We all know about Bush and Gore and whether or not Bush had more votes overall, but have there been any Presidents in the past who won fewer votes from the electorate than their nearest rival but won anyway? Does the Electoral College system translate into a result which reflects the vote of the people overall ? *********************************************************** 08-08-04, 08:26 PM methos It has happened before:
08-08-04, 09:20 PM DorianGreyed A 2 Minute Electoral College Primer
The Electoral College (EC) votes are apportioned thus: Each state gets the same number of EC votes as its number of Representatives in the House of Representatives PLUS one for each Senator. The total number of Representatives is fixed at 435. So in the House, all US citizens* have equal representation in both the House and in the Electoral College. In the US Senate, however, each state is represented by two Senators. Thus Wyoming, population 493,423, has two Senators, and California, with a population 33,871,648 (almost 70 times as great), has two Senators. This obviously gives smaller states a greater representation in the EC, and in fact, means that each vote in Wyoming counts a little more than each vote in California.
Voters do not actually vote for a candidate; they vote for Electors pledged to that candidate. In theory, and it has happened a few times, an Elector can vote for a candidate to whom he was NOT pledged. In practice, the candidate with the highest popular vote in a state gets all of that state's electoral votes. Thus, a candidate winning by one vote in California (out of about 10 million votes) gets all of that state's 42 EC votes, and a candidate who won all of the popular votes in Wyoming will get only that state's 3 EC votes.
The Electoral College usually enhances a winner's edge, making it seem that the election was not as close as it really was in the popular vote. Examples: 1980 Electoral College Reagan 489 Carter 49. 1980 Popular Reagan 44.9 million Carter 36.5 million 1992 Electoral College Clinton 370 Bush 168 Popular Clinton 44.9 million Bush 39.1 million
On four occasions (1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000) the candidate winning the popular vote did not win in the EC, and did not become President.
* Those living within the boundaries of the 50 states or who have arranged to vote an Absentee ballot.
08-09-04, 12:10 PM FredPuli Thanks, methos and DG. The amount of fuss over last time did rather suggest that this had never happened in the past. It is a little surprising that the members of the College are not bound to follow the electorate's choice though.
Fox News' resident expert smilingly told a caller that, but for the Electoral College,some of the smaller, less populous, states might never see a candidate Big Grin As it is several are 'Purple', could go either way, so they are surprisingly popular. Without that happy accident the candidates might never go beyond the cheering masses of their biggest, safest, states.
As noted elsewhere a landslide in the UK can also be the result of only quite a small lead overall (e.g 2001 Labour 40% of the national vote and 466 seats; Conservatives 31% but only 166 seats. All seats are, roughly,equal and of 70,000 electorate ) so the Reagan example given comes as no shock. The mathematical reason is the same but you, at least in the case of the President, rarely get what we often have had several times in Parliament viz. a government with fewer total votes nationally than the second party has.In our case it's because there were many old industrial areas where the old joke was that they didn't bother to count Labour votes, they just weighed them Smile The Tories on the other hand did not have many seats where their voters vastly outnumbered (outweighed? ) the Labour or Liberal Parties' voters.
08-09-04, 02:49 PM Elexina Thanks for the sum up, DG. Excuse me while I sound like I'm four for a second: I don't CARE about the explanation, the electoral college is STUPID and doesn't make any SENSE and they need to get RID of it so that we can have presidents in office who actually WIN elections!!! Grrrr... Sorry. I just really don't understand the purpose of the EC, I guess. If you are a county by for and of the people, why doesn't the people's vote make the difference? ...that's mostly rhetorical.
08-09-04, 04:14 PM honilov I agree totally, Elexina. We really need a president that wins the popular vote, whether it's Republican or Democrat.
08-09-04, 05:00 PM methos The federal government was intended to be just that - federal. As such, the senators were to be selected by the states (specifically the state legislatures - though this has since changed), the President was to be selected by the states (though in this case by bodies separate from the legislatures specifically elected for this sole purpose). Most federations work in some similar way with the member states electing a head instead of the individuals.
How many votes each states get was a concern for the reasons already explained. The winner take all system is not a part of the federal constitution, it is the state law in 48 states.
Of course, our system is much less a federation than it used to be. The question is: should it be?
Personally, I'm not ready to scrap it, though I do wish more states would do away with the winner-take-all system. Living in a securely Democratic state in 2000 and a securely Republican state now, I've felt a little overlooked by both campaigns, and felt my vote really didn't matter. I haven't worked out the math, but I have a feeling it would have made questions about few hundred votes in a couple of states much less significant.
08-09-04, 05:59 PM Jelp01 I'm with Methos on this one: I'd like to see states scrap the winner-take-all method of selecting electors, in favor of the system that is used in Maine and Nebraska .
My state, Washington, is a divided state. The east side, where I live, votes heavily Republican, while the west side votes Democratic. Unfortunately, the east is outnumbered in population 3 to 1, so our electoral vote usually goes to the Democrats. I'd like to see our side of the state get a better shot at having a voice in deciding how our state votes for President.
08-09-04, 08:23 PM Sarai
quote:Originally posted by FredPuli: It is a little surprising that the members of the College are not bound to follow the electorate's choice though.
I agree, Fred. It is bizarre. It seems dangerous (couldn't the members be manipulated?), and I can't think of a single good reason for it. Does anyone know why the College isn't bound to follow our choice?
08-09-04, 10:12 PM coldfuse The election of 2000 certainly got our dander up about this one!
This link is in .pdf format and will require Acrobat Reader:
George Washington Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin Alexander Hamilton
The reasons given for not electing a President by popular vote could spur some interesting debate given the information age.
08-10-04, 12:13 AM FredPuli What would be wrong with allocating each state's votes in the Electoral College pro rata according to the percentage of the votes each candidate there had received? So if a state has 30 Electoral College votes and candidate A there got two thirds of the votes cast and candidate B one third the Electoral College vote from that state would be 20 votes for A and 10 for B.Yes, that example has a convenient piece of maths and assumes only two candidates but it would work just as well with several candidates and with inconvenient fractions; you'd just need a calculator and a rule about halves being rounded up (or down) Smile.
You'll be heading towards a form of proportional representation if you go along that route Smile Not, normally, thought good news in either the US or the UK. On the other hand it would keep the College but produce a result closer to that of a direct vote.
08-10-04, 01:37 AM DorianGreyed Fred, even doing it your way still allows those voters in states with smaller populations slightly more 'vote power*' than their population warrants. Using figures from the 2000 election and the 2000 census, Wyoming's population of 493,782 and 3 Electoral votes means that each Electoral vote represents 164,594 people. In California, the population of 33,871,648 and the Electoral vote of 54 means that each Electoral vote represents 627,252 people. One citizen in Wyoming has the 'voting power' of almost 4 citizens in California. Even removing the number of Senators does not equalize the voting power. Each state has at least one Representative in the House. Wyoming's Representative serves 493,782 people. California's 52 representatives serve 33,871,648 people, with each Representative serving 651,377 people. The Electoral College had a purpose once, but that purpose no longer exists. The United States is no longer a collection of independent states banded together in a federation. It is one nation, one country, and each of its citizens deserves to have his vote count as much any citizen's.
* Vote power is the population of a state divided by the number of Electoral votes it has, or the number of population per Electoral vote. Don't bother looking this up anywhere. I made the term up. but, with minor modifications, it works.
08-10-04, 03:19 AM FredPuli Hadn't appreciated that, DG. I'd got the idea that each of your electoral college votes represented similar numbers of voters ( as with Members of Parliament here representing the same number of people each, currently about70,000 .That is because, back in 1832, there were places, 'Rotten Boroughs', with only a dozen or so voters remaining there yet still returning their very own MP ! )
So it's back to the drawing board ! Smile If there's a problem it looks (from the ignorant sanctuary of thousands of miles away) as though direct election may be the only answer.You are electing only the one person.No other elected official is chosen by any other method than direct, first-past-the-post, election.Since he is to speak and act in that capacity for all of you ,all of you should, presumably, decide, just as you do for those who act and speak for your State.It's not as though your President is free to do and enact what he will;apart from other constitutional checks and balances, he's fortunate indeed if he has legislators of his persuasion; unlike our man, who can do whatever he will, subject only to his retaining the, expected, support of his own Labour MPs and, so, his job.
08-10-04, 09:23 AM methos Going to direct voting would raise an interesting issue - why keep the senate?
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