![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe California Legislature has decided, in a feat of backwards thinking amazing in it's scope and idiocy, to make the State more relevant to presidential politics by by invalidating the voting efforts of her citizens.
At least that's the way the news portrayed it.
Here's the way I heard it yesterday.
California's Assembly passed a bill too grant the states Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular national vote.
The idea, as explained, was to force candidates to come to California more often. How this was supposed to work wasn't really clear, since it doesn't really matter how Californian's vote, unless they are going to be the deciding votes in the national election. Possible, but not likely to be a moving factor, since the state in seen as safely democratic; taken as a whole.
If this were the plan, then the better way to do it would be to apportion the state's Electoral College votes to reflect the actual percentages cast in the state, then it might matter that an extra few people were persuaded to vote one way, or the other. It would also make it more possible for a third party to get some sort of real recognition. That, however, is a matter for another post.
But the actual plan is probably doomed to fail. It's an attempt to build a compact to upend the Electoral College, by getting a coalition of states, adequate to swing the election, to cast their votes for the popular winner. This might be a decent idea, but it's not going to get enough support to happen. For it to get enough support, the populace as a whole would have to become so aware of the mechanics of the present system to want to overturn it. I don't see that happening.
At a glance the present system doesn't seem too flawed. Yes, a minority can elect a president, even if only two candidates are allowed, but how small can that minority really be?
Actually, it can be quite a large minority.
The problem is that the system was designed for a different problem.
Some background, for those of you who don't know the details of the system. Bear with me if you know the details.
Each state gets a number of votes, equal to the representatives in the Congress, plus two; representing senators.
Now, the problem is the founders had a slight mistrust of the voters. Oddly enough the idea was to prevent the vagaries of the mob from taking over. The idea was that voters might be swayed by who knows what, also the idea was that the electors would represent all the people, not just the voters (recall that very few people were able to vote, as compared to the population as a whole, and what without dealing with the issue of "three fifths of all other persons").
That limited number of voters (combined with that distrust of the mob, which was why they limited the franchise), was problematic. The English system had what were called, "rotten boroughs" where in those people qualified to vote were few, and, in effect, one person got to select the Member of Parliament.
So the system was indirect; voters selected electors, who conferred on the candidates (and were bound by no law in whom they chose to cast their faith, and votes). Those electors were apportioned by the same means seats in the house were.
Things are different now. Every citizen above the age of 18 has the vote. More to the point the number of Representatives has been frozen.
The last is the most telling problem. Take California. The state has 55 electoral votes, and a population of 35.5 million. At the opposite end is Wyoming, with a population of half a million, and 3 electoral votes.
Some simple math (on the rounded numbers) gives us a value of 650,000 people getting one vote, for California. In Wyoming, each 166,000 people get one vote.
So each person in Wyoming gets 4 times the voting power of each person in California.
I don't know how the breakdown of voting age people goes, so the skew might only be 3/1, or it might be as high as 5/1. In either case, the good citizens of Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Vermont, North Dakota and Alaska (limiting the list to those states possessed of less than 700,000 people) are getting a lot more bang for their buck.
The fact of the matter is, the real problem isn't the Electoral College, per se, it's the freezing of representatives. Wyoming, et al., are guaranteed one Rep, and two senators. Which means, as the population grows; and moves, those in the more populous states will have their representation diltuted. I don't know how to fix that. If we extrapolated the value of a Wyoming representative (the smallest number we can use) to California, we get a House Delegation of 71. The House would swell to something like 600 people.
That would make getting things done, so the theory goes, almost impossible.
So we just cruise along, deciding, de facto, that those who live in more populouse states deserve to be under-represented in their government.
At least that's the way the news portrayed it.
Here's the way I heard it yesterday.
California's Assembly passed a bill too grant the states Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular national vote.
The idea, as explained, was to force candidates to come to California more often. How this was supposed to work wasn't really clear, since it doesn't really matter how Californian's vote, unless they are going to be the deciding votes in the national election. Possible, but not likely to be a moving factor, since the state in seen as safely democratic; taken as a whole.
If this were the plan, then the better way to do it would be to apportion the state's Electoral College votes to reflect the actual percentages cast in the state, then it might matter that an extra few people were persuaded to vote one way, or the other. It would also make it more possible for a third party to get some sort of real recognition. That, however, is a matter for another post.
But the actual plan is probably doomed to fail. It's an attempt to build a compact to upend the Electoral College, by getting a coalition of states, adequate to swing the election, to cast their votes for the popular winner. This might be a decent idea, but it's not going to get enough support to happen. For it to get enough support, the populace as a whole would have to become so aware of the mechanics of the present system to want to overturn it. I don't see that happening.
At a glance the present system doesn't seem too flawed. Yes, a minority can elect a president, even if only two candidates are allowed, but how small can that minority really be?
Actually, it can be quite a large minority.
The problem is that the system was designed for a different problem.
Some background, for those of you who don't know the details of the system. Bear with me if you know the details.
Each state gets a number of votes, equal to the representatives in the Congress, plus two; representing senators.
Now, the problem is the founders had a slight mistrust of the voters. Oddly enough the idea was to prevent the vagaries of the mob from taking over. The idea was that voters might be swayed by who knows what, also the idea was that the electors would represent all the people, not just the voters (recall that very few people were able to vote, as compared to the population as a whole, and what without dealing with the issue of "three fifths of all other persons").
That limited number of voters (combined with that distrust of the mob, which was why they limited the franchise), was problematic. The English system had what were called, "rotten boroughs" where in those people qualified to vote were few, and, in effect, one person got to select the Member of Parliament.
So the system was indirect; voters selected electors, who conferred on the candidates (and were bound by no law in whom they chose to cast their faith, and votes). Those electors were apportioned by the same means seats in the house were.
Things are different now. Every citizen above the age of 18 has the vote. More to the point the number of Representatives has been frozen.
The last is the most telling problem. Take California. The state has 55 electoral votes, and a population of 35.5 million. At the opposite end is Wyoming, with a population of half a million, and 3 electoral votes.
Some simple math (on the rounded numbers) gives us a value of 650,000 people getting one vote, for California. In Wyoming, each 166,000 people get one vote.
So each person in Wyoming gets 4 times the voting power of each person in California.
I don't know how the breakdown of voting age people goes, so the skew might only be 3/1, or it might be as high as 5/1. In either case, the good citizens of Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Vermont, North Dakota and Alaska (limiting the list to those states possessed of less than 700,000 people) are getting a lot more bang for their buck.
The fact of the matter is, the real problem isn't the Electoral College, per se, it's the freezing of representatives. Wyoming, et al., are guaranteed one Rep, and two senators. Which means, as the population grows; and moves, those in the more populous states will have their representation diltuted. I don't know how to fix that. If we extrapolated the value of a Wyoming representative (the smallest number we can use) to California, we get a House Delegation of 71. The House would swell to something like 600 people.
That would make getting things done, so the theory goes, almost impossible.
So we just cruise along, deciding, de facto, that those who live in more populouse states deserve to be under-represented in their government.
