Electoral College Billboard

Two of our last three presidents won with fewer votes than their opponents.

There’s an unfairness built into our constitution that gives people in less populous states more say in choosing a president than people in larger states.

The Electoral College has recently favored Republicans — every Republican president elected after 1988 has lost the popular vote — but it threatens all of us. Both red-state Texas and blue-state California are cheated from fair representation

It’s a simple numbers game.

Texas has 45 times more people than Wyoming but both have the same number of senators — two each — so a Wyomingite enjoys four thousand, five hundred percent more clout in the US Senate. That advantage carries over to the Electoral College which has overruled the nationwide popular presidential vote five times.

It all goes back to our founding. The smaller colonies held off from joining the republic until they were given extra representation to protect them from the larger ones. The cruel irony is that exactly the opposite has come to pass. To this day a minority exercises a privileged leverage over the majority.

There’s almost no chance of amending the Constitution because the smaller states aren’t about to end their sweetheart deal. But a movement is developing among the states that could get around that problem. They would simply agree to assign their Electoral College votes to the candidate who earns the popular election.

COUNTERPOINT BY JACK PAINTER

Debates over the Electoral College should take into account its benefits as well:

It preserves federalism by requiring state-by-state voting. Federalism is a key feature of our system that limits federal power, protects minority rights and preserves liberty.

It promotes moderation and compromise in American politics by requiring presidential candidates to build nation-wide coalitions. (Candidates cannot succeed if they focus too narrowly on a handful of states, regions, or metropolitan areas.) This encourages a two-party system and discourages radical splinter parties.

It provides definitive electoral outcomes. It tends to magnify the margin of victory, which removes uncertainty from elections that are close in the popular vote. It also avoids the likelihood of constant recounts and run-offs that would come with multi-candidate presidential races.

It minimizes the impact of fraud and error in presidential elections by isolating problems to one or a handful of states. Without the current system, a one-vote swing in each precinct in the U.S. would have changed several recent elections. That creates an irresistible temptation to commit fraud.

Jack is an extremely knowledgeable political thinker with whom I’ve been debating since he was active in the Tea Party movement.