Pennsylvania G.O.P. Weighs Electoral Vote Changes for 2012

I've always had a problem with the concept that if one politician gets one more vote than the other in a state, that they win all of the electoral votes. If the democratic candidate wins 55-45, why can't the democrats get 55 percent of that state's electoral votes and the republican gets 45 percent.

Or we can stay with the current system and let the people in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina play a bigger role in determining who the next president is than the other 47 states combined.

 

I am sure there is an obvious answer to this but is there a reason that the POTUS can't just be decided by popular vote?

 

The thinking is that in states dominated by large cities, which are also the biggest electoral prizes, Democrats have an overwhelming advantage. It's particularly true in California and New York; if this system had been in place in '08, McCain would have won between 20 and 25 of California's 55 electoral votes. That's a very large state's worth in its own right, and it would be the same situation in western New York. If it happened nationwide, the Democrats would have a very hard time ever winning the White House.

 

It's one of those mutual interest issues where the free market ends up working against everybody.

The states are free to apportion electors however they want. But consolidating them in a winner-take-all manner makes your state more important. Nobody has incentive to de-arm themselves unless everybody else does it first.

 

Essentially, a lot of our electoral system is set up to protect rural interests and culture from being overwhelemed by urban voters.

 

Except that California, Texas and New York -- the three biggest states -- don't matter in the presidential election. So whatever particular concerns voters in those three states might have, if they aren't shared by voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, they are irrelevant.

 

And after the nominees are picked, they hardly ever go to the small states. They spend all their time in the larger states, and the few battleground ones.

This way, at least, voters in small states get their voices heard.

 

Like I said: The freedom ends up working against everybody and declaring arbitrary winners and losers.

I don't think Pennsylvania looks all that swingy to me this time around, anyway. It's hard to imagine too many scenarios where Pennsylvania is close for Obama without the Republican doing so well that he's winning Florida, Ohio and Iowa. Pennsylvania just looks one or two spots removed from the tipping point this time around to me.

 

At first, the popular vote didn't matter in choosing electors. In 2000, the possibility of the Florida Legislature choosing the GOP slate was mentioned.

 

Nate Silver talked about how, if they really wanted to, Republican-held state legislatures could just give the candidate enough electors to become President. It's within their Constitutional power to do so.

 

Section 2 of the 14th Amendment makes that difficult to implement.

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

 

I don't see how that would stop what was described.