Posted on by rjonakait

A Direct Election Would Be Different

The person who gets the most votes in next week’s presidential election may not be our next president. With our Electoral College, if a candidate loses by large margins in some states but narrowly wins states with 270 electoral votes, that person can win the presidency while losing the nationwide vote. “We the people” then takes on an ironic twist.

We should not assume, however, that if we directly elected the president that the winner of the popular vote in our present system would necessarily have won even without the Electoral College. Incentives to vote would be different. Campaigns would be different. And voting rules might change.

With a direct election, all voters would have an equal incentive to vote because all votes would matter equally. That does not exist now. An additional 50,000 votes for Trump or Harris in New York or California or Missouri or many other states would change nothing under our present system. There is little incentive to vote for president in a “safe” state. However, with the direct election of the president, voters in safe states would have more incentive to go to the polls than now. We would probably have more voters in some states than we do now.

The incentives for campaigners would also change. Now, candidates are mostly concerned with the swing states. A one percent increase for Harris or Trump could determine all the electoral votes from Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. However, a one percent increase for a candidate in the Badger State is about 30,000 votes. Now a one percent increase for a candidate in California changes nothing. All of the electoral votes will go to Harris with or without the increase. However, such a California increase means about 100,000 more nationwide popular votes. If the popular vote controlled, candidates would focus on all of the country not just a few states.

Campaign promises would also become different. Think about Iowa and the primaries. Don’t all candidates swear to support ethanol because they think defending the corn crop is high on the list of Iowa voters? If Michigan is viewed as a swing state, candidates appearing in Detroit or Battle Creek can be expected to make promises that especially appeal to Michigan voters. In safe states, such as Alabama, Mississippi, New York, California, or Louisiana, candidates do not now have to make the kind of pandering promises they make in swing states. If, however, each vote truly mattered as much in Mississippi as in Michigan, candidates would have the same incentive to pander in both places.

States would have different incentives than now for setting voter standards. We have some national voter standards. The Constitution guarantees that Blacks, women, and eighteen-year-olds can vote and that there can’t be a poll tax. Federal law says that only citizens can vote. But much that affects how many people will vote is left to the states. For example, states have different laws concerning the disenfranchisement of convicted felons. A few states allow all to vote. Some states permanently bar convicts from voting. Some states prohibit those in prison from voting. And so on. As a result, a higher percentage of the population can be eligible to vote in State A than in State B. And of course, states differ on such things as when the polls are open, who can use a mail-in ballot, rules on registration, and identity requirements, all of which can affect voter turnout, which would be important in a truly national election. Now many states do things to make voting harder with the knowledge that fewer voters will not affect the state’s power in the Electoral College. Fewer voters, however, will negatively affect the state’s power if the presidential election went to the winner of the popular vote. At least some states might reconsider their voting requirements if the Electoral College were abolished.

Posted on by rjonakait

A Response to a Friend

A knowledgeable friend concerned with the state of America asked me to comment on some of his views. He thinks that Biden does not understand that people don’t care much that the rate of inflation is dropping when they see that things still cost more than they did a year or two ago. The Southern border is a “mess and leadership demands some reasonable proposals to stop the bleeding in a fair amount of time.” He concludes that while he could never vote for Trump, his many issues with Biden will make it hard to vote for him just because he is “less of a disaster than the other choice.” The friend says he may vote for a third-party candidate and choose “to throw my vote away.” I responded in the following manner:

I agree with much of what you say. The inflation rate may be dropping but, as you point out, Americans in general may not care much about that. Those of us who lived through the regular inflation of the 1960s and 1970s might be impressed with the current lower rate of inflation, but many Americans only remember a world that for practical purposes had no inflation. I sometimes think that the presidency largely depends on the cost of gas, milk, and eggs, and those costs are higher than in recent years.

This hurts Biden, but as with much of the economy, I don’t know how much the president should be held responsible. Developed countries everywhere had inflation. It was not just an American problem, and our inflation rate was less than almost all of the European countries. By that measure, we did well on inflation. And, of course, by many standard measures—job creation, unemployment, GDP, average wages, the stock market–the economy is doing ok-to-quite good. If Biden is to be held responsible for inflation, then he should be given credit that it was lower than Europe’s rate and that the rest of the economy has performed well. However, the administration is going to need to amp up its messaging if this going to penetrate to the American electorate.

Many forecasters over the last 18 months predicted a recession. That has not occurred. I am not sure that Biden should be given much if any credit for this, just as I am not sure how much blame he should get for the inflation, but if a recession had occurred, he would be blamed for it. Inflation is a reason why Biden might not be reelected, but it is not a rational reason not to vote for him. But as someone observed, “A great president is the one who happens to be on the job when you are on a run of good luck.”

Immigration is both a political and policy mess. Biden comes across as not caring about the border, and that is a huge mistake. I thought from the beginning of Biden’s administration he should have tried to seize control of this issue by saying that it is not a southern border issue. We need comprehensive immigration reform. Biden should have been making it clear that we need immigration and that such statements as Lindsey Graham’s recent one that “the country is full” is silly, dangerous demagoguery.

I believe that the birth rate is below the replacement level. Without immigration we will have a shrinking workforce. If a 55-year-old wants to get social security, we need more workers, which means more immigration. Biden should have been making that clear. Many industries depend on immigrants. Biden should have been enlisting these industries into reform proposals. Of course, many conservatives are happy with the border crisis because it is such a potent political issue.

Biden should have put forward proposals to the Republicans that he would support massively increasing border security personnel if they massively increase the number of immigration judges — which requires additional government spending — and accept DACA reform. Of course, the conservatives would not do that. Compromise is not part of their game plan, just testosterone-fueled “solutions.” But Biden should have been stressing that our whole system is a mess and needs reform.

I have learned how little I know about our immigration system from many of the people I have met in my local biergarten. Many are immigrants, both legal and not, with at least one seeking asylum. I had little idea how complicated our system is and am still amazed that Viktor asked for asylum over five years ago and still does not have an answer. Every one of these immigrants works hard and has added to this country, but they live under an incredibly bad system.

I do have my criticisms of Biden, but I also believe that he has accomplished more than is generally recognized. Most important is the infrastructure bill, which is only a start on what is needed. Trump regularly talked about infrastructure but did nothing while Biden got something passed. It is always interesting when conservatives who voted against the bill have something from it rolled out in their district and then try to take credit for the coming improvement.

Democrats have many failings. One of their biggest, as mentioned above, is messaging. They have not touted their successes on infrastructure. Or on the economy. When Obama was President, I heard frequently how bad the economy was when it wasn’t. Most of the important indicators were favorable. Many of those economic trends continued under Trump, but by then the indicators were publicized to show how great the economy was. It was basically the same economy under both, but the conservatives messaged better about it, as they do now.

Biden has accomplished other things that fly under the radar. The spouse reads Heather Cox Richardson who regularly reports on Biden accomplishments that the spouse was not aware of. I was reminded of this while watching a Sunday morning show. A firefighter was talking about the high cancer rates among his colleagues. This has something to do with the protective gear they wear, and he was saying how changes needed to be made to improve the health of firefighters. He then went out of his way to thank Biden and Debbie Dingel for their efforts in this regard. Who knew?

Throwing away your vote where you live may not matter. Your state is likely to go Biden no matter what, but throwing away votes is how Trump got elected. In spite of popular perceptions, there was no great surge to Trump in 2016. He got almost the same percentage of the vote that Romney had four years earlier. However, an important percentage of the population apparently felt that they could not vote for Hillary Clinton. I guess that most of those thought she would win. They could not stomach voting for Trump so they voted for third party candidates. In most places that did not matter, but it proved decisive in enough battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — to give Trump the presidency. In those closely contested states, Trump did not get majorities. Sometimes he did a little better than Romney had, but not much. Hillary, however, underperformed in these states and did not get the majorities that Obama had. Apparently a sizeable group decided they would “throw away” their votes. The third-party totals, while small, often doubled and tripled. This allowed Trump to get the pluralities in these states and their electoral votes. And thus Trump became president. In 2020, the percentages for the third-party candidates followed the pre-2016 historical trends, and Trump lost. Fewer people threw away their vote in 2020.  

“Throwing away” your vote can have unexpected consequences. This year, the consequences are too dire to contemplate. Sometimes a thrown away vote is not really thrown away; it just goes into a trash pile you didn’t anticipate.

Posted on by rjonakait

What if We Abolish the Electoral College (concluded)

Principled and historical reasons can be lodged for and against the Electoral College, but the present partisan divide indicates that both Democrats and Republicans believe that if the national popular vote had been determinative, Al Gore would have won the presidency in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. However, that should not be assumed because if the popular vote had controlled, the vote totals for the candidates would have been different.

With a direct election, all voters throughout the country would have had an equal incentive to vote because all votes would have mattered equally, which, of course, does not exist now. An additional 50,000 votes for Trump or Clinton in New York or California or Texas would have changed nothing under our present system. With the direct election of the president, voters in safe states would have more incentive to go to the polls than now, and we would probably have more voters. My guess is that the minority candidate in a “safe” district would especially benefit. Where I vote, Democratic candidates are almost assured of winning not only the presidential vote, but also for all the other ballot spots. For many people, it is more satisfying to vote for winners than losers. If I had supported Trump, it would have taken some unusual strength to do the dispiriting thing of walking the block to the local junior high to fill in the bubble in front of Trump’s name because he was going to lose New York overwhelmingly. But, of course, the comparable dispirited Clinton supporter also existed in Alabama and Mississippi. I don’t know how the totals would have changed, but if the Electoral College had not existed in 2016, I am confident the totals would have been different from what got tallied as the total popular vote.

The direct election of the president would probably increase the number of voters. It would definitely change the nature of the campaigns. With hindsight, Hillary Clinton was criticized for not campaigning in Wisconsin. That criticism is understandable. She polled 27,000 fewer votes than Trump there giving Trump won the Badger State’s ten electoral votes. The critics’ assumption is that if Clinton had campaigned harder in the Dairy State (should a state be allowed two nicknames?), she might have switched some Trump voters to her or, more likely, convinced some who voted Libertarian or Green to vote for her. And perhaps more campaigning would have meant that some of those who sat on their hands would have come out to vote for her. If her campaign had brought one percent more to the polls to vote for her, she would have won Wisconsin.

That one percent, however, would have been about thirty thousand more votes. With a direct election, this extra targeting might not make sense, and Clinton probably would have spent more time in several other states where she, and Trump, did little campaigning—California and New York. Candidates do visit these states, but usually for fundraising, not traditional campaigning. The assumption under our present system is that both these states are safe for the Democrats and campaigning there by both sides is a waste of time. If the national popular vote controlled, however, both Hillary and Donald would have made campaign efforts in these states since an increase of a one percent turnout for the candidates in those places could mean 100,000 or more votes to the national total.

The abolition of the Electoral College would not just mean a change in the location of campaign efforts, it would also make a difference in campaign promises. Think about Iowa and the primaries. Don’t all candidates swear to defend ethanol because they think defending the corn crop is high on the list of Iowa voters? If Michigan is viewed as a swing state, candidates appearing in Lansing or Battle Creek can be expected to make promises that especially appeal to Michigan voters. In safe states, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, candidates do not have to make the kind of pandering promises they make in swing states. If, however, each vote truly mattered as much in Mississippi as in Michigan, candidates might have the same incentive to pander in both places.

But under the system we have, and I expect that we will continue to have, each vote for president is not equal. The swing states count more and get more from the candidates.

As a result, however we view the structure of our government, we should not refer to it as a democracy.