Larry Lessig's Latest Big Challenge: Fixing The Way We Elect A President
from the another-big-project dept
Over the last few years, Larry Lessig has not shied away from trying to bring about change to the corruption he sees in our political system with "big" projects. Rather than chipping away at ideas, Lessig has been announcing huge, almost impossible plans, generating lots of attention and hoping that they either create real change, or at the very least, create discussion on the topics he's attacking. So far, even he admits that most of those projects have been less than successful in achieving their goals. Back in 2014, there was his attempt to build a crowdfunded SuperPAC with the goal of ending SuperPACs (supporting candidates who would change campaign finance). While they raised a lot of money, Lessig admitted that the organization failed to make a real difference in the elections it participated in. Then there was the plan to call a new Constitutional Convention (which continues to garner discussion to this day, but mainly from those ideologically opposed to Lessig). And, of course, the failed campaign to be the Democratic nominee for President, where his main goal was to get into the debates -- only to have the Democrats change the rules to keep him out.
Each of these can certainly have the appearance of a rather quixotic approach to taking on government corruption. And while there are many things I do agree with Lessig on, there's also a pretty long list where I disagree with him. But, what I respect is that even as outwardly "crazy" as many of these plans appear to be, there's always an astoundingly detailed, well-thought out and well-argued logic behind them, even if the likelihood of success is low. He's making big gestures that may have a low probability of success, but these aren't campaigns that have just been thrown together on a whim -- they have a clear purpose and fit in with a larger theme, often trying to game the system in some clever way. They're gimmicky, but in ways that at least make you think.
All of that is true with his latest project as well: an attempt to change the way we elect the president. Obviously, many people who were upset with the results of last year's election (and lingering anger about the 2000 election) have been arguing that it's time to get rid of the electoral college. And, frankly, it's kind of difficult to justify why we still have an electoral college when it's quite clear that it serves no really useful function. But, of course, because of the way things worked out in 2000 and 2016, even discussing the problems of the electoral college have become (stupidly) partisan. And, because it's part of the Constitution, getting rid of the electoral college is a near impossibility.
So, instead, Lessig is attacking things a step down the chain with his EqualVotes campaign. The argument, again, makes a lot of sense. Don't get rid of the electoral college -- but stop giving all electoral votes in a state to the winner of the popular vote in that state. This is the part that's really undemocratic. As Lessig explains:
A Republican from California is no less a United States citizen than a Democrat. Yet her vote for President counts for nothing. Likewise with a Democrat in Texas. There is no reason not to allocate electors in a way that gives equal weight to every citizen’s vote, at least within the constraints of the framers’ original compromise.
States initially adopted “winner take all” because it amplified the power of that state’s votes. This troubled even Jefferson, who recognized the incentive to try to expand a state’s influence. As he wrote, “[a]n election by districts would be best if it could be general, but while ten States choose either by legislatures or by [winner take all] it is folly and worse than folly for the other States not to do it.”
Yet once (practically) every other state had embraced winner take all, its important effect was not to amplify, but to shift the focus of the presidential campaigns. This is because under “winner take all,” the only states in which it makes any sense for a presidential candidate to campaign are “battleground states” — states in which the popular vote can be expected to be so close that one side has a real chance to beat the other.
Thus in 2016, two-thirds of campaign events happened in just 6 battleground states — Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan. Four battleground states — Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania — saw 71% of campaign ad spending and 57% of candidate appearances. All together, the 14 battleground states saw 99% of ad spending and 95% of candidate visits for campaign purposes.
The argument, then, is to try to force states away from "winner-take-all." Right now, only Maine and Nebraska don't do winner take all with their electoral college votes, but they both don't have many votes anyway.
Lessig's plan to bring this about is to bring legal challenges and hopefully get them to the Supreme Court. As Lessig explains:
The Supreme Court has made it clear that the principle of “one person, one vote” applies in the “Presidential selection process”—first in a set of cases in the 1960s, and most recently, in 2000, in a case called Bush v. Gore. But the Court has not yet considered whether “winner take all” rules are themselves consistent with “one person, one vote.” Delaware asked the Supreme Court to consider the question 50 years ago. The Court declined the request for review.
It is long past time for the Court to address this inequality directly.
In a separate post, Lessig has laid out the reasoning more clearly and responded to some of the key questions. The sort of judo move here, is that Lessig is effectively trying to use the Supreme Court's reasoning in Bush v. Gore to make this work -- and he's argued that if you supported the Supreme Court in that ruling, you're being inconsistent if you argue against the case he's hoping to bring, as they're based on the same principles of one person, one vote.
The real question for the opponents here is Bush v. Gore (2000): If the application of “one person, one vote” to restrict winner-take-all is invalid because the Framers never intended the clause to be used in that way, was the application of “one person, one vote” to the Florida recount invalid, because of course, the Framers of the 14th Amendment had no intent whatsoever about the Supreme Court supervising the state’s rules for counting or recounting votes?
The point is just this: It’s perfectly respectable to say, Bush was wrong, and our claim is wrong as well. But it is selective to say, Bush was right, but our claim is wrong.
Of course, there are still others who argue that a proportional breakdown will create other problems as well, such as those who support an even more radical change: to a ranked choice voting system. And while I agree that a ranked choice setup would be much better, it has basically zero chance of happening any time soon. Lessig's chances with this lawsuit appear quite slim as well, but they're at least above zero. And, yes, I'm sure some people will point to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, as a sort of "competing" idea to Lessig's to force a move to make the popular vote actually matter -- and Lessig has said he's supportive of that effort too -- he just sees EqualVote as another way of forcing the issue.
Either way, this is a project worth paying attention to -- even if it may be a longshot. Lessig may take a lot of these longshots, but if he gets one right, it could have a pretty major impact.
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Filed Under: elections, electoral college, larry lessig, one person, one vote, president, supreme court
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Everyone is missing the really critical point.
The real problem isn't one of how we elect the president, or for that matter, any political figure. The real problem is getting competent figures into office. And that is a real bitch of a problem. Reason is quite simple. At this moment, the only thing that a political figure needs to be competent in is collecting votes. Period. End of discussion. The ability to actually understand the issues. The ability to actually act in the public good. Everything that would make a ruler a GOOD ruler doesn't even come in a close second behind the ability to actually attract votes. And unless some method is created to put competent capable people in charge, no method of electing them will work. Hell, look at the 2016 election. We had a choice of Hillary or Trump. Would anyone honestly claim that either of those two people would be capable and just ruler? I certainty hope not. We basically had to choose between two very bad choices that no rational person would desire.made the First Word by Ninja
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The Great Compromise of 1787
When the framers of this country considered representation they wanted to respect the rights of all people. However, many of the tiny eastern states (e.g. Delaware, Rhode Island) would have a lot less say in federal matters than larger territories cum states such as California, Deseret, etc.
The "Great Compromise" called for creating two houses of Congress. One would have equal representation based on the population of the states -- that is the House of Representatives, although it guarantees a two-representative minimum. The other house would have an equal number of representatives from every states -- that is the Senate.
The Great Compromise called that states' votes for the President would be a sum of the fixed reps (2 senators) and the variable reps (2+ representatives). That is the basis for the vote distribution.
When one says it's difficult to justify the [continued] existence of the electoral college one should reflect on how it's designed to balance the large-population states' rights with the small-population states' rights. It is NOT designed to balance the rights of individual voters! That was NOT its goal and it certainly does NOT do that and will NEVER do that.
So jumping from an understanding of why we have it, an informed voter may say "Well one man one vote, so get rid of the electoral college." The same voter may then consider that if we truly had one man one vote then STATES no longer have power over the election. (This also obviates the "winner take all" problem). It would mean lots of changes, some good, and some not so good:
o Candidates would rarely stump in rural areas
o In areas of predominantly red or blue states, the disenfranchised people would finally get to vote
As a fan of true democracy -- which this country doesn't do -- I would love to see the removal of the electoral college and replacement with verified secure accountable transparent voting by the population of citizens for the office of President of the United States.
For the reasons cited above I don't expect the States of the Union and the politicians running them to support removal of their power anytime ever.
Ehud Gavron
US Citizen and a blue guy in a red state
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The basic change:
This would elect a president of America.
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Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Election changes
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Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
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Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Election changes
The House and the Senate have made sure to consolidate power over these last 230 years so that WE can't change any of THEIR systems; WE can't call a Constitutional Convention.
WE should be Content.
WE should be Compliant.
WE should give them more of our money.
E
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Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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No anger about 2008?
You wonder why these ideas haven't taken shape, lol.
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Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
You got right to the point, but you are correct.
"never have a say in our government's politics."
Ahh... the very reason for political parties to exist... tools to usurp the voters wills. Your candidate serves the party... not you. Go ahead keep voting them in.
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Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
The real problem is getting the people voting to understand that they are responsible for their politicians. All I ever hear is... I voted for that turd but this is not my fault!
The American citizens are more than ignorant and lost, they are the very problem they accused the politicians of being!
The voters are incompetent, therefore incompetent politicians are the only ones able to win elections. For every vote a competent voter makes, they have 10 other idiots canceling out their vote.
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Re: Re: Election changes
The best case against democracy is to have a 5 minute conversation with the average voter. People like you.
Democracy is 2 wolves and 1 lamb deciding on what is for dinner. Even in California they voted to block gay marriage, so if you did have that democracy... the gays would be shit out of luck now wouldn't they? In a Democracy, the blacks would likely still be slaves, especially if they are correct about most whites being racist as fuck like they always say, and we already know they Mexicans hate them, and the oriental are big time racists. In a real democracy it should be real easy to put the slaves back into their shackles... sounds like something we should do right?
Democracy is nothing other than the tyranny of the majority over the minority and why they quickly commit suicide because vast numbers of ignorant folks like you will start making a whole lot of bad decisions.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
It is better to leave it exactly as it is now, there really is not a better system. The best way to keep politicians honest is for them to be worried about getting re-elected.
the problem is us voters. Since we readily vote in politicians that have proven to betray the voters... well why should they pay us any mind again?
As a business owner, I would just buy every candidate you sent up there, and since they KNOW they will not be serving again, what reason do they have to resist the phat stacks of cash I will be giving them to mold laws to my businesses benefit?
Did you think they would be altruistic for you?
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Re:
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And like you have already said, other methods of coercion along with other methods of "persuasion" will become more prevalent. And it will not matter which is illegal, they already flaunt the law in our faces as it is. You also will not get politicians to actually turn against each other, they have a great gig already, all they need to do is parrot a few lines and act like they really hate those other guys. They only go after the ones really stupid enough to get themselves into hot water so obvious that even the idiots voters would not let it slide. Look at Wiener with his 21 months of prison... a black man would be in jail for longer.
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Politicians for the Ethical Treatment of Americans
So he's basically PETA for elections? Maybe they could team up and have Naruto vote in 2020.
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Re:
So there is only anger at the presidents elected during 2000, and 2016?
No. There is anger at the fact that the electoral college and the popular vote differed in both years.
I thought that was clear from the context -- it's why I called the issue stupidly partisan. If we'd had two such elections where the results went to different parties, perhaps we could have a more honest discussion).
The issue is not who won, but the popular vote v. the electoral college.
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Re: Politicians for the Ethical Treatment of Americans
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God save us from Lawrence Lessig.
But from what he's written above, it seems clear that he never learned the lesson that the rest of us, unfortunately, have had to live with since Eldred v. Ashcroft - that what makes someone a brilliant legal scholar doesn't necessarily make them a brilliant advocate. This is a man who took an eminently winnable case, and rather than give the justices an argument they could connect with, that could sway them - the way his opponent, the beyond-brilliant Ted Olsen did - he talked down to the nine justices of the supreme court and gave them a cold, boring lecture. And he lost. And so did all of us.
That's a clever bit of logic related to Bush v. Gore up there. And you know what? Not a single damn person cares. I'm on his side, and *I* don't care. It is a boring, dull, legalistic argument that will lose in any court it's brought before.
Go and think big thoughts, Larry. Then hand them over to an actual advocate.
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So We Get Half Clinton and Half Trump President
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Hate Trump = Change System
Lessig seeks a convenient judicial solution, but state governments already have ample power to control the selection and requirements of their Electors. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the President based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party -- which is fully in line with "representative democracy" upon which the whole country is based.
States can make their own choices/changes. Nebraska and Maine have proportional distribution of the Electors (not winner take all). All states could do that too, if they wanted -- without Lessig & courts.
This Kill-the-Electoral-College chant is a perennial favorite of the left. Perhaps they would prefer a parliamentary system of selecting a chief executive -- which is even less democratic then the Electoral College?
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I advocate for NO CHANGE. The states can tell its voters you don't get to participate in the election of the President anymore. If a state wants to make a change... let the state change it on their own. You Larry needs to stay out of it, unless it is HIS state.
What I hope would happen is that the states ALL remove public voting for President. it is a huge pointless distraction. Congress has most of the power, which is why there are so many of them, to help dilute that amount of power! I want people to go back to focusing on their congress critters and stop paying daily attention to an attention WHORE!
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Re: Re:
That is an issue for you, not for me... or rather, those of us know and understand WHY the electoral college exists.
The founding fathers are directly on record stating, that the election of the President should absolutely NOT be by popular vote of the citizens. thus the electoral college.
I actually agree with them on this. The electoral college is an institution designed to "put a fork in the eye" of the idea of "democracy".
Which is why you hate it, you want a democracy, you will help destroy the nation!
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Two sentences later that justification is provided:
Wasn't that hard really, was it?
Since it's a part of the constitution, you'd need to provide a strong enough justification to not have it to get a constitutional amendment passed.
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Which is why you hate it, you want a democracy, you will help destroy the nation!
Your partisan talking points are fun, but totally unrelated to the issue actually raised in the article.
If you are against democracy, then as Lessig notes, you must agree that the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore incorrectly, no?
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Re: Hate Trump = Change System
And "kill-the-Electoral-College" is in no way what Lessig is arguing. It would be stupid bringing an issue to a court sworn to uphold the constitution if your idea was to change the constitution.
The choice of how to vote is, as the arguments outlined in the op goes, rather biased (Also, FPTP and WTIA are inherently "unfair" to the local political minority and could easily cause oppression of opinions).
And you don't touch on the electoral college as a way to protect less densely populated states against the oppression of the densely populated states, nor the connection to the state to ensure that no state is left behind.
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Re: God save us from Lawrence Lessig.
I find it interesting that his Mayday PAC has taken a bunch of money from Peter Thiel. Yes, that guy.
I find it interesting that his mainstay argument on copyright, that it should be subject to first amendment limits, was chuckled out of every court including SCOTUS (7-2 against, a rare massive majority decision showing just how far off the farm he really way).
I find it interesting that his Presidential campaign was, well... sorry, I lack a word that is more mundane than mundane and more meaningless than meaningless to cover it.
Mr Lessig is a Theorist, plain and simple. Theorists tend to lack in the basic concept of applying things in the real world. He has shown again and again that he talks a nice talk, but it never seems to inspire anything except more ruminations from those who make their living off of being theoretical (Hi Mike!).
I don't think Lessig is doing a PETA here. I don't think he's capable, honestly. Attention whoring is a whole other bag, it requires a certain amount of flamboyance and flash that he's not really bringing to the party. That he really hasn't found a flash point handle to get a grip on his current theory means that the public isn't likely to buy in. It's something that will lead to more partisan whining and not much else.
So yeah, file this with "free speech overrules copyright".
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"Quite clear"
There are certainly arguments to be made for the abolition of the electoral college, but Chesterton's fence says you aren't qualified to make them. Show that you understand why it's there, and what purposes it serves, then you can consider whether it should be abolished.
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Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
Given that the original intent was for Senators to be selected by and represent the state and Representatives to be selected by and represent the people, and that each state's number of electoral votes is set by the number of Senators plus Representatives, how about this:
That way the states themselves are represented equally and the people are fairly represented by popular vote. A quick look through the 2016 results, it looks like Trump still would've won, 262-252, and Johnson gets 7. Obviously this method would require a change in the number of required electoral votes to win since none would have received 270. This may not actually be correct though since some electoral votes get dropped due to rounding (ie. each candidate has .3 electoral votes, none round up to 1, so no one gets it). This would require some further rules other than simple percentage based. Maybe after multiplication, whoever has the highest fraction of the last vote gets it? (3.3, 4.4, 0.3, becomes 3, 5, 0)
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Re: Re: Hate Trump = Change System
The whole point though is that each electorate (state) is different and has their own rights and powers as part of the nation. One of those is choosing how it throws its electoral votes into the hat for selection of the President. Each is allowed to choose any method they like, and most have chosen winner-takes-all. If any particular state wants to change that, they are always welcome to. By no means should all states be required to follow any given system as that goes back to the original comment of electing a president of America, not the United States of America, which is a critical element.
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Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
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There would be plenty of advantages...
Mostly for the furry little politicians, but at least big corporations, foreign governments and billionaires wouldn't have to do all this ridiculously transparent nonsense they do to skirt the "laws"...
It would streamline the process and make for great Reality TV...
They could even make a special streaming "Bribe Wars" channel just for these events and the two remaining ISPs could mandate that everyone be subscribed to it for $20 a month as a "politcal duty" fee, part of their way of offering better service for their customers...
They could also hook up the system to some form of online gambling so citizens could make a few bucks here and there.
It would then be totally legal to do what is already being done in every facet of government and at least when parents tell their children that "the system works" they wouldn't be full of shit, delusional or vastly misinformed.
Come on people...
You know it's coming... I say we just surrender to the inevitable... strip naked, lube ourselves up and jump boldly into this writhing mass of a fuckfest they call the future.
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The alternative to proportional, if we can't get the will to move away from winner-take-all, is ranked choice voting for president.
Both of these proposed changes would have a huge impact on the way people vote in this nation. It would result in people taking a greater interest in actual policy positions of candidates, rather than voting based on tribalism as they do now.
That said, proportional distribution would have a higher likelihood of the selection for president landing in the laps of Congress. Ranked choice has a lower chance of that happening, but it would still be somewhat likelier than it is now.
One final thought is that laws banning or punishing so-called "faithless electors" need to be scrapped as well.
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Re: Re: Hate Trump = Change System
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Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
Not really. If people hadn’t voted for them in primaries you wouldn’t have the two bad choices that you are bitching about. Argument made by some ACs above that voters’ being utterly incompetent is very much valid. It’s just easy to blame it on the two “choices” while utterly ignoring the biggest fucking elephant in the room i.e. the fact that those choices are picked by the same voters during primaries.
In fact I would even argue that given a bad choice and a bigly worst choice in the history of the universe, people did rightfully pick the bad choice with 3 million more votes. However, I would argue that EC screwed the pooch by picking a “man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications” to quote Mr. Alex Hamilton.
From the same federalist paper, my favorite paragraph about ECs…ROFL
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”
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Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
Back then most considered themselves a citizen of their state first, and a citizen of the US second. General Robert E Lee's politics were generally much more aligned with the North, but he fought for the South out of loyalty to Virginia over the federal government.
Today, almost no one considers themselves a citizen of their state over the federal government. The whole idea sounds absurd to most people. And people move across state lines all the time.
Technology also changed things. Back then conducting a nationwide presidential election and tallying the results in only a few months would be a difficult logistical feat with ships and horses as the fastest way to travel. Having electors get together to pick the president made it much less logistically challenging.
Today travel isn't an issue. We can have instant communication with people on the other side of the planet. Counting the votes, even if they were all paper ballots, before the inauguration wouldn't be an issue or logistical challenge at all.
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What is the point?
In many countries representatives are elected and the biggest party supplies the prime minister who forms the government, if needed together with other parties. In this system the president or, as the case may be, the king or queen, is only a figure head. The one that cuts ribbons on grand openings.
To me that seems more logic because you're sure that parliament supports the government so they can get shit done. I'd be interested if somebody could at least explain the reasoning behind electing the president separately.
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State rights are very much still in demand, and should be. That is what freedom is all about.
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Re: What is the point?
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As a resident of a non-battleground state...
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Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes ( not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution) does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
A successful nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. Candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
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All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population
Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
In 2017, the bill has passed the New Mexico Senate and Oregon House.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 35 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 261 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 11 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the way to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country
NationalPopularVote
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Re: As a resident of a non-battleground state...
Issues of importance to 38 non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Policies important to the citizens of the 38 non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
“Battleground” states receive 7% more presidentially controlled grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.
Compare the response to hurricane Katrina (in Louisiana, a "safe" state) to the federal response to hurricanes in Florida (a "swing" state) under Presidents of both parties. President Obama took more interest in the BP oil spill, once it reached Florida's shores, after it had first reached Louisiana. Some pandering policy examples include ethanol subsidies, steel tariffs, and Medicare Part D. Policies not given priority, include those most important to non-battleground states - like water issues in the west.
The interests of battleground states shape innumerable government policies, including, for example, steel quotas imposed by the free-trade president, George W. Bush, from the free-trade party.
Parochial local considerations of battleground states preoccupy presidential candidates as well as sitting Presidents (contemplating their own reelection or the ascension of their preferred successor).
Even travel by sitting Presidents and Cabinet members in non-election years has been skewed to battleground states
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Re: The basic change:
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Re: What is the point?
There is a story about a new member of the House of Representatives who in meeting with the leader of the party suggested they go out and beat the other party. The party leader suggested that the other party is not the enemy, the Senate was the enemy. At times it feels this might be true. But more true is one party agonizing over something the other party wants, just because the other party wants it, with no consideration of what might be good for constituents.
Selecting a prime minister from the 'winning' party just promotes the group think agenda. In some cases, having a President that differs from the Legislative majority is a good thing. Think veto power.
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Re: Re: What is the point?
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Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: What is the point?
The fact that the US has only 2 parties doesn't make things better in that respect.Right now the 2 parties have a very big incentive to make the candidate for "the other side" fail.
I think most heads of state have veto powers by the way. They're rarely used (as should be) but they exist.
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Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re:
Although the whole-number proportional approach might initially seem to offer the possibility of making every voter in every state relevant in presidential elections, it would not do this in practice.
The whole number proportional system sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of the popular vote anywhere.
It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;
It would reduce the influence of any state, if not all states adopted.
It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant),
It would not make every vote equal.
It would not guarantee the Presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country.
The National Popular Vote bill is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees the majority of Electoral College votes to the candidate who gets the most votes among all 50 states and DC.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).
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Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
Source?
I expect it's strong in blue rural states but not so strong in red ones, but maybe I'm wrong on that.
I suspect if there really was a major push for eliminating the electoral college, states like Montana would raise hell. Switching to a proportional EC might be a more palatable compromise.
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Re: Hate Trump = Change System
Haha, you said "not". Like Wayne's World! I remember Wayne's World.
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Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
The majority of Republican primary voters did not vote for Donald Trump.
As TFA says, there's an argument to be made for voting by order of preference instead of first-past-the-post, but it's an even longer shot than reforming the electoral college.
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Re: God save us from Lawrence Lessig.
You really think Bush v Gore was decided based on the oral arguments?
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Re: "Quite clear"
Did you miss the word "still" in the quoted sentence?
He didn't say he doesn't understand the useful function it served in 1788. He argued that it serves no useful function now.
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Re:
I agree, but we still need to deal with the gerrymandering problem.
I live in Arizona; it's certainly not a perfect state, but I'm a big fan of its redistricting process, which is handled by an independent committee, not the legislature.
Ranked choice is a good idea, but I don't see any circumstance under which it's easier to pass than a proportional EC.
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Re: Hate Trump = Change System
Yes my state COULD do that, but it won't do that. Because it is not in the prominent party's favor to do so (Republicans). And so it falls onto Judicial review to change things.
Remember what I said earlier about power, People in Power rarely give it up voluntarily.
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Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
It sounds like a good idea, but how would it work in practice? You can't ban political parties; they're protected by freedom of association. And even in cases where parties aren't listed on the ballot, people still know what they are. (My city's mayoral elections are, nominally, nonpartisan, but everybody knows which candidate is the Democrat and which one is the Republican.)
There are some offices where the top two candidates go on to the final ballot, regardless of party -- California does this with some office (I forget whether it's governor or senator or what). Arizona had a similar proposal on the ballot a few elections ago, but it was voted down.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about that; I voted against it then but I'm warming up to it a bit. On the one hand, it would certainly not just shut out third-party candidates entirely, it would also, in many states, reduce an election to two members of a single party (in California's case, two Democrats; in Arizona's case, it would most likely mean two Republicans). I'm not sure I like that -- but, on the other hand, it should, at least hypothetically, favor a consensus candidate, somebody who's acceptable to a majority rather than polarizing.
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Re:
I'm surprised to hear that Georgia and Missouri are onboard. That's promising.
I suspect not as many red states will be lining up to sign it after 2016, though.
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Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
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Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
I don't think any one thing will fix the problems. More likely a bunch of them. Ranked voting, no money in politics, no political parties, some kind of rule to force candidates to keep campaign promises, severe limitations on lobbying, and probably some others. Some of these will require constitutional changes, and there in lies another problem. You nor I could initiate constitutional changes without going through likely ensconced legislators who have no interest in changing a system they benefit from.
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Re: Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
Hey, what about the 27th Amendment? That one only took 202 years to pass!
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Re: Re: Hate Trump = Change System
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Re: Re: Re: Politicians for the Ethical Treatment of Americans
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Re:
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
Yeah, I'm a strong believer in public financing of elections. That's a hard sell to legislators who were elected under the current system, though.
Citizens United explicitly upheld the premises that (1) money is a form of speech and (2) corporations have the right to free speech. The justices did leave open the door to introducing new restrictions on campaign finance, so CU wouldn't have to be overturned to, for example, require disclosure of donors' identities. But there sure hasn't been any effort in that direction in Congress. Fighting Super PACs is, of course, a key issue of Lessig's, which he hasn't had much luck with.
I agree with a lot of that, but I'm not sure "forcing candidates to keep campaign promises" is practical or even desirable. While there are quite a lot of times I've been disappointed by politicians backing away from campaign rhetoric (Clinton giving us DADT instead of allowing gay soldiers to serve openly as promised; Obama promising to dismantle Bush's surveillance policies), there are also times I've been relieved (Bush pushing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and basically everything Trump said he was going to do that he hasn't been able to). And sometimes, a president tries to fulfill a campaign promise but just doesn't have the votes in Congress (like Obama trying to close Guantanamo).
Amending the Constitution is practically impossible at this point. As Lee Mortimer noted above, the last major constitutional amendment was the 26th, passed in 1971, and it took an unpopular losing war with a draft to get that to happen. We've passed one more amendment since, the 27th in 1992; it was an uncontroversial limitation on congressional salaries, and it still took 202 years to pass.
Most constitutional amendments are the results of war or other major social upheaval:
1-10: a reaction to government overreach under British rule
12: followed a vice president killing a cabinet member in a duel
13-15: Civil War
18-19: Women's suffrage movement
21: Repealed 19
22: Response to a president violating a previously-established norm of the office (a decision rooted in the Depression and WWII)
24: Civil rights movement
25: Kennedy assassination
26: Vietnam
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Re:
So let me get this straight. Before Trump, everything was fine. After Trump, everything is bad. Gotta love democratilism.
If that's what you got from this, you either didn't read the post, don't understand basic English, or are (most likely) just being a jerk.
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Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
Well that is debatable, as party association can simply be a necessary flag of convenience to get elected.
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Re: Re: The basic change:
There is and always has been a tension between how much political power the former British colonies should retain, and how much should be delegated to the central government, for reasons stated in the preamble of the Constitution.
The idea of a popular vote or mandated proportional electoral college votes shifts focus further from those distinct political entities known as states. A few delegates to the Constitutional Convention actually supported abolishing the states altogether.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What is the point?
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
The normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law.
Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation's first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.
In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.
In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.
In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency in 2020 to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
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What needs to be taken into account, and a possible solution
The problem with pushing "one person, one vote" as a replacement for the electoral college is that it fails to take into account variations in population density, which would inevitably result in cases where a large city or cities (which tend to vote blue) can overturn the rest of the state (namely rural areas, which tend to vote red). In fact, this is something that already happens - key examples including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego for the rest of California, and Philadelphia for the rest of Pennsylvania (which is why the state going red this past election was such a big deal).
My proposal is, for each state, to normalize the votes of each county according to the state's median county population.
As an example, let's use an imaginary state. This state has a median county population of "M". In this state, in a county with population "C", candidate X received "V" votes. Therefore, X's normalized vote count in this county would be (M/C)x V, where M/C is the ratio of the state's median county population to the actual population of the county in question.
If one wanted to instead only account for the population that actually voted, they could replace C with the number of people in the county that voted, and replace M with the state's median per-county voter amount.
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Re: Re: "Quite clear"
Maybe the electoral college doesn't protect the interests of smaller states very well. Maybe it has other, overriding disadvantages. But to deny that it serves any useful function is just ignorant.
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Re: What is the point?
Gridlock is not necessarily a bug, it's at least partially a feature. The founders intended that the branches of government would act as a system of checks and balances, and there was certainly no original intent to ensure that the congress supported the president.
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Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
Californians in particular like to make up arguments about how they should get to run everyone else's lives.
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Re: Election changes
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The way toddlers play.
Yet, the "most qualified candidate ever" seems to have completely disregarded them to her own peril.
You can either own up to the mistake and adapt your strategy for next time or just screech inside your echo chamber.
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Whatever you need to tell yourself to get to sleep at night.
Hillary should be the first one to lead the way in shutting your bullshit down.
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Re: So We Get Half Clinton and Half Trump President
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Re: What is the point?
The president isn't supposed to be the prime minister. He's supposed to be the king. They're also not chums. The founding fathers were not great fans of government. The idea of having a central government at all was pretty unpalatable to them.
You have to remember that our current government is the version 2.0 and version 1.0 failed.
The people that wrote our constitution didn't want the federal government to "get things done".
Our government is supposed to be getting in it's own way.
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Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
*No, not The Man. Douglas Adams. Also: “To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”
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Re: Re: What is the point?
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Re: Re: What is the point?
I also find it a bit hard to believe they tried to make a system with dysfunction in mind. They were extremely smart people and they could and did put limitations on what the federal government was supposed to do and not do. If you set up a government you want it to govern and you're not going to set it up to fail.
Failure of the central government was way too big a risk to take, especially in those times. Now I think of it, it would be a thing in any time...
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I am a strong believer in education, but I don't think that is the federal governments job. Same with quite a few other things.
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Re: Whatever you need to tell yourself to get to sleep at night.
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Re: The way toddlers play.
Acknowledging that Clinton was a poor candidate and asserting that the electoral college should be reformed are not mutually exclusive.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
You bring up a good point and I agree that majority of primary voters did not vote for Trump. However, lets dig into the republican primary results. I think any sane person would tend to agree that of the four republican primary candidates on the ballot majority of the votes went to two most shall we say deplorable candidates. Based on these results I would still argue that the primary voters are incompetent and tend to reward the worst of the worst, more so on the republican side. Another recent nomination (Roy Moore from AL to US Senate) cements this fact.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
Huh?
Dude. There were twelve primary candidates on the Iowa ballot. (Or...do caucuses have ballots? At any rate, there were twelve candidates at that point.) There were five on all the Super Tuesday ballots. The race wasn't narrowed down to four candidates until after 12 million people had already voted, by which point Trump already had a commanding lead.
And that's the problem with First Past the Post: in a race with twelve candidates, it's possible for extreme candidates to unify their supporters, while more moderate voters are split. Most people who voted for Bush would have found Rubio or Kasich preferable to Cruz or Trump. Hell, Scott Walker never had a chance; he was probably a widely acceptable candidate to most of the voters, but he was everybody's second or third choice, nobody's first.
And as the race went on, more and more candidates dropped out. Do you think everybody who voted for Ted Cruz near the end of the primaries would have picked him if Bush or Rubio had still been an option? No; a lot of the people who voted for Cruz voted for him because by that point he was the only guy who still had a chance of beating Trump. (Kasich was never even close.)
This raises a couple of issues. One, as we've discussed, is ranked-choice voting. First-past-the-post is a system that can produce a polarizing candidate (as we've seen); ranked-choice favors consensus candidates. If your first choice was Bush, your second choice was Rubio, your third was Walker, your fourth was Kasich, and Cruz and Trump were all the way down at the bottom, there should be a better way of counting that.
Another is that the timing of primaries and caucuses gives a clear advantage to some states over others. Iowa has picked the Democratic candidate every year since 2000. (It's less influential in Republican primaries; it picked Trump last year, but its previous picks were Santorum and Huckabee.)
States that vote late in the process don't really make much difference; by March, it was pretty clear who the nominees were going to be.
On the other hand, in 2008 a number of states moved their primaries up precisely for that reason, and since that ended up being a close primary season (for the Democrats), they found that they actually would have had more influence if they'd waited until late in the process, so they shifted back to a more traditional schedule for '12 and '16.
California has recently set a date for its 2020 primary. It's much earlier than its 2016 primary, but later than its 2008 one. I expect we're going to be hearing a lot more about primary dates getting shifted around over the next 2 years.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
Yes, people had choice at the beginning but they did not vote for the sane candidates, they end up voting for the worst of the bunch. Even if they had only four candidates from the beginning, one of the two worst candidates would have won easily. Ranked-choice system would be great but the current primary system is chosen by the voters themselves via the representatives they elect, there is no one else to blame for that in a democracy. Most voters don’t care about the political process, they wake up once every four years to vote. In a democracy, when most people don’t even bother to participate you are going to have a corrupt system. It all circles back to the incompetence of voters. And don’t tell me US is not a democracy but a republic, I am sick of hearing that contrived logic.
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Re: Re: Re: The Great Compromise of 1787
The point of diminished importance of state citizenship is valid.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Everyone is missing the really critical point.
Er, I did. Did you, or did you just go straight to mashing exclamation points? The bottom 8 candidates in February had a combined 18%. The difference between first place and third place was less than 13%. If you don't understand how ranked-choice voting could have changed the entire race, here's some back-of-the-napkin. Let's go ahead and do top-four, per your suggestion.
Iowa: Top four are Cruz (27.6%), Trump (24.3%), Rubio (23.1%), Carson (9.3%). (I misspoke when I said Trump won Iowa.) Let's eliminate everybody below them. Assume Bush (2.8%), Kasich (1.9%), and Paul (0.7%) voters move over to Rubio, Christie (1.8%) voters move over to Trump, and Fiorina (4.1%), Huckabee (1.8%), and Santorum (1%) move over to Cruz. So then our final tally is Cruz (34.5%), Rubio (28.5%), Trump (26.1%), Carson (9.3%). Splitting 30 delegates up across those numbers, we get Cruz with 10, Rubio with 9, Trump with 8, Carson with 3. It's not a huge difference -- and, as I've noted before, Iowa's not very influential in Republican primaries -- but right out the gate we're looking at Trump in third place. The narrative changes a little bit.
NH: Top four are Trump (35.2%), Kasich (15.7%), Cruz (11.6%), Bush (11%). Let's award Rubio's (10.5%) and Paul's (0.7%) votes to Bush, Carson's (2.3%) and Christie's (7.4%) to Trump, and Fiornia's (4.1%) to Cruz. Now the numbers are Trump (44.9%), Bush (22.2%), and Kasich and Cruz tied (15.7)%. 23 delegates means Trump gets 8, Bush gets 5, Cruz and Kasich each get 4. It's an even bigger win for Trump, but Bush is looking a lot better.
Running total: Trump 16, Cruz 14, Rubio 9, Bush 5, Kasich 4, Carson 3.
SC: If we assume, in our scenario, that SC is still winner-take-all, then top-four doesn't make sense; we'll assume instant-runoff. Bottom rank is Carson (7.2%); let's give his votes to Trump. Next-lowest are Kasich and Bush; let's give their votest to Rubio. Now our top 3 are Trump (39.7%), Rubio (37.9%), Cruz (22.3%). So how do Cruz's voters split up? If about 54% of them go for Rubio, then Rubio wins South Carolina and 50 delegates. If Rubio gets it, then our running total is Rubio 59, Trump 16, Cruz 14, Bush 5, Kasich 4, Carson 3. If we assume Carson has still dropped out of the race at this point, then let's award his delegates to Trump and bump Trump up to 19.
Alternately, if we assume that in our hypothetical SC is not winner-take-all, and awards delegates proportionally, then top four are Trump (32.5%), Rubio (22.5%), Cruz (22.3%), Bush (7.8%). If we award Kasich's (7.6%) votes to Bush and Carson's (7.2%) to Trump, we get Trump (39.7%), Rubio (22.5%), Cruz (22.3%), Bush (15.4%). That means 20 delegates for Trump, 11 each for Rubio and Cruz, 8 for Bush. Running total: Trump 36 (39 if we add Carson's delegates), Cruz 25, Rubio 20, Bush 13, Kasich 4. In either case, it's a pretty different race from the one we saw.
Or, for another interpretation, let's just assume everybody voted exactly the same throughout the primary but all states award delegates proportionally (no winner-take-all), and instant-runoff is performed at the convention.
Ignoring candidates who withdrew during the primaries, let's start from the bottom and remove each candidate one-by-one.
Santorum: 0.05% of the popular vote. Give to Cruz for 25.13%.
Gilmore: 0.06%. Give to Bush for 0.98%.
Fiorina: 0.13%; Huckabee: 0.16%. Give to Cruz for 25.42%.
Christie: 0.18%. Give to Trump for 45.13%.
Paul: 0.21%. Give to Bush for 1.19%. Then give Bush's votes to Rubio for 12.46%.
Carson: 2.75%. Give to Trump for 47.88%.
Rubio: 12.46%. Give to Kasich for 26.22%.
Now Kasich is ahead of Cruz.
So where do Cruz's 25.42% of the vote (including votes from Fiorina and Huckabee) go? Well, it's still looking pretty good for Trump; only 8.3% of Cruz's/Fiorina's/Huckabee's combined voters have to have Trump ahead of Kasich on their ranked-choice ballot for him to win the nomination anyway.
But of course this is assuming a couple things that wouldn't actually happen: one, that 100% of Christie and Carson supporters would put Trump ahead of Kasich (or anybody else), and two, that the votes would have turned out exactly the same under an all-proportional primary system, which they certainly wouldn't; if South Carolina's 50 delegates hadn't all gone to Trump, we would have been looking at a whole different ballgame, let alone big states like Florida, California, and New York. Under those conditions, Trump doesn't get the commanding lead he did early, nor the press coverage treating him as an overwhelming frontrunner. Bush and Rubio both stay in the race longer, which certainly affects Kasich and Cruz's numbers; Cruz benefited from being the only viable candidate in the race who wasn't Trump, and Kasich benefited from being the only remaining candidate in the race who wasn't Trump or Cruz. Kasich and Cruz would certainly have been viable possibilities under those conditions; Rubio probably would have been too, and maybe even Bush. Would Cruz have gone into the convention in second place, under a proportional, ranked-choice system? I doubt it.
While both Rubio and Kasich are far too conservative for my tastes, it's absurd to lump them in with Cruz and Trump as "the worst of the bunch". Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee, and Santorum were all worse than Rubio or Kasich.
See that? It's a strawman. Don't do that. And please understand that "Don't do that" is a lot more polite than the first phrase that occurred to me.
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I agree with lessig
on a side note... I been wanting to say this in a public forum for some time.
Mueller needs to follow the money of the electoral colleagues that voted against their districts. if I were a rich man I would be willing to bet BIG that those votes were bought in some way shape or form. possibly leading back to the RNA, trump or, russia in some way or combination of all three.
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Re: Re:
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I hope lessig is reading the latest case
*JUSTICE GINSBURG: ... I would like to ask
you what's really behind all of this. The
precious right to vote, if you can stack a
legislature in this way, what incentive is
there for a voter to exercise his vote?
Whether it's a Democratic district or a
Republican district, the result -- using this
map, the result is preordained in most of the
districts.
Isn't that -- what becomes of the
precious right to vote? Would we have that
result when the individual citizen says: I
have no choice, I'm in this district, and we
know how this district is going to come out? I
think that's something that this society should
be concerned about.*
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