Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, August 28, 2006 7:30:09 PM
A good article from opinionjournal. This is something I have been reading about for quite some time for now [a very bad idea]
For
more than 200 years America has chosen its presidents as the
Constitution provides: through the Electoral College. Traditionally,
each state has cast its electoral votes--equal to its total
representation in Congress--for the candidate who receives the most
votes statewide.
But
last week the California Senate passed legislation to award the state's
Electoral College votes to the candidate who has received the most
popular votes nationally--whether Californians chose him or
not. A similar bill passed the Assembly on May 30, so it will soon be
up to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign or veto the bill. Such a bill
also passed the Colorado Senate in April, part of a national to change
the way we choose our presidents. The mandate doesn't take effect until
enough other states sign on to provide a majority of electoral votes.
If it were in effect in 2004, George W. Bush would have taken
California's 55 electoral votes, even though John Kerry carried the
state by a margin of nearly 10%.
It
is an odd idea, an "interstate compact" switching the Electoral College
votes of member states from their state's vote winner to the national
vote winner. And the direct election of presidents would be a
political, electoral, and constitutional mistake that would radically
change America's election system.
First,
the direct election of presidents would lead to geographically narrower
campaigns, for election efforts would be largely urban. In 2000 Al Gore
won 677 counties and George Bush 2,434, but Mr. Gore received more
total votes. Circumvent the Electoral College and move to a direct
national vote, and those 677 largely urban counties would become the
focus of presidential campaigns.
Rural
states like Maine, with its 740,000 votes in 2004, wouldn't matter much
compared with New York's 7.4 million or California's 12.4 million
votes. Rural states' issues wouldn't matter much either; big-city
populations and urban issues would become the focus of presidential
campaigns. America would be holding urban elections, and that would
change the character of campaigns and presidents.
Second,
in any direct national election there would be significant
election-fraud concerns. In the 2000 Bush-Gore race, Mr. Gore's
540,000-vote margin amounted to 3.1 votes in each of the country's
175,000 precincts. "Finding" three votes per precinct in urban areas is
not a difficult thing, or as former presidential scholar and Kennedy
advisor Theodore White testified before the Congress in 1970, "There is
an almost unprecedented chaos that comes in the system where the change
of one or two votes per precinct can switch the national election of
the United States."
Washington
state's 2004 governor's race was decided by just 129 votes. A judge
found 1,678 illegal votes were cast, and it turned out that 1,200 more
votes were counted in Seattle's King County than the number of people
recorded as voting. This affected just Washington state, but in a
direct national election where everything hangs on a small number of
urban districts, such manipulations could easily decide presidencies.
Third,
direct election would lead to a multicandidate, multiparty system
instead of the two-party system we have. Many candidates would run on
narrow issues: anti-immigration, pro-gun, environment, national
security, antiwar, socialist or labor candidates, for they would have a
microphone for their issues. Then there would be political power
seekers--Al Sharpton or Michael Moore--and Hollywood pols like Barbra
Streisand or Warren Beatty. Even Paris Hilton could advance her career
through a presidential campaign.
For
such candidates to run under the present system is very difficult, for
they have to win state by state electoral votes. But if all you need is
national fame and fortune to win popular votes, many candidates would
run and presidential campaigns would become unfocused, confused, and
about political advocacy instead of presidential substance.
Finally,
direct election would also lead to weaker presidents. There are no
run-offs in the Interstate Compact--that would require either a
constitutional amendment or the agreement of all 50 states and the
District of Columbia--so the highest percentage winner, no matter how
small (perhaps 25% or 30% in a six- or eight-candidate field) would
become president. Such a winner would not have an Electoral College
majority and therefore not be seen as a legitimate president.
So
rather that trying to eviscerate the Electoral College, we should be
embracing it. It was put in the Constitution to allow states to choose
presidents, for we are a republic based on the separation of powers,
not a direct democracy. And the Electoral College--just like the
Senate--was intended to protect the residents of small states. As James
Madison said, the Electoral College included the will of the
nation--every congressional district gets an electoral vote--and "the
will of the states in their distinct and independent capacities" since
every state gets two additional electors.
And
might not the direct-election Interstate Compact lead to other similar
efforts? California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein says the Electoral College
violates "one person, one vote," and so we should have direct election
of the president. But the equal allocation of two senators to each
state also violates "one person, one vote." Montana, with 900,000
people, gets two senators and so does California with 34 million, so
Feinstein's logic would say that California should have 12 senators,
and Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont should share just one among them.
Might
not "one person, one vote" allow a national vote to amend the
Constitution instead of requiring approval by three-quarters of the
states? To restrict freedom of speech, or expand searches and seizures,
or modify any of the Bill of Rights?
One
wonders if the direct election of presidents is really the beginning of
an effort to bring national government under the control of large and
liberal states. Common Cause, a Washington-based lobbying group that
describes itself as "promoting open, honest and accountable
government," argues "how neatly it fits with American tradition." But
it doesn't. It contradicts our constitutional republic's state and
federal government sharing of powers. Choosing presidents is one of our
states' powers, and we should not remove it to begin a centralized
national American government.