A Stitch in Haste

This totally unimportant posting on Slate got me re-thinking about a very important issue indeed -- the Electoral College and whether it should be replaced with a simple popular vote.

Before Bush v. Gore, I was unequivocally, perhaps even violently, in favor of scrapping the E.C. in favor of a simple popular vote (plurality wins, no runoff). It just seemed so -- well, so "Duh!" -- that we, as a modern, literate, technological electorate, could handle a nationwide popular vote, couldn't we? All we have to do is add up all the local tallies -- a few dozen guys with HP-12c's could do it.

Then came West Palm Beach, butterfly ballots, senior citizens claiming to have mistakenly voted for Buchanan (never bought into that one), hanging chads, that ugly guy with the magnifying glass, not to mention millions of people proving their collective inability to decipher a relatively straightforward Supreme Court ruling.

Was there any way we could survive 3,141 of those nightmares? Could the courts handle the lawsuits?

I've concluded that the best answer is probably the "District Method" used by Maine and Nebraska. It would move us light years closer to the equivalent of a simple popular vote while minimizing the likelihood of a Florida 2000:

"Rather than giving all electoral votes to the statewide plurality winner as today, this method would only give the two statewide votes to the statewide winner and divide up the rest of the votes by giving one vote to the plurality winner in each Congressional district. This method of distribution has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither state has had different winners in different Congressional districts or statewide. Consequently, neither state has ever spilt its electoral votes." Source.

Of course, many less homogeneous states -- especially New York, California, Illinois and Florida -- would certainly split their votes dramatically in the upcoming election. In 2000, 33 of the 50 states would have split their electoral votes under the District Method!

The District Method would certainly not be without controversy or concern, however:

"Using Congressional districts to determine each elector would also draw more attention to the way districts are drawn, already a hot-topic in politics today. The vast majority of districts are drawn as “safe zones” for one of the two major political parties and using them for the Presidential election would considerably raise the stakes of redistricting. Since these “safe zones” have strong partisan majorities, truly competitive districts would be rare." Source.

Sure, but could it be any worse than Florida 2000?

Of course, it would still be possible (though far less likely) for an electoral/popular split with the District Method, and I also suspect the potential of third-party spoilers would remain (again, with far lower probability) under the District Method.

Are we likely to see the E.C. scrapped or modified? Not likely. First, I'm not sure the District Method could be legislatively mandated at the federal level (on states' rights grounds), and the courts certainly cannot hear the issue, on political question grounds. Any nationwide change would have to come through a constitutional amendment.

On a state-by-state basis, perhaps there will some movement away from all-or-nothing electoral awards. But expect any change to be at glacier speed.

And as for 2004? Bring it on...

P.S. Oh, how thoughtless of me, sorry...who would have won in 2000 under the District Method?

Captain Ed has an interesting quote from former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson on the Electoral College, upon which I have blogged previously here (see also my post on the Colorado proposal and the problems with popular voting generally):

In response to questions regarding the Electoral College, Simpson strongly defended the current structure and explained that any attempt to eliminate it would never pass muster with enough states. Too many smaller states would lose their impact on presidential contests, and as Simpson said, no one would ever see a campaign outside of New York, Chicago, and California.

My response: Is the alternative -- that you never see a campaign inside New York, Chicago or California -- any better?

Also, Simpson is clearly referring to a constitutional move to reform the Electoral College. But moving to the District Method, which I strongly advocate, would not require a constitutional amendment -- two states, Maine and Nebraska, have already adopted it.

My own home state of New York is a perfect example. New York State is "blue" only because New York City is so overwhelmingly Democratic (about 80-90%). Almost all the upstate counties are Republican. In 2000, under the District Method, four of New York's 33 electoral votes would have gone to Bush without him having even campaigned in the state; California's votes would have been split 19-35. Using the District Method would definitely have brought the candidates to those states to campaign (I think Simpson's pronouncement that the candidates would appear only in major population centers is totally overblown).

State-by-state adoption of the District Method would not require a constitutional amendment and avoids the logistical (and litigious) nightmares that could easily ensue from a purely popular vote. It would have prevented Florida 2000 without the litigation nightmares that purely popular voting would invite. It's simply the optimal system.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a fierce supporter of the District Method of casting electoral votes, in which the winner-take-all system is preserved, but at the Congressional District level, not the state level (the two electors corresponding to a state's Senate seats would continue to be awarded on a statewide winner-take-all basis).

Currently, only two states, Maine and Nebraska, apply the District Method, and neither has ever actually split its electoral vote.

But now it appears that may change:

President Bush campaigned Thursday in Maine, looking to pick up support in a state that divvies up its electoral votes and where even a partial victory on Nov. 2 could tip a close election his way.
...
Maine, with four electoral votes, is one of two states that doles them out among presidential candidates, rather than giving all to the winner. The winner of the statewide popular vote gets two electoral votes, and the winner in each of Maine's two congressional districts receives one, making a 3-1 split possible.
...
The Bangor area, in northern Maine, is of particular interest to Bush because it is in the congressional district he lost by a slimmer margin than the southern district. Bush put his campaign headquarters in Bangor this year rather than in Portland, where he set up in 2000. Portland is in the district Bush lost by more than 27,000 votes.

Now imagine this sort of "targeted campaigning" in California, New York or Illinois, states that might be "Red" or "Blue" in the aggregate but have significant pockets leaning to the other side. Presidential campaigns would become far more "national" in the sense that the candidates would visit far more states. And this would come without the risks of a simple popular vote, which is almost certainly unworkable, not to mention the dubious Colorado proposal.

The District Method is a workable compromise that both moves away from the archaic and unfair statewide winner-take-all system without the nightmare litigation scenarios possible under a national popular vote or the Colorado proposal. It's absolutely ideal.

Which apparently is why absolutely no one is pushing for it.

POST SCRIPT: Too bad the reporter didn't stop to read his own story when he crafted the headline "Bush Seeks Electoral Vote or Two in Maine" -- it's mathematically impossible to get only two electoral votes in Maine under the District Method; the vote must go either 4-0 or 3-1.

UPDATE: Captain Ed points to a CNN electoral map that is projecting a Maine split 3-1 for Kerry. Again, this would be the first time in modern history that a state split its electoral vote and could catalyze a serious discussion regarding Electoral College reform.

My previous Electoral College and related posts:
Electing an Electoral Alternative (flagship material)
Electoral College: Did I Say "Glacier Speed"? (Colorado Proposal)
Florida Recount: 2000 + 4 = 2000
Electoral College Reform: An Update (response to New York Times editorial)
Are You Sure You Want a Popular Vote?
Electoral College: Thoughts from Alan Simpson (Constitutional amendment process)
Electoral College: WSJ Latest to Drop the Ball (response to Wall Street Journal editorial)
Charge of the Law Brigade (campaigns preparing for election lawsuits)
(Re-)Charge of the Law Brigade (update)

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)

lost enforcement = when law enforcement, politicians or bureaucrats, when unsure of what the law is, choose to err on the side of arrest, threatening to arrest, confiscation of property or otherwise improperly infringing on individual liberties, often under the guise of "act now and let the courts figure it out later"

To the extent the phenomena described in this New York Times editorial are occurring, they are outrageous:

It is nice to think that elections officials want to do everything they can to help young voters. But the truth is, many cities and towns with colleges and universities regard student voters - who are more transient than the average resident, and whose political views also may be different - as a challenge to the established order. As a result, local elections officials often discourage students from registering and voting from their campus addresses, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that they have the right to do so.

In Texas this year, a county district attorney threatened to prosecute students from Prairie View A&M University if they tried to register. The students had to file a lawsuit before he withdrew the threat and apologized. A student at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., was told that he was not a "permanent resident" and had to vote from his parents' home in another state. And a Fox affiliate in Tucson recently carried a report quoting an elections official who warned, falsely, that University of Arizona students who registered from their dorms might be committing a felony.

I qualify my outrage for two reasons. First, this could be a case of the exception proving the rule. If, out of tens of millions of 18-24 years olds eligible to vote, only three incidents have been documented, that's arguably a pretty good track record (although of course three is "three too many").

Second, I suspect much of the confusion in such cases would be averted if students bothered to register to vote in advance instead of just showing up at the polls, a practice I do not condone. I have somewhat less sympathy for people who just show up willy-nilly at the polls and as a result have difficulty in the last-minute quest to register.

Still, here we see, yet again, examples of country bumpkin officials or other puny bureaucrats simply not knowing (or, worse, not caring) what the law is, and deciding to err on the side of arrest, intimidation and the attempted abrogation of rights. No such abuses of state power can ever be tolerated, and to the extent they occur, the perpetrators must be removed from their positions.

The "Lost Enforcement" Archives:

"Lost Enforcement": Arrested for a Bookmark
"Lost Enforcement": Memory-Hole Tactic Acknowledged as Illegal
"Lost Enforcement": Couple Arrested for Anti-Bush Shirts Proceed with Lawsuit
Tipping and the Bill of Rights
Another "The Law Be Damned" Moment
Painting Over the Canvass(ers)
"I Left the Law...in San Francisco..."

One of my first and favorite blogging topics was my staunch advocacy of the District Method of allocating electoral votes. The District Method is highly desirable compromise between the nonsensical current winner-take-all system used by all but two states and the totally unworkable proposition of moving to a straight popular vote.

States are not currently required to tally their election results by Congressional Districts, so independent think tanks and research firms have to crunch the local polling data manually, which as we see can take several months.

But the results are now in:

Polidata's Clark Bensen said that Bush carried 255 congressional districts on his way to winning reelection last November, while Kerry won 180. The president captured 214 districts held by congressional Republicans and 41 districts that were won by Democratic House candidates. Just 18 of the districts that Kerry won are in GOP hands.
...
How would Bush and Kerry have fared if the electoral college determined its allocation of electoral votes on the basis of who won each congressional district, as some advocate, rather than on who wins the popular vote in each state? Bensen crunched those numbers and concluded that Bush would have won by an even larger margin, with 317 electoral votes rather than the 286 he actually captured.

There are obviously significant implications in these numbers for the 2010 Congressional Redistricting and therefore post-2010 national elections -- OpinionJournal is all over that, as is WILLisms.

But I’m more interested in how the District Method result would have achieved what the Electoral College is supposed to achieve -- a clear, decisive victory -- even better than the winner-take-all system did, while better reflecting the popular vote in the process.

As I’ve blogged before, a true popular election is simply not possible in this country unless we are willing to spend far more money and impose far stricter rules for voting (e.g., actually registering to vote and actually having ID when you vote). But the District Method would be a huge step in that direction and achieve most of what anti-Electoral advocates seek. Almost every state would return to “battleground” status. Candidates would actually have to campaign nationwide. The prospects of a tie, or a Florida 2000 crisis or Ohio 2004 not-quite-crisis, would be miniscule compared to the current winner-take-all system.

The District Method is an idea whose time has come. It may not be the exactingly perfect solution to the flaws of the Electoral College, but it is a simple, straightforward, workable improvement that gets us mostly where we want and ought to be.

Hat tip to Right Side of the Rainbow, who first noticed the WaPo story.

Related Posts:
Electing an Electoral Alternative
Are You Sure You Want a Popular Vote?
Electoral College: Did I Say "Glacier Speed"?
Electoral College: Bush Seeks to Split Maine Vote
County Results Suggest District Method Landslide

So John “I won the popular vote in the battleground states” Kerry continues to lament voter intimidation -- so long as the supposedly intimidated voters were Democrats:

"Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated," the Massachusetts senator said at an event sponsored by the state League of Women Voters.
...
"Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you've ever had a parking ticket, you're not allowed to vote," he said.

Of course, if Kerry really wants to build a “gentleman loser” legacy of championing election reform, then perhaps he should focus, not on Ohio, but on New York and Florida (remember Florida?), where outright voter fraud is running rampant:

Some 46,000 New Yorkers are registered to vote in both [New York City] and Florida, a shocking finding that exposes both states to potential abuses that could alter the outcome of elections, a [New York] Daily News investigation shows.

Registering in two places is illegal in both states, but the massive snowbird scandal goes undetected because election officials don't check rolls across state lines.

The finding is even more stunning given the pivotal role Florida played in the 2000 presidential election, when a margin there of 537 votes tipped a victory to George W. Bush.
...
Officials in both states acknowledge that voting in multiple states is something of a perfect crime, one officials don't have the means to catch. "I can't imagine how the supervisors would have access to that information," said Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for the Florida secretary of state. "As far as I know, cross-state registry has not been discussed."

The News' investigation also found:

• Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party.



• Nearly 1,700 of those registered in both states requested that absentee ballots be mailed to their home in the other state, where they are also registered. But that doesn't raise red flags with officials in either place.

Make no mistake about it -- “snowbird voters” -- overwhelmingly Democrat -- engage in repeated and intentional voter fraud. That fraud came close to stealing the 2000 election from George W. Bush and perhaps even instigating a constitutional crisis.

Oh, and let’s remember that many of these “snowbirds,” who are smart enough to figure out how to game the system and commit voter fraud, were probably some of the same “naïve” seniors who claimed, unprovably and very conveniently, that they were “too stupid” to realize they were voting for Pat Buchanan in 2000. Yeah right.

Maybe John Kerry should decry that a little bit. But of course, there’s a difference between “count every vote” and “count every valid vote,” so don’t expect much from Kerry or any other Democrat on this issue.

This is probably the most underreported election story in years (does anyone actually read the Daily News outside of the Bronx?). But the bar has now been set, at 46,000 (and note that this number only reflects snowbirding between Florida and New York City, not the rest of the state). Any “unfair election” lamentations, especially from Democrats, that involve smaller numbers are brazen hypocrisy.

Oh, and I never blog about Election 2000 without hat-tipping this guy.



UPDATE: OpinionJournal wonders whether one of Kerry’s examples actually came from The Onion. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Washington State:

Doris McFarland, 83, and Robert Holmgren, 59, each admitted in King County District Court that they forged the signatures of and cast ballots for their recently deceased spouses.

Each will have to pay $490 in fines and court fees but they won't spend any time in jail. Multiple voting is a gross misdemeanor that can carry up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

"My wife died just before this election," Holmgren told Judge Eileen Kato. "My judgment was clouded by the grief. I'm really sorry for what I did."

McFarland's lawyer, John Price, told the judge that she simply didn't know what to do with the extra absentee ballot after her husband of 63 years, Earl, passed away last October.

Um, throwing it away might have been a plan. "Clouded by grief"? Give me a break. These were conscious, intentional acts, and I'm not sure why forgery laws wouldn't also apply.

The first punishment for voter abuse should of course be permanent loss of the right to vote, as many states (properly in my opinion) do with convicted felons — see my previous post.

Anyway, this incident is a good excuse to remind readers about how serious dual voting can be in presidential elections. Specifically, the so-called "Snowbird Effect," in which retirees who have moved from Northeastern states to "retirement" states (or who maintain homes in both states) illegally vote in both states.

The best-documented example of snowbird voting occurs between New York City and Florida, among elderly voters (who overwhelmingly tend to vote Democrat). Had Al Gore narrowly won Florida (and the Presidency) in 2000 rather than narrowly losing it, it would have been a stolen election because so many snowbird votes for him would have been illegal and invalid.

As I have blogged previously:

This is probably the most underreported election story in years (does anyone actually read the Daily News outside of the Bronx?). But the bar has now been set, at 46,000 (and note that this number only reflects snowbirding between Florida and New York City, not the rest of the state). Any "unfair election" lamentations, especially from Democrats, that involve smaller numbers are brazen hypocrisy.

How to deter, detect and prevent snowbird voting remain difficult questions. But just because they're difficult questions doesn't mean that they should remain unasked and unanswered.

As the electorate ages and "retired mobility" increases, we should expect the pool of potential snowbird voters to only increase. They almost stole one presidential election. Are we going to wait until they actually steal another before the despicable, un-American practice is stopped?

Paul Krugman has a modest proposal:

Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election.

His bases this obsolete whine on a "judicious" book by a British reporter:

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore.

Besides the fact that every objective review of the balloting says otherwise, even if this outcome were true, it would be utterly irrelevant for three reasons:

1. Al Gore was not entitled, under either Florida or federal law, to a "full manual recount."

2. A "full manual recount" had no objective meaning anyway — remember this guy?



What Democrats mean by a "full manual recount" is that every flawed or questionable ballot should have been tallied either for Gore or at least not for Bush.

3. Most importantly, any discrepancies in the final outcome would have been swamped, by orders of magnitude, by the patently illegal phenomenon of "snowbird voting" by dual-state residents — mostly senior citizens and overwhelmingly Democrats — casting fraudulent votes in both New York and Florida.

There is an important difference between "make every vote count" and "make every valid vote count." Regardless of how you feel about hanging chads, or whether you believe the ridiculous "I accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan" laments, or whether you think Bush v. Gore, 531 US 98 (2000) was correctly decided (or should have been decided at all), the only true bottom line or final result is that no one "stole" Florida from Al Gore (except maybe Ralph Nader). At worst, what was "stolen" was Democratic voters' attempt to steal Florida from Bush in the first place.

No apologist for President Bush am I, but he won, truly won, in 2000 and of course also won, truly won, in 2004.

Get over it.

POST SCRIPT #1: And if you're so concerned about the flaws of our presidential election system, then how about jumping on the bandwagon for universal adoption of the District Method for allocating Electoral College votes?

POST SCRIPT #2: The "judicious" book Krugman refers to is --


UPDATE: Apparently many people must have, like me, called "shenanigans" on Krugman, because he issued a retraction (cloaked, of course, in "fake but accurate" style so-what-isms). Again, nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does Krugman acknowledge the existence, let alone the dispositive implications, of "snowbird voter" fraud on the Florida outcome in 2000. The man has no intellectual honesty whatsoever.

As you may recall, Paul Krugman wrote an "Al Gore won Florida in 2000" column that was not only so logically strained as to bring his competence into question, but also turned out to be flat-out factually incorrect in several aspects. Krugman had to issue an apology for the grievous errors.

Now it turns out that he was even more inaccurate than he initially admitted.

But, in the spirit of "fake but accurate," he still manages to pull deception out of the jaws of journalistic honesty:

None of this has any bearing on my original point ... that, when you combine that fact with the effects of vote suppression and ballot design, it becomes reasonably clear that the voters of Florida, as well as those of the United States as a whole, tried to choose Mr. Gore.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

First, I will again point out that tens of thousands of illegal Florida votes for Gore were cast by "Snowbird voters" from New York. That indisputable voter fraud swamps, by orders of magnitude, and and all questionable votes that might, even under the most lopsided criteria, have gone for Gore.

Second, the rule is not "make every vote count," but rather make every valid vote count." Stated differently, there is no right to be an idiot in the voting booth. If you're too stupid to figure out how to vote, then too bad so sad. Perhaps you shouldn't be voting in the first place.

In any case, Krugman forgot one of life's most basic rules: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I must admit that I find very little, if anything, wrong with the final report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform on election reform generally and presidential primary reform specifically.

Congress has the power to regulate federal elections, including primaries. Traditionally, however, Congress has left it to the states to choose their own primary dates and format (i.e., open balloting versus the incomprehensible "caucus" system).

No more, if the report's recommendations are adopted:

--States, not local jurisdictions, should be in charge of voter registration, and state registration lists should be interconnected so voters could be purged automatically from the rolls in one state when they registered in another.

--Voters should be required to present photo ID cards at the polls, and states should provide free cards to voters without driver's licenses.

--States should make registration and voting more convenient with innovations like mobile registration vans and voting by mail and on the Internet.

--Electronic voting machines should make paper copies for auditing.

--In presidential election years, after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, the other states should hold regional primaries and caucuses at monthly intervals in March, April, May and June, with the order rotated.

I'm ecstatic over that first proposal. Interstate roll checks will address the despicable "snowbird voter" fraud that almost allowed Al Gore to steal the election from George W. Bush in 2000. Also, statewide administration of voter registration will help alleviate another underreported phenomenon: improper denial of student voter registration in college towns.

Electronic voting machines are inevitable, but whoever thought there could be ballot machines without a paper trial — as innocuous as an ATM receipt — was delusional.

The voter ID proposal, already causing a stir in Georgia, is a reasonable compromise. ID cards help deter voter fraud, yet if the cards are free, then the "poll tax" histrionics evaporate (see, e.g., my previous post).

As for regional primaries — I'm rather uninterested. I don't see why there can't be a single nationwide primary, but if rotating regional primaries represent a compromise and facilitate candidates visiting more states more often, then I suppose it's a good thing. The current "Iowa - New Hampshire - Super Tuesday" timeline strikes me as rather moronic.

Now perhaps we can move on to Electoral College reform and a fresh look at the vastly superior District Method for allocating electoral votes.

UPDATE #1: Just because I think Fark is cool, and Fark thinks 4,755 dead people voting is cool, that doesn't mean I think 4,755 dead people voting is cool.

UPDATE #2: The Wall Street Jounral ($) concurs:

The racially charged analogy is bunk because the panel recommended that identification cards be provided at no cost to those who need them. And photo ID if anything makes it significantly less likely that someone would be wrongly turned away at the polls, due to out-of-date registration lists or for more insidious reasons. In any case, the tacit acknowledgment by Mr. Carter and most of the other liberals on the commission that the integrity of the ballot is every bit as important as access to the ballot is a welcome one.

The idea that voter ID hurts relatively disempowered poor rural black voters, rather than protecting them from potential abuse of discretion by election officials, is ludicrous at best and brazen race-baiting at worst.

The New Jersey Attorney General has announced a county-by-county investigation into fraudulent voting, including thousands of votes cast by dead people and thousands more cases of multiple votes, including by people in multiple states (i.e., so-called "snowbird voters"):

More than 6,500 voters cast ballots in New Jersey and another state in last November's election, while 4,755 ballots were cast by deceased voters, according to Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson.

In addition, 54,601 people are registered to vote in two New Jersey counties, and 4,397 of them cast ballots in both places last fall, Wilson said.

Make no mistake about it -- this is intentional voter fraud. It can be eliminated trivially with three simple changes, all of which were included in the recent report of the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform:

1. Require photo ID, preferably government voter ID, to vote in person. To avoid the "poll tax" fallacy currently being perpetrated by opponents of Georgia's new voter ID law, allow anyone without a satisfactory ID to acquire one for free.

2. Move to statewide voter registration to avoid cross-county voting within a state.

3. Allow states to compare voter registration rolls to eliminate snowbird voting.

Not one valid vote would be disturbed by any of these three simple rules. Many, if not most, invalid votes would be.

I vote "yea," not to mention "yay!"

Stanford University computer science professor John Koza has a candidate:

Koza's scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn't require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

What an utterly atrocious idea.

Some hasty stitches:

--It's not at all clear that such an interstate compact would be constitutional. Yes the Constitution explicitly provides for interstate compacts, but clearly that mandate is limited to permissible purposes. See, e.g., Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968) (elector slates cannot be unduly limited to major parties). Would a compact that was expressly designed to subvert the Electoral College be considered "permissible"? Also, interstate compacts require congressional approval — another extra-constitutional intervention into the Electoral process that would deserve some serious judicial scrutiny.

--Regardless of how states allocate electors, it is still inarguably well-settled law that electors, once chosen, are free to vote as they please. An electoral interstate compact would not change that.

--Why would any state join such a compact? How would it not decrease, rather than increase, their influence in presidential elections?

--Why bother? There's a far better alternative — one that I have been touting for years: the District Method of allocating electoral votes:

This method divides electoral votes by district, allocating one vote to each district and using the remaining two as a bonus for the statewide popular vote winner. This method of distribution has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither state has had a statewide winner that has not swept all of the Congressional districts as well.

The District Method requires no constitutional amendment or dubious interstate compact plotting. It dilutes, significantly, the winner-take-all problems of the current system and reduces the potential for an electoral-popular divergence essentially to zero. It would bring candidates into more states during the campaign. And it might, just might, allow for a stray third-party electoral vote here and there, from time to time. Libertarians should love that prospect.

What do they say in medical school? Don't think "zebra" until you've ruled out "horse."

---

A quick digression:

Supporters say the proposal would avoid such controversial results as the 2000 presidential election when Republican George W. Bush was declared the winner despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore, a Democrat.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. Al Gore did not win the popular vote — the outcome of the popular vote will never be known, since many places with undisputed polling place victories never counted their absentee ballots or their disputed votes (what today we call "provisional ballots"). And let's not forget the "snowbird voter" fraud in Florida that almost allowed Gore to steal the 2000 election from Bush.

Far more to the point — why should it make any difference if Al Gore did indeed win the popular vote? The candidates did not wage a popular vote campaign — they waged an Electoral College campaign. The popular vote was, therefore, wholly irrelevant.

How would the vote have played out if the Electoral College had not existed and a popular vote was in place from the outset? Who knows? The candidates would have traveled differently, spent their money differently, postured and positioned themselves differently. And so on.

It would be akin to saying that, even though Player A won the tennis match, Player B made fewer unforced errors. So what? They weren't having an "unforced error" contest; they were having a tennis match. So too with presidential elections — you can't "win" or "lose" a contest that was never fought.

The 2000 presidential election was undeniably a sad chapter in our political history. The best way to ensure that it never happens again is by switching to the District Method, not some unworkable pipe dream about direct popular election or Professor Koza's bizarre interstate compact gobbledygook.

Just a quick update to note that the California Legislature has passed the absurd and likely unconstitutional "interstate electoral compact" under which participating states would, somehow, cast their Electoral College votes for whoever won the popular vote, thereby doing an end-run around the Electoral College itself. I gave the proposal thumbs-down in this post.

Not much is new, but I wanted to focus on this bizarre statement:

California is a key fundraising state for presidential candidates but often is absent from the general campaign itinerary because it is considered safely Democratic. "Candidates don't come to California," said Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico. "We are currently disenfranchised in the electoral process."

Perhaps, but the same result would be achieved, without any constitutional difficulties, by simply switching to the District Method of allocating Electoral College votes. The ability to win contested districts throughout California would certainly "bring candidates back to California" and would serve as a powerful incentive to increase voter turnout. Everyone -- including the Electoral College and the Constitution -- wins.

(Via ACS Blog.)

E.J. Dionne thinks so:

Yes, this is an effort to circumvent the cumbersome process of amending the Constitution. That's the only practical way of moving toward a more democratic system. Because three-quarters of the states have to approve an amendment to the Constitution, only 13 sparsely populated states -- overrepresented in the electoral college -- could block popular election.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Put aside the pesky problem that the proposed Electoral Compact is likely null and void (interstate compacts require pre-authorization from Congress under Article 1, Section 10). Put aside also the Fourteenth Amendment questions of "one person, one vote" -- which, contrary to Dionne, would not be reinforced by the Electoral Compact but obviously undermined by it.

Focus instead on Dionne's simple factual error that the Electoral Compact is "the only practical way of moving toward a more democratic system." There's another way, a far easier, more straightforward and totally constitutional way to bring the Electoral College closer, much closer, to reflecting the popular vote:

The District Method:

This method divides electoral votes by district, allocating one vote to each district and using the remaining two as a bonus for the statewide popular vote winner. This method of distribution has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither state has had a statewide winner that has not swept all of the Congressional districts as well.

The District Method has several advantages to winner take all: It would turn many "throwaway" states into at least partially competitive states (e.g., Republicans, who generally ignore New York State, would campaign in at least some upstate regions in an effort to win at least some Districts and their Electoral votes). Most importantly, the probability of an Electoral/popular divergence is vastly reduced. Indeed, it practically becomes impossible. Isn't that the overarching goal of calls for reform?

Furthermore, the District Method has a decisive advantage over a pure popular vote: lawsuits. A contested District here or there is unlikely to matter to the outcome of the election, unlike Florida 2000. (Had only the Electoral vote of West Palm Beach County been disputed, rather than the entire Florida slate, then there never would have been a Bush v. Gore.) But with a pure popular vote, then every polling place, every voting machine, every ballot, becomes a potential lawsuit in a close race. Tens of thousands of lawsuits -- to "preserve democracy"? That simply cannot be right.

The District Method achieves everything that the Electoral College's malcontents claim to seek, with no legal or constitutional infirmities and no cognizable downside. So if would-be reformers like Dionne don't embrace it, then it is safe to conclude that they in fact have ulterior motives beyond "preserving democracy."

On top of several other states, including California, moving their primary dates early, to a new "Super-Duper Tuesday" on February 5, 2008, Florida has now leapfrogged even that date:

In the months since California moved its presidential primary to Feb. 5 from June, the major presidential campaigns have sought to measure how the early nominating contests being held here and in about 20 other states that day will shape their tactical calculations: where to travel, whom to hire, how to spend money.
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Just this week, Florida voted to move its primary up to Jan. 29 in an effort to ensure that it would play a vital role in the nominating process and that the candidates would pay attention to the issues its residents deem important.
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But its sheer size, its concentrations of both liberals and conservatives, its status as a money tree for candidates and its role as fertile ground for policy innovation make California especially likely to wield additional clout this time around.

Primaries are of course not the general election, but I find is fascinating — and frustrating — that these states, particularly large states such as California and Florida, are so eager to play Chinese Checkers with the primary calendar to "wield additional clout," yet still totally ignore the idea of switching to the District Method of allocating electoral votes, which would earn these states even more clout than this "primary hopscotch."

To review: The all-or-nothing system of awarding all a state's Electoral College votes to whichever candidate wins the statewide vote is not a constitutional mandate. The District Method simply awards each Congressional District's one vote to the popular winner in that District, and then awards the two "Senate" electoral votes to the statewide winner. Maine and Nebraska use the District Method, though neither state has actually ever split their Electoral College vote.

But Maine and Nebraska are small, relatively homogeneous states. Large, diverse states such as California, New York and Florida would certainly split their votes. States now "written off" by one party or the other would suddenly become contested, as candidates strive to win contested Congressional Districts.

If a state wants a candidate to acknowledge its existence, then the best way is of course to have something the candidate wants. And there is nothing a presidential nominee wants more than electoral votes. Adopting the District Method would not only eliminate the flaws of the all-or-nothing system without the chaos that a pure popular vote would generate, but it would make more states more important.

The District Method continues to get my vote, every day of the calendar.

To review: I have long advocated the District Method for allocating Electoral College votes as an ideal compromise between the extremes of winner-take-all awards (which are anti-democratic) and scrapping the Electoral College outright (which would require an impossible constitutional amendment). The District Method would make an "electoral-popular" divergence almost impossible and would also compel nominees to campaign nationwide and not "write off" entire states such as New York...

...or California:

A Republican-backed ballot proposal could split left-leaning California between the Democratic and GOP nominees, tilting the 2008 presidential election in favor of the Republicans.
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California has voted Democratic in the last four presidential elections. But the change -- if it qualifies for one of two primary ballots next year and is approved by voters -- would mean that a Republican would be positioned the following November to snatch 20 or more electoral votes in GOP-leaning districts.
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Democratic consultant Chris Lehane called the plan "an effort to rig the system in order to fix the election." "If this change is made, it will virtually guarantee that a Republican wins the White House in 2008," Lehane said in an e-mail.

That last paragraph is, of course, utter nonsense.

First off, the only thing that would "virtually guarantee that a Republican wins the White House in 2008" would be Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination. Any other Democrat wins the White House against any other Republican.

Meanwhile, Democrats are claiming foul over the prospect that they might -- gasp! -- actually have to work to win California electoral votes? Cry me a river. Would these be the same Democrats who are far more likely to lament "voter disenfranchisement" and insist that every Republican victory is somehow "stolen"?

Nothing would restore legitimacy to presidential elections faster and more broadly than the District Method, especially in a large, pluralistic state like California. Anyone who argues otherwise has ulterior motives.

This op-ed is several days old, but I didn't want to let it slip by:

If applied nationally over the last generation, the district plan would have reversed the outcome of the 1960 election, electing Richard Nixon rather than John F. Kennedy, would have produced a 269-269 electoral vote tie between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in 1976, and would have consistently tightened the Electoral College outcomes in every presidential election from 1960 to the end of the 20th century — with the winning candidate losing electoral votes and the losing candidate gaining some each time.

However, in both 2000 and 2004, the district plan would have actually expanded George W. Bush's electoral vote margins — from a razor-thin five in 2000 to 38, and from 35 in 2004 to 96.

I was advocating the District Method of allocating Electoral College votes long before it was fashionable and long before the current (and apparently controversial) California voter initiative on the subject. And I too posted the hypothetical outcomes of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections using the District Method.

But I hop off the trolley at "Kennedy-Nixon."

The problem with such retroactive recalculations of the electoral tally is the same problem with those who hopelessly and embarrassingly blather on about how "Al Gore won the popular vote."

As I pointed out in a previous post, the results of the popular vote are utterly meaningless, since the candidates did not wage a popular contest. If the campaign had, from the outset, been a popular contest, then the candidates would have toured differently, advertised differently, debated differently, staffed differently, given different speeches, and so on. The goal was not to win the popular vote; the goal was to win the electoral vote. The difference is neither semantic nor inconsequential. How a popular contest would have played out is both unknown and unknowable.

And, despite my unswerving support for the District Method (including the California proposal), I will still acknowledge that back-testing or "re-running" previous elections, where the candidates were running an all-or-nothing Electoral College campaign and not a District Method Electoral College campaign (or a popular vote campaign), loses its validity. Especially as far back as 1960.

To say "Nixon would have won under the District Method" is perhaps plausible, but not certain. Just as it is perhaps plausible, but not certain, that he would have won but for the emergence of television (several polls after the infamous Kennedy-Nixon debate showed that Kennedy "won" among those watching it on television but that Nixon "won" among those listening to it on the radio). Such analyses are fun — and perhaps useful — thought experiments. But they are not statements of fact.

The reasons to advocate the District Method have nothing to do with revisiting (or rewriting) history. The reasons are that the District Method brings the Electoral College closer to a "fair and true" reflection of the popular vote than all-or-nothing, but without the need for an impossible constitutional amendment. It would make every state relevant again. It would make campaigns national (which they should be). It would virtually eliminate the potential for another Bush v. Gore (suing over one contested electoral vote is less likely to be worthwhile than suing over 25 electoral votes).

The District Method should be about looking forward, not looking backward.