Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Sid Salter: Efforts to Abolish Electoral College Will Dilute Influence of Rural States

 The Electoral College, as confusing and messy as it often becomes in presidential politics, remains the only safeguard against having our national leadership chosen by the citizens of a few densely populated states on the east and west coasts of our country rather than the voters of all 50 states.

After every presidential election, there begins the inevitable debate about the worth of the Electoral College. The complaints are the loudest when, as in 2016, when a candidate wins the popular votes by several million votes but loses the electoral vote.

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 65.8 million to 62.9 million for Republican Donald Trump. Yet Trump won the electoral vote 306 to 232. The complaint in 2016 was that Clinton decisively won the popular vote but was foiled by the electoral vote.

Four years later, those electoral votes were flipped – Democrat Joe Biden won 306 to Trump’s 232. Biden also won the nation’s popular votes by 80.02 million to 73.8 million for Trump.

As a constitutional republic, in America it is the electors of the 50 states through the Electoral College that elects the president, not the popular vote. The Constitution allows the individual states to determine how their electors are chosen and how they cast their votes.

States are afforded the same number of electoral votes as they have representatives in each house of Congress. Each state has two senators, with the number of representatives in the House determined by population based congressional apportionment.

Some 48 states award their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the popular vote. Nebraska and Maine award one electoral vote to the winner in each congressional district and two electoral votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote.

Of course, many Trump supporters reject the outcome of the 2020 presidential and want the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to continue. But those efforts are running out of legal runway.

On Dec. 14, presidential electors meet in their respective states and formally vote. On Jan.6, 2021, there will be a joint session of Congress to count the electoral vote results from the 50 states and declare a winner when one candidate reaches 270 electoral votes.

Two weeks later, at noon on January 20, 2021, the winner takes the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol.

The forces determined to eliminate the Electoral College in the misguided name of “one man, one vote” have gathered behind the National Popular Vote Compact movement – which seeks to avoid amending the Constitution by eliminating the Electoral College by use of an interstate compact. Many legal scholars believe that strategy is unconstitutional without the consent of Congress.

But the theory is that if states with a total of 270 electoral votes enter into the compact, the popular vote in those states will be given the force of law to decide the election. Critics doubt that the compact would have the force of law and that congressional consent would be required – and that the Constitution can’t be changed without a formal constitutional amendment.

The conventional wisdom on the electoral vote is that it ensures that a U.S. president has sufficient popular support spread drawn from a distribution that is geographically diverse enough to enable the chief executive to be effective in governing. A growing number of people disagree.

Opponents of the electoral vote argue that the system favors rural, less populated states like Mississippi over more urban, heavily populated states like California or Florida. News flash, folks – it does.

Then there’s the “swing state” argument against the electoral vote. In theory, a candidate would win the presidential election by carrying just 12 states that comprise a winning 283 electoral votes: California (55 votes), Florida (29), Texas (38), New York (29), Illinois (20), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15), New Jersey (14) and Virginia (13).

To date, 15 states and the District of Columbia have entered the National Popular Vote Compact, representing 196 electoral votes. Expect this effort to continue, but understand that this is an urban versus rural, liberal versus conservative, and Democrat versus Republican political standoff.

 

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.

 

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

It’s probably best that MS and AR and AL be removed from any positions of authority.

Why should power house states like CA and NY have to deal with rural poor uneducated broke states like MS?

MS being last in everything by every metric except getting federal dollars where it’s 1st most of the time should be disbanded and absorbed into surrounding states.

Maybe then the citizens can receive a government for all the people and not just tate and his friends on jets.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Sid, but it's not a liberal vs conservative, rural vs urban, Democrat vs Republican question. It's just winner vs loser, that's all. All these factions seek whatever advantage will garner victory and they will support or abandon the electoral college if it gives them the best path to victory. To them everything else, everything else, is irrelevant. They can rationalize and justify anything that brings them victory. That's what you hire lawyers for.
The Constitution...HAH!

Anonymous said...

Thank you captain obvious 🧑‍✈️

Anonymous said...

the Constitution sets out one House member for every 30k residents. We would have about 100 of them. California would have 1300+..

We did away with that. Time for the Electoral College to go also..its an outdated concept. (along with 3/5ths for slaves. that's in there too..)

Anonymous said...

Sid Salter said: The Electoral College, as confusing and messy as it often becomes in presidential politics, remains the only safeguard against having our national leadership chosen by the citizens of a few densely populated states on the east and west coasts of our country rather than the voters of all 50 states.

Under the heading of “Simplicity is the trademark of GENIUS,” Very well said Mr. Salter!

Anonymous said...

A president doesn't govern acres; he governs people.

For every unit of "geographic consensus" you gain with the electoral college, you lose a unit of "consensus of actual human beings," which is why Republicans don't even try to win the popular vote anymore.

Geographic consensus might have mattered when states could realistically threaten to secede, but that's no longer the case. Small, dark red states aren't going anywhere because they're essentially meth addicts to federal spending -- siphoning resources from more productive blue or purple states.


States are mainly administrative units now. Giving rural net-federal-welfare-recipient states an added advantage in setting federal policy is like giving your worst producing division extra votes in running the company.

Lastly, the idea that the EC encourages diverse coalitions is laughable: Nobody who's ever lived outside rural American thinks people in NYC or LA are more homogeneous than people across the border from one another in Kansas and Nebraska, or Mississippi and Alabama.

Anonymous said...

The first two comments worded just like good little authoritarians. No one is as intelligent as a liberal authoritarian, nobody.

Anonymous said...

Sid has a firm grasp on the obvious.

Anonymous said...

Apparently 8:20 doesn’t keep up with goings on in California or NY. People are leaving California in droves because of high taxes, poor schools, poorly run government, unaffordable housing, and generally declining quality of life. NYC is going through a sharp decline as well. Do you really want Cuomo, DeBlasio, Newsom, Pelosi, Schiff, and AOC clones making decisions for the country. Be careful what you wish for.
Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama have their problems, but I say no thanks to ceding control of the country to the left-wingers who are driving California, NY, Chicago, etc., into the ground as quickly as they can.

Anonymous said...

The Electoral College is not outdated. We live in a federal republic. It still works just fine. Some folks think the Bill or Rights, particularly the First and Second Amendments have outlived their usefulness too. The Electoral College and the Bill of Rights are actually more important than ever. They are what protects us from mob rule. The anti-majoritarian protections provided by the founders are proving to have been visionary and just as timely today as in the early days of the republic. What is sad is that we live in a day of such little civic education about what federalism and a republic actually mean.

Anonymous said...

People better understand the reason this was put in place 200 years ago. We would have New York, Calif., New Jersey, Mass., Penn., Mich., Ohio decide every election, control Congress and change laws based on what they think. Do you really want 7 states telling the other 44 what to do? Once they would get control of this they would never change it back. No thanks.

Anonymous said...

So getting rid of failing economies and absorbing them with others to help all citizens is “authoritarian?”

That’s capitalism at its best.

What is happening now with MS sucking money from feds and giving it to R friends to invest in Pharma start ups is socialism and greed and graft / corruption at the highest level (Nancy New and TANF)

But I get it...you aren’t really all that smart so this is hard.....sorry

Anonymous said...

We, America, just need to reinstate a Monarchy or an Oligarchy and just do away with elections. We could also do away with the Congress and our states should become fiefdoms. If anyone actually thinks the person in the WH runs things they are mistaken. Big money and criminals run this place.

Anonymous said...

Let's either keep it or get rid of it based on today's reality. The founding fathers never intended for the "people' to decide anything. Certain people were intended to run things, plain and simple. At the time they conceived the electoral college most adult people living in the new country could not vote even if they wanted to. The issue of a large majority of women, teens, Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, Indians, Asians, non-property owners, liberals, conservatives, or whatever controlling the popular vote wasn't even a constitutional issue. They didn't give a damn about that. To the founding fathers those people were nothing anyway. So lets stop looking to "intent" of the founding fathers and let every mans vote count the same. WTF

Anonymous said...

The electoral college only exists today because of it's strategic value. It does not protect anybody's vote. States like Mississippi are ignored by the candidates because their electoral votes are already locked up. The big states like California where a majority of voters reside only get attention if they are "in play" and their electoral votes up for grabs. An inordinate amount of attention goes to "swing states" making their votes more important than mine which is completely irrelevant if I voted for the loser in my state. If a candidate gets 49% of the millions of votes cast in a state they go in the wastebasket and the winner takes the states electoral votes. A national referendum? The will of the people? It's ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

Keep posting chief. You're making my points for me. Nothing screams authoritarian like the comment of, you aren't smart enough, this is for your own good. I do recognize your authoritarian desire to make everyone economically equal. We will all be equally poor. Who will do the work when there is no incentive? Why should an individual work when everyone receives the same pay? Who will raise the crops to feed your ignorant ass? News flash genius your ideas don't work in the real world.

Anonymous said...

9:50 Yeah right. The handful of rich white men didn't want control of their country to fall into the hands of a handful of big states. That's a handful.

Anonymous said...

Good.

Anonymous said...

@9:50 AM - You must have taken the same civics class with Nobama. 7+44=51 states. Bwa ha ha.

There's One...And Another One... said...

My new hobby is identifying the various posts on various threads authored by a certain Millsaps junior-lecturer-indoctrinator.

Anonymous said...

Abolishing the EC is the Redumblicans greatest fears, look they would have lost by 8 million votes. As far as NY and California losing people, they could lose 700k each and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

Anonymous said...

Every vote should count the same. Unfortunately that isn’t happening and the vote will always be decided by a couple swing states with the current system.

Anonymous said...


"Why should power house states like CA and NY have to deal with rural poor uneducated broke states like MS?"

Well 8:20, we tried to leave the "Union" back during 1861, but many states insisted that we had to stay in the fold.
So now . . . keeping our poor and uneducated people fed . . . the tax burden falls on the tax payers of said states

BTW . . if California and New York are such "powerhouse states" . . . please explain why their citizens are leaving in droves.

Anonymous said...

Every vote does count the same. Don't be upset because your vote for the President isn't important. Your ignorance has you in an uproar. Your vote counts when you elect your local state representatives. Your state representatives direct your state's electoral delegates which candidate to vote for. Be sure your representative feels the way you do. The people lost power when U.S. Senators were no longer appointed by state legislators.

Anonymous said...

"Sid has a firm grasp on the obvious"

So true !

Sid had actually gotten better over the last few weeks.

Now he's again writing about how water is actually wet.

Oh well, nothing lasts forever.

Anonymous said...

3:45 What? If you are right, why do we have a presidential election? What country you in?

Anonymous said...

States like Missippi should be ignored !

Anonymous said...

One person, one vote. What’s so hard to grasp about that. The electoral college system is nothing but affirmative action for rural white people from southern and Midwestern states, which considering how much they hate affirmative action for everyone else, is highly ironic.

Under the current system, if you are a conservative in Virginia, your vote means nothing in the national election. Same in Minnesota. Same in Illinois. But, if you are one of the lucky people to live in a swing state, like Wisconsin, all of the sudden your vote for president matters. Why are you people okay with this nonsense disparity, since we are all voting in the same election? So you can own the “elite, coastal libs?”

This is pathetic. Time to get rid of that dinosaur we call the electoral college.

Anonymous said...

Why should the majority be govern by the minority?

Anonymous said...

"This is pathetic. Time to get rid of that dinosaur we call the electoral college. "

Our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to make it the law of the land because they knew idiots like you would come along and try to push the rest of us around. It's worked just fine since 1776 and there's no reason to abandon it now. I don't want seven states deciding all national issues for the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

At the founding, the smaller states refused to join without the EC. No doubt they feel the same today. Also, in a very close election, like 2000, every single vote in the country would be subject to question. Recounts should be demanded in all 50 states. Think that would be a problem?

Anonymous said...

Keep the college but no state shall have more than 5 times the electors of the smallest two states combined.

Anonymous said...

Whoever drew up or approved state boundaries by whatever set of processes fucked it up forever, for most of us. The same is true of Alabama and the SEC, an organization that designs state flags.

Anonymous said...

the complaints of "we don't want seven states making all of the decisions for the rest of us" are hilarious....thats literally what it is right now. If you don't live in one of about a dozen swing states, your vote means nothing. candidates don't pay attention to states like MS or NJ or Utah because they are automatic. And if you are a liberal in MS or a conservative in NJ, you have very little incentive to even bother going to vote.

get rid of the EC. its time.

Anonymous said...

7:32 - What an inane post. Do you really not realize how many times the electoral votes of those states have been exceeded by the votes of the other 43?

On the other hand, if you're a liberal living in Mississippi or a conservative living in New Jersey, that's your own damned fault. Both states have multiple Greyhound terminals.

Anonymous said...

Hey 8;20, which state do YOU think is the poorest? It's California, dufus.

California’s poverty rate among highest in nation once again, new census figures show | The Sacramento Bee

That’s according to new data from the US Census Bureau that offers insight into the economic status of people in California and the nation. The annual release of survey data measures income, poverty and insurance status.

For California, that means another reminder that the state’s poverty rate of 18.2 percent is exceeded only by Washington DC, which has a poverty rate of 18.4 percent when you account for the cost of living. It accounts for about 1 in every six residents.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article234920662.html#storylink=cpy

Yeah, we should let The People's Republics and DC, both 90% Dem and 10% gay, "lead" the nation, since they're doing SUCH a great job.

8:20, let's find you a number for reality so you two can get in touch. Maybe Reality can connect you with an actual education so you don't post Dem drivel lies.

Anonymous said...

How do you think your vote means “nothing”? Seriously, by what logic? I don’t mean your butt hurt emotions. By what actual logic do you think your vote means “nothing”? If we had a national popular vote and you voted for the candidate who lost, would your vote mean “nothing”? No. Your vote would mean the candidate you chose lost. The end. Same as now. As for how electors cast their votes, that is a matter of state statute. No one in Congress hovers over a state’s electors and tells them how to vote. Mississippi, like most other states, is “winner take all”, which means the winner of the *popular vote* is entitled to all of the state’s electoral votes. How people think this is somehow unfair is baffling. As for the commenter who suggested America “going back” to a monarchy, you do realize America was never a monarchy and that was kind of the point? What you suggest is becoming British.

Anonymous said...

The electoral college had everything to do with property rights and damn little to do with people in the first place. A few very wealthy landowners would not have their fiefdoms disrespected by burgeoning populations of urban
peons. Take it or leave it they said. This is the 21st century. It's past time to leave it.

Anonymous said...

There are some really special people on this board. Some can know the thoughts of men that have been dead for hundreds of years. That's special.

Anonymous said...

10:46- Read some detailed history books from time to time. If the electoral college goes away, why even bother having States. There would be no point.


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