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Sci. Poli. Paper 3 Recently, one major discussion around the United States (especially after the 2000 and 2004 elections) has been the Electoral College system. Some think its absolutely absurd that the person who wins the popular vote in the US isnt winning the presidency. A perfect example of this so called problem is from the 2000 election. Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but lost the presidency to George W. Bush in Electoral College votes, 271-267. The same argument could apply to this years election. People loudly voiced their opinions of not liking Bush, and many thought that Kerry had this election in the bag, but, the one and only Dubya is back in office again. Many people asked themselves (and everyone around them) "How could this happen?" Lets start at the beginning, in the early days of popular voting most places used indirect elections and during these elections, the voters would choose members to "vote for them" for public officials. At that time, many people thought that voting for public officials werent something an ordinary citizen was capable of doing. Today, Americans are still not technically voting directly for the presidential candidates, we are still choosing electors (selected by each states party) that have pledged to vote for that partys presidential candidate if elected, and then the group of electors casts all of their states electoral votes for their partys candidate (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, but well discuss that later). The number of electoral votes a state gets is determined by the total number of senators and representatives combined. This ends up being 538 electoral votes for the fifty states and the District of Columbia. The Electoral College was originally designed to give both large and small states some role in presidential election. Before the 12th amendment was added to the constitution, the candidate with the most electoral votes became president and the runner up became the vice president. After the 12th 1 amendment was added, it changed the Electoral College. The 12th amendment created separate votes by electors for the president and vice president to avoid the problems of a president elected from one party and a vice president from another. So whats the problem? Some think that because a candidate wins the popular vote, that should make that person the president, which would make sense. Even though it is mathematically possible for the candidate who wins the popular vote to lose the Electoral College, since the electoral votes are won on a state by state basis. Lets reflect on two past "Electoral College crises." The first "crisis" was in 1800; there was an Electoral College tie between candidates Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. This problem then required the House to select the future president. With 36 ballots, Jefferson ended up as the president, only to have his opponent (Burr) as the Vice President. Does that make any sense? The second "crisis" happened in 1824. There was a four-way race going on, and because of this, no single candidate had the majority of electoral votes. A little bit of a shuffle though the House, and suddenly John Quincy Adams (who did not lead in either popular or electoral votes) is the new president. So what are we to do about this problem so it never happens again? That question has come up more than once in congress. In fact, since the first congress, there have been 1,028 proposals for changing the Electoral College system, and yet, no changes have been made. That has to make you think, is there really a problem? Or is this just another thing that people love to complain about, yet never want to actually do anything about? Arthur Schlessinger wrote about how there will always be problems with voting, between the problems with the electoral college and the recent amount of recounts, one thing will get fixed while another will continue to be a problem. Schlessinger argues that the electronic revolution is what is causing all of the problems. The politicians and the public are no longer 2 connecting, the televisions are telling the voters what they want to hear, and the electronic polls are telling the candidates what they want to hear. Schlessinger proposes a solution of giving 102 electoral votes as a "bonus" to the candidate to wins the national popular vote. He argues that his idea would no only preserve both the constitutional and practical rules of the states in the presidential elections, but also discouraging multiplication of parties, protecting the two-party system, reinvigorate state parties, stimulate voter turnout, and lastly, enhance voter equality. Norman Ornstein on the other hand, argues that although he too feels the Electoral College needs to be reformed, in all of the presidential elections weve had, there is a very small number of Electoral College crises. Ornstein says that the reason the Electoral College is such a nightmare is due to two things, absentee ballots and votes by mail. The absentee ballots are a problem, according to Ornstein because people are voting weeks prior to the end of the election, and not seeing how the candidates react to the extreme pressure put on them the last few weeks of a campaign. He also states that absentee ballots are too much work to count, along with the fact that many ballots dont arrive by Election Day. States like Florida gives absentee voters 10 days from the day of the election to get their votes in, while in Washington, ballots post marked even after the election day are counted. Ornstein suggests that the Electoral College is actually a good thing, and that its not the Electoral College that we need to reform but the election process. He says that the Electoral College produces larger and more decisive margins for candidates that win the when popular vote is incredibly close, which can give the president a greater sense of legitimacy and mandate. Norman Ornstein suggests that the first reform made is more money. With this money, he suggests the states use uniform ballots for federal elections, modern "touch screen" technology (expensive, but in the long run they end up being cheaper than printing paper ballots, 3 maintaining the old machines, and hiring people to count the paper ballots), updating and upgrading voter registration data (no more unrecognized registered voters), use of Local Area Networks (voters can then cast their votes at home or work, it would eliminate the excuse of not voting because you ,,didnt have time), Weekend, twenty four hour voting, with uniform closing times (more balanced turnout), and lastly, the discouragement of runaway absentee voting (absentee votes would only be used for military personnel and people that would unavoidably not be home).Ornstein closes his article with what I believe to be the most important sentence, "The Electoral College will always remain controversial." I believe that sentence to be the most important, because I fully agree with it. I think that no matter how we try to reform the Electoral College process, there will always be people that arent happy with the outcome. There will still always be one winner and a loser (or more, if were including third parties). Lastly in Faultlines, James Glassman gives his opinion about the Electoral College process. Glassman argues that the Electoral College gives disproportionate power to small states, which according to him, is one of the main reasons the Framers invented it. He goes on to discuss how the electoral college has three practical effects, one being the candidates have to pay attention to small states, like, for example, Bush and Gore in the 2000 election, battling over small states like West Virginia and Delaware. The second practical effect from the Electoral College is how the system usually magnifies the sometimes very small differences in popular votes, providing the winner with a more substantial mandate. An example of this was shown in the 1960 election when John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon by only a few tenths of a percentage point in the popular vote, but won the electoral vote 303-219. Lastly, Glassman states that the Electoral College eliminates the power of the third parties and other regional candidates. Glassman has come up with what he thinks to be a practical way to improve the Electoral 4 College system, if it were up to him; the states would adopt the idea of a proportional allocation system, like the systems used in Maine and Nebraska today. With the proportional allocation system, each state gives one electoral vote to the candidate who wins the most votes within each congressional district, the states other two electoral votes go to the candidate with the most votes statewide. Id have to say I agree with the ideas presented by Norman Ornstein and the electronic voting. I think that his reform is the "best" because it would be the most effective, if all the technical glitches were worked out first. We all know that technology always has some glitches in it, and in something as important as a presidential election they just cant risk that. I think if people were able to vote from work or home more people would. Weve talked about in class some of the reasons why people dont vote, one being voter mobility. I think that if you changed the voting system to electronic voting, many more people would not only vote, but with that comes more voter diversity. People always talk about how some people/places/cultures are all underrepresented, but you could easily have electronic voting booths also. This idea would save time, especially for those who normally have to count the paper ballots, but money in the long run too. Just like Ornstein said in his article, at first it seems like electronic voting machines would be more expensive, but in the long run, they would pay for themselves in the cost it normally takes to print off paper ballots, keep the old machines functioning properly, and to hire the poor people that have to count the ballots by hand! Im sure there are plenty of arguments against electronic voting too, what if people dont have computers and internet access? How would you track the votes? What if a system crashes? How would you know if someone voted twice? For those questions, I really dont have any answers, and I dont think that anyone really has an answer. I think that everyone thinks about 5 the ways the Electoral College could be reformed, but much like everything else in this world, no one thinks enough about it to come up with a real plan to really reform it. It cant be that much of a problem; otherwise I believe that someone would take some time to try to come up with something that works, instead of always talking about it and not doing anything. The reform that I least agree with is probably Schlessengers. I think I disagree with this "bonus system" reform because its just not logical. I understand why people think that the person that wins the national popular vote should automatically win the presidency, but if youre giving a candidate 102 extra electoral votes right off the bat, there is no reason for an electoral college at all. The opposing candidate would have to work 100 times harder than the winner of the popular vote if they even wanted a chance at winning the presidency. Im a firm believer in things happening for a reason, and I feel that if the person who wins the popular vote is meant to be the president, that candidate will be, but if not, there is a reason why the other person is winning. In the end, I still believe in what Ornstein says, "The Electoral College will always remain controversial." 6

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