Electoral votes

[mmcirvin]

That initiative to apportion California's presidential electoral votes by congressional district, thereby tipping the Electoral College greatly toward the Republicans in time for 2008? Not going to happen.

Maine and Nebraska already allocate their electoral votes this way (though it rarely if ever makes a difference there), and I even proposed doing it nationwide once as some sort of middle ground between the system we've got and direct popular election of the president. However, my proposal also involved eliminating the two votes per state corresponding to each state's Senators (since, I reasoned, in the system we've got today the enormous overweighting of small rural states' voters is partially compensated by the low political power of rural voters in big urban states, who have similar interests--if we're going to remove one effect we might as well do our best to mitigate the other); and, besides, doing it in just one big state isn't the right way. Of course, any such scheme would also make the presidential election sensitive to district gerrymandering, as sunburn pointed out.

These days, I'm a lot more sympathetic to just electing the president by direct popular vote (ideally with either a runoff system, or some sort of multiple-preference scheme to reduce spoiler effects) than I used to be. There's the potential for nationwide chaos in the event of a very close election--in 2000 I was very sensitive to that--but that's just because of problems that need to be fixed anyway. Reducing the power of an individual vote just in case there's something wrong with the voting process seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater; you should fix the process instead.

Also, as I said in that earlier LJ post, the major parties really, really need to get their act together and fix the primary system; it's broken and stupid.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

But what possible incentive would they have to fix it?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I guess part of the problem is that they would have to collude with one another and with state governments.

If each party had separate control over the process, the possibility of nominating more competitive candidates by effectively sampling more of the voting base might be a big incentive.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I think you mean "coöperate". They're already colluding.

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

I've got some things to say about this, but it shouldn't be public...

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

I remember once reading a .uk edition of some American political book which had a foreword that explained he wasn't going to go into differences in political mechanics between our two countries because, fundamentally it was all the same thing any way and '...you will obviously have something much like primaries, but called something different...'.

Uh, not so much.

Or in other words, no, actually we don't. Primaries and Caucases are amongst the most alien pieces of freakin' weirdness you guys have for an ignorant Britisher like me, right up there with the very concept of a 'voting machine'. Mere electoral colleges are positive masterpieces of sanity and comprehensibility by comparison.

Fortunately since it was supposed to be a *humourous* political book, I guess starting off the laughter at the funny american not understanding that his quaint and alien folkways, are indeed quaint and alien folkways, right from the foreword wasn't necessarily a detriment.

The real reason the author didn't need to explain Primaries for the .uk edition is because we out here in the Provinces tend to feel the need to keep up with whats going on in the Imperial Capital and the methods by which you will select our next Emperor. Y'all knowing how our local powers that be get us to select our piddling local Governors naturally doesn't have the same level of importance :)

...

Come to think of it does *any* country other than the USA have anything like Primaries or Caucuses for selecting candidates? I would have thought there must be some, but I confess I can't think of any.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, some Italian leftist parties have just started using primary elections in the past couple of years, and there's a party in Korea that is going to have one too.

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, do these parties go the whole hog and have people register to vote as aligned to a particular party and hand their candidate selection machinery over to the local or national government?

Because that's what strikes me as non-American as the really really weird bit, political parties not being private membership organisations but stanage hybrid quasi-public bodies, over and above the simple fact of having massive campaigns to elect a new candidate for every election cycle, rather than only when they get fed up with them, which is I guess merely a superficial oddness.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia implies that the primary system we have stems from the Progressive era of American politics, the early years of the 20th century. At the time, when all sorts of things were shifting over to popular election (Senators became popularly elected in 1913), having the governmental election mechanism also take care of party primaries probably seemed like a matter of procedural efficiency.

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

As for the Electoral College itself, as a Johnny Foreigner I am of course quite happy to redesign your political system for you any time you like, and propose the modest reform -- as I'm sure doing something sensible like abolishing the Presidency completely and instituting a modern parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch, would be far too radical -- that the election of your President indeed be by direct popular vote...

...direct popular vote of the House of Representatives, that is. Said vote to occur any time the House of Representatives feels like it wants to hold one, none of this 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' nonsense if the incumbent just has to go or 'Fixed Term' nonsense if they just have to stay. The whole annoying multi-year national election campaign for President thing would thus disappear from your TV screens in a puff of smoke (filled rooms) since they won't be campaigning for *your* -- now non-existent -- popular votes, and Congresscritters would get an actual chance to become President despite not being State Governors. You'd just have to kick out your Representative whenever they voted for a President you despised. Everybody wins!

As an added bonus, this would also allow you to completely abolish the Office of Vice-President -- as if something happens to the existing Prez, the House can just vote in a fresh one -- the 22nd amendment, and the impeachment clause, whilst making your whole political system much less mind-bending for we denizens of oversea. :) :)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Certain US traditions would make it culturally difficult to install a monarch, but I'm sure a relatively powerless figurehead president would do just as well--many parliamentary republics have them.

We could adopt your system but add a head of state called the President, available for ribbon-cuttings, photo-ops at schools and state visits, who could be popularly elected, retaining the four-year pageant but removing most of the unpleasantness. Then the House could elect someone to head the executive departments... hmm, "prime minister" sounds foreign; let's call that person the Chief Secretary. That sounds about right.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Or Speaker of the House?

Thanks for the link to Making Light on the Betty&Barney Hill experience.