Jan 2001 (An older, edited version
of this essay appeared on the
Dallas Morning News and PBS
Websites)
With borderline machine
counts, disputed hand counts, allegations
of voter interference and the shabby
business of settling the presidential
election in court, what we have
just been through can only be described
as an embarrassment to the nation.
The man with the most votes lost
to the man with the most money.
American politicians would have
been fiercely critical had this
debacle occurred in any other supposedly
civilized country. Add to this
the traditionally dismal turn-out
by voters and the only thing one
can say with certainty is that
election procedure—all of it—must
now come under scrutiny.
In Florida, the margin
of counting error was larger than
the margin of victory, which means
they could have counted ballots
until the cows came home and still
been no nearer the truth. But aside
from the obvious questions about
which machines, ballots and systems
should be used in future, for many
people the central issue is not
the mechanics of voting, but rather
the unwieldly procedures by which
it operates, and in particular
the strange device of the Electoral
College. The College may have
been a useful institution in centuries
past, when hardly anyone was entitled
to vote and up-to-the-minute opinion
polls were undreamt of, but in
today's technological environment
it is increasingly seen as archaic
and unfair—not least because
it distorts two basic principles
of democracy: 1) that all votes
should be worth the same, and 2)
that the candidate with the most
popular support should be the winner.
How can votes have
different values? As events last
year plainly demonstrated, under
the current "first-past-the-post"
system, a vote in a marginal state
can have more influence on the
outcome of a presidential election
than a vote in another state where
one candidate is the clear favorite.
Indeed, many people who don't vote
cite this as a reason for their
abstinence: why bother voting when
the result will be decided by a
handful of "don't knows"
half a continent away?
Ironically, one of the reasons the Supreme Court stopped
the Florida recount was on the grounds of unequal treatment of voters,
as opposed to unequal votes—a muddled distinction, because
added to the built in bias of the Electoral College, there were
other inequalities on voting day. For example, those fortunate enough
to live in a county that had more sophisticated vote counting equipment
were arguably better represented than those who lived elsewhere.
A more serious problem—partly
due to the electoral system—is
low voter turn-out. Although the
popular vote was actually higher
than expected, fully half of those
who were entitled to vote in the
2000 election didn't bother. This
urgently needs to be addressed.
Less than a quarter of the adult
population voted for Mr Bush—hardly
a thumping mandate, and a problem
that threatens to undermine the
very principle of democracy. Why
are so few people voting, and how
can more people become involved
in the world's most important democracy?
Pressing questions for many, but
not, it seems, for the political
establishment.
All of which supports the case for electoral
reform. But before we abandon the obviously flawed system
of the Electoral College, perhaps we should first see if it
can be fixed.
Nebraska and Maine
offer a partial solution. In those
states the number of Electoral
College votes won by a presidential
candidate is in direct proportion
to the number of congressional
districts won by his or her party.
In addition, the two senatorial
votes go to the popular winner
of the state. Adopting this measure
nationwide would preserve the intentions
of the framers when they instituted
the College, and more importantly,
it would be fairer. Almost every
state would become a "battleground"
state and more people might thus
be encouraged to vote. This measure
would also be much easier to enact
than a change to the constitution
and would surely attract wide support.
This idea has problems
though. What if a state votes overwhelmingly
for, say, a Democrat presidential
candidate and equally overwhelmingly
for non-Democrat representatives?
And what happens if a popular independent
candidate stands for the White
House? This reform could further
entrench the existing two party
system at the expense of independent
candidates. We should elect a person,
not a party, and tying one election
result to another (as the Electoral
College also does) is, at best,
messy. If a change of this kind
is to be adopted, then it would
surely be better to have a simple
proportional system in each state.
If a candidate gets forty percent
of the vote in a state, then he
or she gets forty percent of that
state's Electoral College votes.
Even this reform, however, could
lead to the outcome we have just
had—where one candidate wins the
White House while another wins
the national popular vote.
The best solution:
abolish the Electoral College and
move to a directly elected President—one
person one vote. This would clearly
be more democratic than the present
arrangements, and would also ensure
that the 2000 situation never arose
again. The electoral system has
been modified several times in
the past (to include African Americans,
women, and directly elected Senators
to name but three occasions), so
there is plenty of precedent for
change. In democracies across the
world direct elections are the
rule, not the exception; why not
in America too?
In the end, the question
is perhaps simply whether or not
there is sufficient appetite to
tamper with this part of the constitution.
Someone must, because whether it's
campaign finance, butterfly ballots
or the constitution itself, democracy
can't look after itself—not
even in America. It is a fragile
thing that needs constant attention
and it could do with some right
now.
