed by a considerable number of prominent political figures, it is seriously flawed. To begin with, even if proponents get approval from states commanding 270 electoral votes, it is questionable whether federal courts would approve the agreement, since it has the effect of denying smaller states the extra electoral weight that the current system provides them. (States are guaranteed a minimum of three electoral votes regardless of population.) The proposal is arguably unconstitutional, since it has the effect of undoing the Great Compromise between large and small states at the 1787 Constitutional Convention that was essential to the Constitution's adoption. The deeper problem with the plan, however, is the proliferation of minor-party candidates that it will generate. It would become possible for a fringe candidate who is unattractive or even abhorrent to even a large majority of the electorate to be selected as president, simply because he polls more (than his five or six or 10) rivals. That is why previous proposals to abolish the Electoral College system by means of a Constitutional amendment have included a runoff system. If no candidate were to receive, say, 40 percent of the popular vote, a second election would be held in which voters choose between the two highest-polling candidates. Even the runoff system is far from foolproof - as was demonstrated by the 2002 presidential election in France, when the anti-immigrant demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen beat out the candidate of one of the two leading parties, Socialist leader Lionel Jospin, to make it into the runoff. Although Le Pen was roundly defeated by the Gaullist candidate Jacques Chirac, for whom even many Socialists voted in the end, the multiparty system - which is encouraged by France's national popular vote rules - saved Chirac, widely perceived as corrupt, from having to demonstrate that he could win a head-to-head election against Jospin. But not even the partial safety-valve of a runoff is included in Koza's plan, simply because that would require a Constitutional amendment - just the necessity that the proposal was designed to avoid. (The Constitution prescribes that in case no candidate wins an absolute majority of the electoral vote, the president will be chosen in an election by the House of Representatives, in which each state will have one vote. This procedure has not been needed since 1824, as a result of the development of the two-party system.) The National Popular Vote legislation might have addressed the problem of a small-party candidate winning the election with a small fraction of the national vote by stipulating that the system would take effect only in the event that one candidate received at least, say, 45 percent of the vote. But the proposal that the Massachusetts House adopted makes no such provision. For this reason, among others, it would be unwise to institute the National Popular Vote system. David Lewis Schaefer is professor of political science at Holy Cross. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #2 And people in states like California should be careful what they wish for. I am sure they would be unhappy if California voted for the Democratic candidate, but the Republican won the popular vote nationwide. California's huge electoral vote bloc would be cast for the Republican under this scheme. I am sure that they would scream that their votes were being ignored and they were being disenfranchised. |
| Posted by: Rambler in California 2008-07-14 13:22 |
| #1 What the supporters also fail to acknowledge is that it undermines the need for 'states'. 50 redundant and inefficient administrative units, not to mention 100 ego based senators, could be nicely reorganized to squeeze out some major tax farming resources for a highly centralized government using regions or territories or provinces or other designation. In the end, its all about POWER. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-07-14 11:14 |