Big Sky Debate NFL Public Forum Nov 2011 Electoral College

Big Sky Debate
2011-12
2011 November NFL Public Forum: Electoral College
Big Sky Debate Public Forum
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Table of Contents META...................................................................................................................... 4

THE RESOLUTION .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM DESCRIBED .................................................................................................................... 5 ELECTORAL COLLEGE UNLIKELY TO CHANGE ................................................................................................................ 6
PRO ........................................................................................................................ 7
DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: GENERAL .............................................................................................................................. 7 DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: DECREASES LIKELIHOOD FOR A RECOUNT............................................................................ 8 DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: INCREASES VOTER TURNOUT ............................................................................................... 9 DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: EMPOWERS THIRD PARTIES ............................................................................................... 11 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT DESCRIBED ..................................................................................................... 12 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT GOOD ............................................................................................................. 15 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT IS DIRECT ELECTION ........................................................................................ 17 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN: SHOULDNT USE IT; MUST END THROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ....... 18 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: SYSTEM IS ANTIQUATED .................................................................................................. 19 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DOOMSDAY SCENARIO .................................................................................................... 22 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: MISREPRESENTS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE...................................................................... 24 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DIMINISHES THE IMPACT OF SOME VOTES ...................................................................... 27 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DIMINISHES IMPACT OF THIRD PARTIES .......................................................................... 31 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: INCREASES FRAUD ........................................................................................................... 32 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: FOCUSES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ON A HANDFUL OF STATES ..................................... 33 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: BROAD SUPPORT EXISTS FOR ENDING IT ......................................................................... 37 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: THE ELECTOR PROCESS IS BADLY DAMAGED ................................................................... 39 ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: FAITHLESS ELECTORS BAD ................................................................................................ 41 A/T: FOUNDING FATHERS SUPPORT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE .................................................................................. 42 A/T: STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND FEDERALISM ARGUMENTS ........................................................................... 43 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE PROJECTS MINORITIES/CREATE COALITIONS .................................................................... 45 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS MODERATION/DECREASE OF POLARIZATION ...................................................... 46 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS LEGITIMACY/MAGNIFICATION ............................................................................. 48 A/T: MINOR REFORMS THAT WOULD FIX THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE .......................................................................... 50 A/T: X OR Y STATE IS IGNORED BY CANDIDATES .......................................................................................................... 51 A/T: THE CONSTITUTION MANDATES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ................................................................................ 52 A/T: FRAMER OF THE CONSTITUTION WANTED THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ................................................................ 53
CON ...................................................................................................................... 54
SHOULDNT DEFINE DEMOCRACY AS SIMPLY 50% + 1 ................................................................................................ 54 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FOUNDING FATHERS DIDNT INTEND A DIRECT DEMOCRACY ...................................... 55 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: GOOD SYSTEM TO DEAL WITH COMPLEX PROBLEMS ................................................... 57 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: 2008 ELECTION WAS JUST FINE! ................................................................................... 58 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: HAS ADAPTED WELL OVER TIME ................................................................................... 59 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FOCUSES ON STATE ISSUES ........................................................................................... 60 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: DIMINISHES SECTIONALISM ......................................................................................... 61 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FORCES CANDIDATES TO CREATE REASONABLE, DIVERSE MAJORITY .......................... 62 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: WIDENS THE MARGIN OF VICTORY OF CANDIDATES .................................................... 64 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: = STABILITY AND MODERATION.................................................................................... 66 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: CRITICS DONT UNDERSTAND CONSTITUTION/CONCEPT............................................. 69 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: SUPPORTS TWO-PARTY DEMOCRACY........................................................................... 70 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: DECREASES VOTER FRAUD ............................................................................................ 71 ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: MUST KEEP FAITHLESS ELECTORS.............................................................................. 72 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ISNT PERFECT, BUT BEATS ALTERNATIVES .................................. 73
November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

DIRECT ELECTION BAD: INCREASES THE COSTS OF ELECTIONS AND INCREASE CORPORATE INFLUENCE ................... 74 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE RISKS CHAIN REACTION ......................................... 75 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: WILL BRING THE FEARED TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY ......................................................... 78 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: WOULD DIMINISH CAMPAIGNING IN STATES AND LOCALITIES ............................................. 79 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: CREATES BAD CAMPAIGN INCENTIVES .................................................................................. 81 DIRECT ELECTION BAD: DIMINISHES STABILITY........................................................................................................... 82 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT BAD................................................................................................................. 84 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS THAT VOTES ARE DIMINISHED OR WASTED ......................................................... 88 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE FOCUSES ELECTIONS ON A HANDFUL OF IN PLAY STATES .............................................. 89 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS UNDEMOCRATIC ........................................................................................................... 90 A/T: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISTORTS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE .......................................................................... 91 A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE HELP OR HURTS ONE PARTY OR THE OTHER...................................................................... 92 A/T: AMERICAN SUPPORT ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ........................................................................... 93
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META
THE RESOLUTION
The November 2011 NFL Public Forum topic is: Resolved: Direct popular vote should replace electoral vote in presidential elections.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM DESCRIBED

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PROCESS DEFINED-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Selection of the President is governed by a combination of the Constitution (specifically Article II and the Twelfth and Twenty-third Amendments), state law, and customary practice. Article II of the Constitution mandates election of the President through the Electoral College, which is composed of electors appointed by each state and the District of Columbia. n6 The number of electors for each state is equal to the sum of the number of senators and representatives to which that state is entitled. n7 State legislatures have complete discretion over the appointment of electors. n8 The federal Constitution does not guarantee individuals a right to vote for Presidential electors, and only one state grants its citizens a state constitutional right to vote for Presidential electors. n9 Despite freedom to choose the appointment process, virtually every state assigns its entire electoral slate to the winner of that state's popular vote (the "winnertake-all" rule). n10 Only Maine and Nebraska use the district system, which assigns an elector to the winner of each congressional district's popular vote and two electors to the winner of the state's popular vote. n11 However, neither has actually split its electoral slate between two Presidential candidates since instituting the district system. n12 Once appointed, the electors meet in their [*207] respective states on the same day to cast separate ballots for President and Vice President. n13 After electors cast their ballots, the Vice President of the United States, in his capacity as President of the Senate, opens and counts the electors' votes in the presence of the House and Senate. n14 To be elected outright, a Presidential candidate must have a majority of the electoral votes. n15 If no candidate wins a majority, the House elects the President using the House contingency procedure. Under this procedure, the House chooses among the three candidates with the highest electoral vote totals; when voting, the delegation from each state has one vote. n16 The states' delegations continue to vote until one candidate receives a majority and thus is elected.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE UNLIKELY TO CHANGE

ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM IS VERY RESISTANT TO CHANGE DUE TO THE DIFFICULTY OF CHANGING TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN OUR DEMOCRACY-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] The need for constitutional change is upon us, and the task is a difficult one. The dimensions of the problem are well defined in an article by Richard H. Pildes: [But] democratic institutional designers rarely consider or build in the capacity for representative institutions to be readily redesigned as circumstances change. The static considerations of power and vulnerability at the moment of formation overwhelm any capacity to create ready mechanisms for later institutional self-revision. To make matters worse, one of the iron laws of democratic institutions is that institutional structures once created become refractory to change. As specific examples in our U.S. Constitution, Pildes goes on to cite the provisions for both the Senate and the Electoral College, and the fact that the representational basis for both is skewed. In the Senate, approximately 500,000 Wyoming citizens have the same voting power as thirty-four million Californians. Pildes goes on to specifically argue that the Electoral College, with its bonus of two electoral votes for each state regardless of size, illustrates a larger design defect the Constitution's failure to include any ready capacity to modify the Electoral College structure over time through national political processes, particularly in light of the material disincentives for individual states to change their own allocation rules for electors.
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PRO
DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: GENERAL
THE UNITED STATES MUST MOVE IMMEDIATELY TO A DIRECT ELECTION PLAN-Raskin '07 [Jamin; Professor of Constitutional Law at American University; Deformed Reform: The cure for the Electoral College that is worse than what ails us; Slate; 24 August 2007; http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/08/deformed_reform.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] The current system is arbitrary, accident-prone, and increasingly untenable. On that I can agree with the Republicans who back the California initiative. What I cannot accept is that a more convoluted system, undertaken by a single state for transparently political reasons, is the solution. It is time for the American people to elect the president directly and democratically. Let us give every American incentive to vote in an election in which every vote counts. Let us (finally) agree to stop playing strategic games and let the chips fall where they may with a national popular vote. DIRECT ELECTION HAS SEVERAL BENEFITS-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 2160] The Automatic, Proportional, District, and National Bonus plans all have limitations as remedies to the problems caused by the electoral college. There remains the system that Americans use to elect every member of Congress, every governor, and virtually every elected official in the country: direct election. Direct election of the president would elect the people's choice by ensuring equal treatment of voters. Counting all votes equally (and making all votes equally valuable to the candidate) would not only strengthen political equality but also provide an incentive for candidates to clarify their stances rather than hedging them to persuade only the undecided in competitive states. Direct election would reduce the power of sectionalism in politics and encourage candidates to focus their campaigns on the entire nation, including racial minorities. It would also reinvigorate party competition and combat voter apathy by giving candidates and parties incentives to turn out voters in states they cannot win as a whole. Naturally, direct election would eliminate all the problems caused by the selection and voting of electors themselves, and aggregating votes nationwide would decrease the incentives for and impact of electoral fraud.
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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: DECREASES LIKELIHOOD FOR A RECOUNT

US LESS LIKELY TO SEE A RECOUNT IN A DIRECT ELECTION-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It's true, a nationwide recount would be more nightmarish than, say, tallying up all the hanging chads [paper fragments created from partially punched vote cards] in Florida. At the same time, we'd be less likely to see recounts in a direct election, since the odds that the popular election would be within a slim enough margin of error is smaller than the odds that a "swing" state like Florida would need a recount. Under a direct election, since it usually takes many more votes to sway a race (as opposed to a mere 500 in Florida), there is less incentive for voter fraud, and less reason for candidates to think a recount will change the election. But set aside these arguments for a second and ask: why do so many people fear the recount? If it's such a bad idea to make sure that every vote is accurately tallied, then why do we even have elections in the first place? THE CHANCE OF A CLOSE ELECTION RECOUNT FOR A NATIONAL DIRECT ELECTION IS VERY LOW-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Supporters of the Electoral College argue that under the Electoral College, recounts and controversy associated with close elections can be limited to one state or a handful of states, but that with a direct popular vote, recounts would have to be national, and thus costlier and more chaotic. n137 Of course, the cut-off for any such recount would in itself be a source of controversy. Indeed, some argue that the 1960 election, which Kennedy won with a 0.2% national popular vote margin, should have been recounted. n138 Others argue that because voting machines have an error rate of 1% or more, elections with margins of up to 1% are inherently problematic. n139 Yet, the low probability of very close elections on the national level makes this aspect of the NPV legislation of only minimal concern. Since 1900, every election has had a national popular vote margin exceeding 100,000--a very high absolute number of ballots. n140 Simple arithmetic confirms this result: a 0.1% margin translates into a much larger absolute margin in a national vote than in a state vote. Moreover, the American people may not find very close elections, even on a national level, troubling, having become accustomed to very close elections due to their experience with state races. RECOUNTS LESS LIKELY IN A DIRECT ELECTION SYSTEM-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1772] Nevertheless, under a system of direct popular election of the president, recounts would be less likely. In order to undertake a recount, there has to be the reasonable possibility that enough incorrect or fraudulent votes can be found to change the outcome of the election. The fewer total votes in an electoral unit, the more likely it is that a close contest may result in a small number of votes deciding the election. As we have seen, under the electoral college a few votes in one state may be able to make the difference in swinging a large block of electoral votes and possibly decide the election. This is what happened in Florida in aooo; the election was so close that adding or subtracting a few hundred votes might realistically have changed the election outcome. A recount thus had a plausible possibility of altering the outcome. If the election had been by popular vote, George W. Bush would have had to find about a thousand times as many votes-a daunting task. It is somewhat amusing that advocates of the electoral college often argue that one of its advantages is that it produces a swift and sure decision.' In the wake of the election of 2000, such assertions seem naive. It is also noteworthy that throughout the protracted battle over Florida's electoral votes, the public indicated that it would rather have a correct than a rapid decision. November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election
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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: INCREASES VOTER TURNOUT

DIRECT ELECTION CREATES INCENTIVES FOR STATES TO GET OUT THE VOTE-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] Other proposals have sought to move to direct election without going through the torturous amendment process. One was offered by Professors Akhil Amar and Vilram Amar, who point out that the Electoral College, as now configured, neither helps small states, ensures states' rights, nor protects the concept of federalism. Indeed, electing a president by a popular vote would provide state governments incentives to improve our democracy by finding ways to increase the size of the vote. The Amars would, it should be pointed out, favor instant runoff voting as the optimum method for conducting the direct popular vote. The rank ordering of candidates on the ballot could ensure that, with instant runoff voting, it would be possible in one and the same election to conduct the count in a manner to ensure a true majority winner. This would solve the "spoiler problem" that today confronts any candidate who chooses to run outside the present majority party duopoly. NATIONAL VOTE PLANS WOULD CREATE INCENTIVES TO HELP GET OUT THE VOTE-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] The United States ranks close to the bottom among world democracies in voter turnout. n119 Some scholars argue that a direct popular election, like that proposed by the NPV legislation, would motivate more Americans to vote by ensuring that every vote would count. n120 Some supporters of the Electoral College, however, suggest that the psychological benefit of knowing that every vote counts will have no appreciable effect on turnout. n121 A comparison of turnout in battleground states and in safe states for the 2004 election suggests that battleground states have higher voter turnout than safe states. Among nine battleground states, aggregate turnout was 66.3% of eligible voters, compared with 58.9% in the other forty-two jurisdictions. n122 The disparity has increased over time. The turnout for the twelve most competitive states increased from 54% to 63% between 2000 and 2004, while turnout for the twelve least competitive states increased from 51% to only 53%. n123 [*223] Under the NPV legislation, candidates who currently ignore states in which they have comfortable majorities would have a new incentive to maximize their supporters' turnout. Every candidate would also have an incentive to pursue every possible vote, even in states that are heavily tilted toward another party. Candidates would probably advertise on national television networks instead of on local stations, n124 so campaigns would reach even voters in sparsely populated areas, most likely increasing the total national turnout. POPULAR ELECTIONS WOULD INCREASE VOTER TURNOUT-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Another advantage to having presidential elections decided by the national popular vote is that such a system would provide an incentive for voters in a state where they are in a small political minority to turn out to vote. Currently, a Democratic voter in a heavily Republican state, or vice versa, may not feel like they have any reason to vote, since it is clear which party will carry their state. In a popular election, however, the votes of people in the political minority in a given state would still be worth casting, since it would count toward the overall result. The net effect of this is that turnout in presidential elections may increase, which is good for the functioning of a healthy democracy.
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DIRECT ELECTION WOULD ALLOW FOR EACH VOTE TO BE COUNTED EQUALLY-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Modern presidential campaigns would be far better served by a system where every voter across the country has an equal say in the determination of who leads America. Currently, the winner-take-all approach is woefully inadequate to this task, reducing the presidential election process to a caricature of the kind of debates the country and the American people deserve. n247 The Agreement would eliminate a presidential candidate's ability to either blithely take for granted or callously ignore voters in the vast majority of the country, as they do now. n248 While candidates may still focus much of their strategy on certain large population centers, they would also be forced to compete for the votes of all Americans. For instance, in a close national election, the candidates would have an incentive to work for support in every state, regardless of its population, even though high-population areas would likely see an increase in attention from candidates. While cost-benefit analysis would still be used by presidential campaigns to target their efforts, the Agreement would eliminate the disproportionate power that voters in a handful of states currently enjoy simply because of the close political divides in their states. n249
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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: EMPOWERS THIRD PARTIES

THIRD PARTY SUPPORT FROM DIRECT ELECTIONS WOULD STRENGTHEN OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] The ultimate argument against the Electoral College is that it would encourage the rise of third parties. It might. But remember, third parties already play a role in our current system, and have helped swing the election at least four times in the last centuryin 1912, 1968, 1992 and 2000. Meanwhile, almost every other office in the country is filled by direct election, and third parties play an extremely small role in those races. There are just too many social and legal obstacles blocking the rise of third parties. Because the Democratic and Republican parties tend to be sprawling coalitions rather than tightly-knit homogenous groups, voters have every incentive to work "within the system". Likewise, in a direct election, the two parties would be more likely to rally their partisans and promote voter turnout, which would in turn strengthen the two-party system. And if all else fails, most states have laws limiting third party ballot access anyway. Abolishing the Electoral College won't change that.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT DESCRIBED

NATIONAL VOTING PLAN DESCRIBED-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] The heart of the NPV legislation is a "cheeky idea" n49: upon implementation of the NPV legislation, states that have passed the NPV legislation will pledge their Presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the state popular vote, thus assuring that the popular vote winner receives a majority in the Electoral College. n50 Linking the electoral vote to the national popular vote appears to be unprecedented in the history of proposed reforms to the Electoral College. n51 It allows the [*212] Electoral College to remain intact, but only as a "tourist attraction," replicating the national popular vote result, subject only to the possibility of faithless electors. n52 The NPV legislation overcomes the incentives against abandoning the winner-take-all rule by employing an interstate compact that does not bind states until the participating states cumulatively constitute a majority of the Electoral College, assuring that the national popular vote winner has a majority in the Electoral College. n53 The first two articles of the NPV legislation extend the right to join the interstate compact to any state and to the District of Columbia n54 and mandate that each participating state conduct a popular election for the President and Vice President. n55 Article three contains the central operative language, which assigns the state's Presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote: "The Presidential elector certifying official of each member state shall certify the appointment in that official's own state of the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the national popular vote winner." n56 The NPV legislation makes no provision for a recount. Each state's chief election officer must treat as final "an official statement containing the number of popular votes in a state for each Presidential slate" made by the day established by Congress for making the states' electoral vote determinations conclusive. n57 In the extremely unlikely event of a tie in the national popular vote, the NPV legislation provides for the states to revert to the present winner-take-all rule for assigning electors. n58 States that have passed the NPV legislation will only utilize its procedures for a given election year if the NPV legislation is in effect by July 20 of that election year. To come into effect, the legislation must be adopted by a number of states such that the majority of the Electoral College votes would be apportioned under the NPV legislation. n59 Member states may withdraw from the agreement at any time, but any withdrawal occurring [*213] within six months of the end of a President's term cannot take effect until the next President or Vice President is "qualified to serve the next term." n60
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN DESCRIBED-Raskin '07 [Jamin; Professor of Constitutional Law at American University; Deformed Reform: The cure for the Electoral College that is worse than what ails us; Slate; 24 August 2007; http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/08/deformed_reform.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] Citizens who are truly serious about transforming the Electoral College actually have a sturdy nonpartisan vehicle by which to move us to the kind of popular presidential election that citizens in nearly every other democracy enjoy. We don't need a new partisan trick to "fix" our presidential process. We need only enact the existing obvious solution. The "National Popular Vote" plan, which is on the table in 47 states, has been signed into law in Maryland and had actually passed both houses in California in 2006 before it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It simply calls for an interstate compact among all states to agree to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote. It becomes effective and binding when states representing at least 270 electors enter the compact. This is the way we will get to elect presidents as we elect governors and senators: everyone acting together, without games and subterfuge. The plan has the backing of distinguished Republican statesmen like former Utah Sen. Jake Garn, former Minnesota Sen. David Durenberger, former Illinois Rep. John Anderson, former Alabama Rep. John Buchanan, and former California Rep. Tom Campbell, as well as distinguished Democrats like former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh, and former New York Rep. Tom Downey. It has been endorsed by newspapers from the New York Times and Minneapolis Star-Tribune to the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee. As far as I can tell, the only thing the plan lacks is active support from Republicans in office. Indeed, for some reason, there is a constant undertow of opposition from the party. I know this because when I introduced the plan in the Maryland Senate, I had expressions of enthusiasm from several Republican colleagues, one of whom even voted for it in committee. But when it came to the floor, all of the Republicans voted against it. They claimed that it would hurt small states even though small states that are safely red or bluelike Rhode Island or Montanaare ignored today just like the large ones (such as New York or Texas). They said that we should stick with the handiwork of the Framerseven though the current Electoral College process is distant from the way it was practiced in the 18th century and even though the Constitution clearly empowers the states to appoint electors as we see fit, including on the basis of the national popular vote. On the House side, only one Republican supported the bill. It passed with overwhelming (but not unanimous) Democratic support.
Big Sky Debate Public Forum NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN DESCRIBED-Dotinga '06 [Randy; A backdoor plan to thwart the electoral college; The Christian Science Monitor; 16 June 2006; http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0616/p01s02-uspo.html; retrieved 2 October 2011]
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Picture it: On election day in some future year, a presidential candidate ends up with the most popular votes but not enough electoral votes to win. It's a repeat of the 2000 election in which one contender, Democrat Al Gore, took the majority of the national popular vote, while the other, Republican George W. Bush, clinched the most electoral college votes and, hence, the presidency. But this time there's a twist: A bunch of states team up and give all their electoral college votes to the nationwide popular-vote winner, regardless of who won the most votes in their state. Then, the candidate who garners the most citizen votes in the country moves into the White House. Legislative houses in Colorado and California have recently approved this plan, known as the National Popular Vote proposal, taking it partway to passage. Other states, too, are exploring the idea of a binding compact among states that would oblige each of them to throw its electoral votes behind the national popular-vote winner. At issue is the nation's presidential election system governed by the electoral college. Established by the US Constitution in 1787, the system has occasionally awarded the presidency to candidates who couldn't muster the most votes nationwide, as happened in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. While an amendment to the Constitution could change or eliminate the electoral college, battleground states and small states would probably oppose any change that would leave them with less influence. Indeed, since the system's inception, numerous efforts to amend it have been defeated. Instead, reformers have turned to the interstate compact, saying it would be constitutional because agreements between states already exist. The compact is designed to take effect only if states representing 270 electoral votes approve the compact legislation, giving those states majority control of the electoral college. The result: The "compact" group of states would be able to determine a presidential election. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN DESCRIBED-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] A new and innovative plan being offered by an organization called National Popular Vote seems much more likely to succeed than any previous attempt to change the Electoral College, because it does not involve the cumbersome process of amending the Constitution. n6 The organization has drafted an interstate agreement (or compact), entitled the "Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote" ("the Agreement"), which, if enacted, would ensure that the winner of the most votes cast nationwide in a U.S. presidential election would also win the majority of electoral votes required to win the election. n7 The plan, which takes effect only on passage of the Agreement (in "substantially the same form") in enough states with a combined majority of votes in the Electoral College, would award the electoral votes of the member states to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. n8 As of [*421] October 8, 2007, the Agreement had sponsors for the 2007 legislative sessions in 47 states, including Louisiana, with a combined 512 electoral votes, well above the 270 currently needed for an Electoral College majority. n9 National Popular Vote hopes to eventually have sponsors for the Agreement in all 50 states. n10 The organization is chaired by a bi-partisan advisory committee comprised of former members of Congress, n11 each of whom continues to be active in public or academic life. The Agreement has attracted much attention from the media as well. n12 It has also, however, encountered strong opposition from supporters of the current Electoral College system.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT GOOD

NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN WOULD DEAL IGNORED STATES BACK INTO THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION-Dotinga '06 [Randy; A backdoor plan to thwart the electoral college; The Christian Science Monitor; 16 June 2006; http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0616/p01s02-uspo.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] The plan is supported by electoral reform activists and a bipartisan advisory group including former GOP Rep. John Anderson (a presidential candidate in 1980) and former Sen. Birch Bayh (D). They say the compact would allow long-ignored states to get attention again in presidential campaigns. The current system has "just taken a lot of states off of the presidential map," complains Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote, a nonpartisan organization based in Maryland, which supports the compact. The compact proposal passed the California Assembly on May 30 with all but one Republican opposing. It awaits a vote in the state Senate and, if it passes, approval or rejection by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who hasn't publicly expressed an opinion about it. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS AN INGENIOUS SOLUTION-Dotinga '06 [Randy; A backdoor plan to thwart the electoral college; The Christian Science Monitor; 16 June 2006; http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0616/p01s02-uspo.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] Colorado's Senate approved the plan in April with bipartisan support, but it has not advanced because the legislative session there has ended. Five GOP Assembly members are pushing a popular-vote bill in New York, and legislators in Missouri, Louisiana, and Illinois have introduced bills. Advocates hope to put the legislation before every state by 2007, says Mr. Ritchie. Meanwhile, several newspapers have come out in favor of the plan, including The New York Times, which calls it an "ingenious solution." NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS CONSTITUTIONAL AND PRESERVES OUR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] The Agreement would be the best way to reform the Electoral College to allow the nationwide popular vote to be decisive in the selection of the President. Rather than amend the U.S. Constitution, the Agreement is an interstate compact among those states that should choose to adopt it. n226 Such interstate compacts have the same force under law as contracts between the party states, n227 and as such are afforded protections against laws "impairing the Obligation of Contracts ... ." n228 Thus, any state that decides to enter the Agreement will be bound by it. A state may enter into an interstate compact in any manner in which legislation may normally be passed in that state, including the legislature or a citizen initiative process. n229 As proposed, the Agreement would not take effect, unless it is enacted "in substantially the same form" in states with a combined majority of the Electoral College votes (currently 270), ensuring that the Agreement [*454] is not in effect unless its purpose would be fulfilled. n230 Making the Agreement contingent in such a fashion is common in interstate compacts. n231 Although the Constitution states that "No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State... .," n232 the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Tennessee held that Congress's consent is not required in all instances, and instead is only mandated where such a compact would enlarge the political powers of the states to such a degree as to encroach on the delegated powers of the national government. n233 The Agreement does not encroach on any power delegated to the national government, because the Constitution explicitly gives the states the power to choose the manner of the election of members of the Electoral College. n234 Any state on its own initiative could decide to award its electors to whichever candidate receives the largest amount of popular votes nationwide. The Agreement merely allows states to enter into a binding agreement to do so, maximizing the political power which member states already individually possess. November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election
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THE THREAT OF WITHDRAWAL FROM THE INTERSTATE COMPACT IN THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS MITIGATED FOR SEVERAL REASONS-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] If adopted, the status of the NPV legislation, as an interstate compact, is at least theoretically precarious because any member state could withdraw from it at any time. n152 The NPV legislation attempts to foster at least election-year stability by prohibiting withdrawals from taking effect after July 20 of the election year. n153 Theoretically, this provides enough time for candidates to transition their campaigns to a battleground-centered race; however, it seems likely that such an event would still throw campaigns into disarray and undermine the purpose of NPV legislation. The possibility of state withdrawal may be mitigated by several circumstances. First, more states than necessary may join the interstate compact, making the withdrawal of a few states irrelevant to the guaranteed majority. Second, since the early 1800s, state legislatures have been reluctant to manipulate the presidential voting system. Third, the popularity and self-propagating legitimacy of a true nationwide popular vote may make any switch back to a state-based system politically unfeasible. Fourth, a switch would be advantageous and feasible only under the rare convergence of several circumstances. Specifically, the candidate would have to be trailing in nationwide polls, but have a reasonable likelihood of capturing a majority of the electoral votes under the state-based, winner-take-all system. Further, states that could affect the outcome of the election would have to be members of the NPV interstate compact. The composition of these states would have to be controlled by the trailing candidate's party and willing to manipulate the system for assigning electors. Practically, then, the danger of strategic withdrawals seems low. In sum, while state withdrawal remains a possibility, it is probably unlikely.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT IS DIRECT ELECTION

THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN EFFECTIVELY CREATES DIRECT ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] The Electoral College is an anomaly of the American democracy. The United States is virtually alone in entrusting the election of its President to a small, largely anonymous group of individuals, rather than to its citizen voters. n1 On February 23, 2006, National Popular Vote ("NPV"), n2 an organization led by several former national legislators of both parties, n3 unveiled the proposed text for legislation ("NPV legislation") that would guarantee a majority in the Electoral College to the winner of the national popular vote for President. n4 The NPV legislation would effectively abolish the Electoral College by having states pass an interstate compact to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The NPV legislation promises to revive the centuries-old debate over the method for selecting the President n5 and raise important questions about the foundations of American democracy.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN: SHOULDNT USE IT; MUST END THROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
SHOULD END THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE THROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT-Gringer '08 [David; WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE; Columbia Law Review; January 2008; 108 Colum. L. Rev. 182] Nevertheless, NPV supporters are correct to focus public attention on the electoral college. The way we elect the President is an anachronism that distances most Americans from choosing the most powerful official in the country. The best way to end the electoral college is through a constitutional amendment. Perhaps given the pressure NPV supporters are applying, Congress will finally pass an amendment. In the alternative, either submitting the NPV to Congress as an interstate compact for the approval of a majority of Congress, or adopting it through ballot initiatives [*230] in the states, provides a sounder method for ending the electoral college.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: SYSTEM IS ANTIQUATED

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PROCESS IS ANTIQUATED-Davis '08 [Roy T.; Retired Businessman; Electoral College Revisited; Empire Page; 28 October 2008; Gale Group Databases] It's a good time to think about this antiquated process that the Electoral College forces upon us. Events in our country and the world are far too important today to allow it to determine elections. Not to mention it is grossly unfair for those who cast their ballots for the losing candidate in New York and consequently their vote does not count in the national total. We now have intelligent (?), well funded and unscrupulous politicians and their party apparatuses who manipulate the system. They are self serving with only one thing in mind and that is for them to stay in power. To them, their sole purpose is not to tackle and solve difficult, complex problems that we elected them to deal with but just to stay in power. Today they can do that very easily with the Electoral College by winning only eleven states! AMERICA'S VALUES ARE NOT REFLECTED IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] The Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote should be enacted by the Louisiana legislature and the legislatures of every other state. America's modern democratic values are not reflected in the current winner-take-all approach in the Electoral College. That system has made the citizens of two-thirds of America's states next to irrelevant in the process of electing a President, with the major candidates either taking them for granted or ignoring them entirely. n286 The states have the power to exercise their constitutionally granted prerogative to modernize the Electoral College so that it reflects the democratic values of voter equality that the American people expect and [*465] deserve. The states should not hesitate to exercise this power. The winner take all Electoral College system is a far cry from what the framers of the Constitution envisioned when they created the institution as a compromise over two centuries ago. n287 The current system developed over the years as states sought to concentrate their own political power. n288 The result has been that real influence in the presidential election process has become concentrated in barely over a dozen states, while the rest of the country sits largely on the sidelines during a presidential election. n289 With the Electoral College of the Framers' vision but a distant memory, and with less authentic debate on national issues with every passing presidential election, the time for change is ripe. The Agreement will bring this muchneeded change to America's civic dialogue, and will make every citizen in the nation equally as important on Election Day, regardless of where they happen to live. Furthermore, unlike previous direct election proposals, the Agreement does not seek to amend the Constitution, and if at any point in the future the states should desire a return to the winner-take-all approach, the Agreement, with the addition of the changes herein, allows them to do so, in a fashion that honors the tradition of federalism and the sovereignty of the states. n290 The American public has been disenchanted with the winner-take-all aspect of the Electoral College for almost sixty years now. n291 The time has arrived for the kind of change the American people want, and the Agreement delivers this change while upholding the great traditions of American federalism. The Agreement should be enacted, along with the changes proposed by this Comment, to bring America's democracy into a new era, reflective of the ideals of its people.
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THE ORIGINAL REASONS WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS IN PLACE SHOULDN'T MATTER: MUST LOOK AT MODERN REALITIES-Davis '08 [Roy T.; Retired Businessman; Electoral College Revisited; Empire Page; 28 October 2008; Gale Group Databases] It appears there are many and varied reasons why the Electoral College exists depending on who you read or listen to. The fact is it was developed 200 years ago and has a structure to it that was meant to appease opposing forces back then so they could agree on other issues. With that being said, it doesn't really matter how or why it's in place, it just is and we should seriously consider eliminating it and go to a straight popular vote election. ELECTORAL COLLEGE ADVOCATES DON'T CITE DATA OR LITERATURE-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 98] It is disconcerting, then, to find that supporters of the electoral college are extraordinarily insouciant about their claims on its behalf and virtually never marshal data systematically or rigorously evaluate supposed benefits. Nor do they cite relevant literature. Instead, they make assertions. Yet there are ways to test claims. For example, do candidates really pay attention to small states? We can find out. Is the electoral college really a fundamental pillar of federalism? Let us examine the federal system and see. Is the winner-take-all system in the electoral college the critical institutional underpinning of the two-party system? Researchers have been studying party systems for years. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS THAT IT SENDS PEOPLE TO THE WHITE HOUSE THAT DIDN'T RECEIVE THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULAR VOTE-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] So what are the primary deficiencies of the Electoral College? I begin with the most obvious one: It regularly sends to the White House persons who did not receive a majority of the popular vote. Since World War II alone, this has included Truman, Kennedy, Richard Nixon (1968), Bill Clinton (1992 and 1996), and George W. Bush (2000). (Gerald Ford's unelected presidency cannot truly be blamed on the Electoral College, though any spirit of fundamental reflection about the current Constitution might well ask about the necessity or advisability of having a Vice President at all.) More distant beneficiaries include Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson (1912), either of whom might have been defeated if the United States had adopted such a sensible election process as the Alternative Transferable Vote (ATV) or even run-offs between the top two candidates. One might, of course, applaud both of those presidencies; if that is so, then perhaps we should really be debating if we really believe in "majority rule" at all and why losers in such a process should feel obligated to accept what they believe to be fundamentally wrong decisions on the part of minority presidents. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS RECEIVE MORE CRITICISM THAN ANY OTHER AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONDotinga '06 [Randy; A backdoor plan to thwart the electoral college; The Christian Science Monitor; 16 June 2006; http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0616/p01s02-uspo.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] The electoral college system is "distinctly American," says Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside. In US history, there have been about 700 failed proposals in Congress to change the electoral college system, according to the Office of the Federal Register. "It's safe to say that there has been no aspect of what the founders worked up in Philadelphia that has received more criticism than the electoral college," says historian Rick Shenkman of George Mason University.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS A WIDE BASE OF CRITICS-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Although many aspects and institutions of American government are controversial, few have come under such frequent attack and been the center of passionate debate among scholars, political leaders, and the American people as often or with as much intensity as the system of the Electoral College, enshrined in Article II of the Constitution. n4 Political scientists, American political leaders, and most of the American public have recognized for some time the wide range of flaws in the current winner-take-all Electoral College system, including its propensity to grossly misrepresent the magnitude of support afforded a candidate by the electorate, its allowance for various crises as a result of a few critical states determining the outcome in close elections, and the fact that, though rare, the system allows a candidate who received fewer votes from Americans across the country than an opponent to become President. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS A MENACE TO THE AMERICAN POLITY-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] The only conceivable argument "for" retaining the Electoral College as a constituent aspect of the American political process is a basically Burkean one. It seems to rely on some mixture of the fact that it is indeed our unique method of choosing a chief executive/head of state; the highly debatable assertion that it has not disserved the country too badly and may even, on occasion, have served us well; and, finally, that it would be either futile, because of the barriers set out by Article V, to try to eliminate the College through constitutional amendment or too dangerous to accept my own proposal, in Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It), of calling a new convention, as is legitimate under Article V itself, charged with examining the many grave deficiencies of our present Constitution. As should be obvious, I disagree with all of the proposed defenses and believe that the College is a continuing menace to the American polity. Complacent acceptance of its "inevitable" role in electing our presidents is equivalent to an equal complacency about driving a car with slick tires and bad brakes, after having had three drinks, on the ground that one had earlier successfully navigated the route home. Even if true, this is ultimately an adolescent way of thinking. We should recognize that there is also a significant chance that such a car will take us over a cliff and try to guard against such an unhappy future [*12] by buying new tires, installing new brakes, and resolving not to drive while drunk.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DOOMSDAY SCENARIO

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE CAUSED THE ELECTION DRAMA OF 1876-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Soon after the Electoral College had taken on its current form, the nation prepared to elect a President in 1876. Coming as it did in the midst of post-Civil War Reconstruction, the election was of great import to the future of American society. The accuracy of the result in the 1876 election remains in doubt even today, more than a century after the controversy surrounding it was resolved. n152 On Election Day in 1876, the Democratic nominee, Samuel J. Tilden, won a close but comfortable victory in the national popular vote, winning by a margin of 51% to 48% (or approximately 250,000 votes in terms of raw numbers) over the Republican nominee, Rutherford B. Hayes. n153 While it was initially believed that Tilden had also succeeded in winning a majority of the electoral votes, it became apparent that the election results in three states were close enough to be in doubt; with allegations of fraud propelling the dispute on both sides, neither candidate would be able to claim victory without a resolution on those races. n154 Each of these states submitted dual certificates of their election returns, and Congress had to resolve the crisis by creating a commission to rule on which electors should be certified. n155 This process took months to resolve, and culminated in a backroom deal in which the commission voted to award all of the disputed electors to Hayes, on a party-line vote, giving him an Electoral College victory by a single vote, 185-184, over Tilden, making him the nineteenth President. n156 Thus, despite the fact that Tilden had won a seemingly clear majority of the popular vote across the country, it took months after Election Day and a highly partisan and corrupt process for Americans to find out who their President would be. n157 While many Americans can remember the divisive and bitter dispute over the 2000 presidential election, this dispute was quite a civil affair in [*442] comparison to the rancor and division sowed by the 1876 debacle. Had the Electoral College system not existed in 1876, this could have been avoided altogether, and the pall of illegitimacy that hung over Hayes throughout his presidency would not have afflicted the nation. Admittedly, it is not the Electoral College itself that directly caused this calamity. The awarding of the disputed electors to Hayes was the result of a partisan commission determining the outcome of the election in the three states in question, and it remains questionable today which of the two candidates actually prevailed at the ballot box in the disputed states. n158 Nevertheless, without the Electoral College, under a system that elected the national vote winner, there would have been less doubt that Tilden won the 1876 election, obviating any need for the contentious drama that unfolded months after citizens had made their choice at the polls. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS CAUSED SEVERAL POTENTIAL CRISIS ELECTIONS IN THE 20th CENTURY-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] The Twentieth Century saw a number of very close presidential campaigns, and on numerous occasions, the potential for a "crisis" manufactured by the Electoral College's winner-take-all system. n167 In the election of 1900, for instance, a shift of just under 75,000 combined votes in seven states would have made Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan the President-elect with an Electoral College majority, despite Republican President William McKinley's national lead of over 860,000 votes, a solid 52% to 46% popular majority. n168 A similar shift of just over 75,000 votes across a few states would have made Bryan the winner again in 1908, despite his 1,200,000 vote (52% to 43%) loss across the country to William Howard Taft. n169 In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson would have been defeated for re-election had less than 2,000 votes in one state (California) shifted, despite a popular vote victory nationwide of 49% to 46%. n170
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2000 ELECTION IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO CREATED BY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] Along with many other political observers, I have been mystified, if not confounded, by the fact that the 2000 presidential election failed to energize a strong effort to abolish the Electoral College. The voices for reform and the adoption of direct popular election have been muted. Rather, Ms. Best has been joined by Electoral College proponents like Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, who wrote that "three (or four) crises out of more than fifty presidential elections is remarkably small." He continued: "Heaven forbid a direct vote and the 'horrific nightmare' of a possible nation-wide recount in a close contest, especially with lots of late-arriving absentee votes." At this point, one wonders if the nation's thirty-six-day wait for the announcement of the president-elect and the Supreme Court's five-to-four majority in the case was not in fact a "horrific nightmare." I believe that the occupant of the nation's highest office should be determined by legally registered votersnot 538 faceless, nameless electorsnot even if their role is decreed by five members of the U.S. Supreme Court. THE POTENTIAL ELECTION DOOMSDAY SCENARIO FROM THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM WOULD MAKE 2000 LOOK TAME-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] The single best argument against the electoral college is what we might call the disaster factor. The American people should consider themselves lucky that the 2000 fiasco was the biggest election crisis in a century; the system allows for much worse. Consider that state legislatures are technically responsible for picking electors, and that those electors could always defy the will of the people. Back in 1960, segregationists in the Louisiana legislature nearly succeeded in replacing the Democratic electors with new electors who would oppose John F. Kennedy. (So that a popular vote for Kennedy would not have actually gone to Kennedy.) In the same vein, "faithless" electors have occasionally refused to vote for their party's candidate and cast a deciding vote for whomever they please. This year, one Republican elector in West Virginia has already pledged not to vote for Bush; imagine if more did the same. Oh, and what if a state sends two slates of electors to Congress? It happened in Hawaii in 1960. Luckily, Vice President Richard Nixon, who was presiding over the Senate, validated only his opponent's electors, but he made sure to do so "without establishing a precedent." What if it happened again?
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: MISREPRESENTS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BADLY MISREPRESENTS THE WILL OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] The Electoral College is unfair, it has the chance of badly misrepresenting the will of the people, and it gives disproportionate power to a few voters in swing states. Moreover, defenses of the Electoral College are unconvincing. The College does not encourage broad geographical appeal, for example, because candidates tend to refrain from campaigning in states that have few Electoral College votes or in states that typically are aligned with either the Democratic or the Republican party. Abolishing the Electoral College would not cause instability or chaos, but would promote democracy and rationality. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISTORTS THE MANDATE WON BY THE PRESIDENT-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] [*446] Finally, the Electoral College grossly distorts the relative mandate given to America's President by its voters. n188 In order to recognize the overall disparity between the final Electoral College tally and the actual voter return, one need not look further than the results themselves. While occasionally the electoral vote totals and national popular vote totals are somewhat similar, it is not uncommon for a candidate to receive a heavily-inflated electoral vote majority on the basis of what may have been a much smaller popular vote win. n189 For instance, in the presidential election of 1980, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan won a resounding victory over President Carter in the Electoral College, receiving 489 electoral votes to Carter's comparatively paltry total of 49. n190 Thus, Reagan was credited with over 90% of the 538 total electoral votes available. When viewed in isolation, Reagan's victory that year in the Electoral College - one of the largest in American history seems like a nearly-unanimous acclamation by the electorate. This impression is belied, though, by the fact that 41% of the voters in 1980 had voted for President Carter, and an additional 8% had cast their ballots for a third-party candidate. n191 While Reagan's 10 point victory in the national popular vote over Carter was certainly a solid win, his Electoral College victory dwarfed it in comparison. Similarly, in the 1992 election, Democrat Bill Clinton won a landslide Electoral College victory over President George H. Bush, defeating him with 370 to 168 electoral votes. n192 Clinton earned almost 69% of the total electoral votes available, despite receiving only 43% of the popular vote nationwide, in comparison to Bush's 37% and independent candidate Ross Perot's 19% of the electoral votes. n193 Thus, Clinton's victorious share of the popular vote - among the lowest in American history - was exaggerated into one of the larger Electoral College majorities in such elections. These distortions are caused in no small part by the winner-take-all aspect of the modern system. No matter how slender a given candidate's [*447] victory in a particular state may be, that candidate is entitled to 100% of that state's apportionment of electors. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush was certified as the winner in the state of Florida by a mere 537 vote margin, out of almost 6,000,000 votes cast for President in that state, receiving 2,912,790 votes to Al Gore's 2,912,253. n194 Nevertheless, because of the winner-take-all approach, Bush was awarded all 25 of Florida's electoral votes, which were determinative as to the outcome of that election.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE INCREASES THE CHANCE FOR A TIE, WHERE THE HOUSE ELECTION WOULD TRUMP THE COLLECTIVE WILL OF THE PEOPLE-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] Finally, the present system actually increases a likelihood of ties in the Electoral College. A shift of about 21,000 votes in Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico could have thrown the election into a 269-269 electoral vote tie, which is certainly a possibility in the future as well. Once the election goes to the House of Representatives, where each state has a single vote, the likelihood of extreme partisanship and deal making, which can trump the collective will of the people that has manifested itself in the popular vote, becomes very real. BECAUSE IT RELIES ON THE CENSUS, THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ALWAYS MISREPRESENTS THE POPULATION-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 120] When a presidential election falls in the same year as a census, the apportionment of a full decade earlier governs the allocation of electoral votes. In the election of 2000, for example, the allocation of electoral votes actually reflected the population distribution of 199o, a decade earlier. The increase or decrease in a state's population since 199o will not be reflected in that state's electoral vote apportionment until the year 2004. Because of this process, the apportionment of electoral votes always overrepresents some states and underrepresents others. For example, on basis of the 1980 census, California was allocated 47 electors. The Census Bureau estimate for California's population in 1988, however, would have translated into 54 electoral votes in the election of that year. Other high-growth states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona have also been penalized, whereas states with slower growth or population declines have benefited from the lag in reapportionment.' More important, presidential candidates who won high-growth states have been penalized whereas those winning lower-growth states have been helped. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISAGREES WITH THE NOTION OF ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE-Gringer '08 [David; WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE; Columbia Law Review; January 2008; 108 Colum. L. Rev. 182] [*186] This frustration with the electoral college reflects a common view among political scientists that it weights some votes more than others. n25 The idea that all votes should be weighted equally is the core of the Supreme Court's "one person, one vote" jurisprudence, and is, as Justice Hugo Black declared in Wesberry v. Sanders, one of "our fundamental ideas of democratic government." n26 Yet, the electoral college is enshrined in the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has refused to extend "one person, one vote" to the electoral college. n27
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THE ELECTION OF 1888 PROVES THAT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IGNORES THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Only twelve years later, in 1888, the result of another presidential election was skewed in favor of a candidate who had received less votes nationwide than his opponent. n160 This time, there were no widespread allegations of fraud, and no partisan commission was necessary to determine the outcome in the Electoral College. n161 The incumbent Democratic President, Grover Cleveland, exceeded his Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison's national popular vote total by nearly 100,000 votes, defeating him in a close race by 49% to 48%. n162 Cleveland's loss in the Electoral College despite a national victory was the result of the fact that he had managed to carry several small and mid-sized states (particularly in the South) by very large margins. n163 Contrasted with this, Harrison was able to carry a number of large Northern states by very close margins. n164 The net effect of this was that, because of the winner-take-all system, Harrison was awarded all of the electoral votes from these states, [*443] despite his close margin of victory, while Cleveland won an insufficient number of electoral votes to win a majority, despite his landslide wins in several smaller states, and very narrow losses in many of the larger states. n165 In any event, Harrison was elected, and the degree of controversy that surrounded the 1876 catastrophe did not materialize. n166 Nonetheless, the election of 1888 demonstrated that even before the dawn of the Twentieth Century and the arrival of presidential campaigns in the mass media age, the Electoral College had developed the capacity to overturn the national popular verdict. This potential would be highlighted again many times in presidential contests over the next hundred years. ELECTORAL COLLEGE IGNORES THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] As George C. Edwards III, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, reminds us in his new book, Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America, "The choice of the chief executive must be the people's, and it should rest with none other than them." Fans of the Electoral College usually admit that the current system doesn't quite satisfy this principle. Instead, Edwards notes, they change the subject and tick off all the "advantages" of the electoral college. But even the best-laid defenses of the old system fall apart under close scrutiny. The Electoral College has to go. IN A TIE, THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOES TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WHERE THERE IS DISTINCT UNEQUAL REPRESENTATION-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] Perhaps most worrying is the prospect of a tie in the electoral vote. In that case, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where state delegations vote on the president. (The Senate would choose the vice-president.) Because each state casts only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters. Given that many voters vote one party for president and another for Congress, the House's selection can hardly be expected to reflect the will of the people. And if an electoral tie seems unlikely, consider this: In 1968, a shift of just 41,971 votes would have deadlocked the election. In 1976, a tie would have occurred if a mere 5,559 voters in Ohio and 3,687 voters in Hawaii had voted the other way. The election is only a few swing voters away from catastrophe.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DIMINISHES THE IMPACT OF SOME VOTES

ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAKES THE VOTES FOR LOSING CANDIDATES NOT MATTER-Davis '08 [Roy T.; Retired Businessman; Electoral College Revisited; Empire Page; 28 October 2008; Gale Group Databases] Consider this: any vote cast for a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate who does not carry a state, other than Maine or Nebraska, counts for nothing toward the national accumulation of popular votes for those candidates. The ballots cast mean nothing. The only thing that matters are which candidate won each state by popular vote and those winning votes are the only ones that count. The process is a winner take all for Electoral College delegates by state. So, if my candidate didn't win the most votes in New York, my vote counts for nothing on the national total. Now here is the clincher: we never vote for a Presidential candidate anyway! That's right, we vote for a state Electoral College delegate in a political party who then is pledged to vote for whoever won the most votes in our state. Losing votes are thrown out. The number of electoral delegates for each state is determined by the state population exactly the same as how the House of Representatives are chosen, plus two more delegates for each senator and two for Washington DC. The delegates are selected by political parties so if their candidate wins the popular vote IN EACH STATE; those delegates are pledged to vote the candidate of their party who won the state. This is where I have a problem with the Electoral College. I am voting in a national election for President and Vice President not in a state election as the system is set up for now. Even when my candidate loses in New York, my vote should be counted in his or her national total of accumulated votes. That's why I'm voting, not for a state delegate to vote. ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM REDUCES POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS-Fresia '06 [Jerry; Former Professor of Political Science; Third Parties?; Z Magazine; 28 February 2006; Gale Group Databases] There are many different ways of organizing elections throughout the world. The electoral system in the United States has been shaped to both reduce popular participation and advance business interests. The impulse to create third party oppositional politics is natural, positive, and will persist until space for oppositional politics is created. However, to assume that our system is democratic and that the creation of oppositional politics turns only on a matter of will as opposed to a reform of our institutions is to advocate moral victory and political failure. None of our rights have been handed down; they have all been won through resistance. So let's call the bastards on their professed support for democracy. Dump the Electoral College, push for proportional representation and adopt majority elections, already in practice around the country at the local level, for federal office. Third parties yes, but not without a corresponding demand for democratic elections here in the US of A.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE GIVES MORE POWER TO VOTERS IN WYOMING THAN VOTERS IN CALIFORNIA-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Thus, the electoral votes from a closely-won state are awarded in their entirety to whoever has the slightest edge. When this phenomenon occurs in a relatively large state such as Florida, with a sizable block of electoral votes, it has a distorting effect on the overall Electoral College picture by effectively rendering meaningless the votes of millions of people in that state. In addition, a distorting enhancement of candidates' electoral vote totals results from the fact that each state is given two electoral votes in recognition of their Senate representation. This results in states with smaller populations being overrepresented in the Electoral College. n195 More than that, however, it gives the choice of an individual voter in the smallest states more power than a voter who lives in a larger state. For instance, in the 2000 presidential election (in which the electoral vote allocation to the states was based on the 1990 U.S. Census), Wyoming's 3 electoral votes, when divided among its population, corresponded to one electoral vote per every 151,196 persons. In contrast, California's 54 electoral votes, when similarly divided, corresponded to one electoral vote per every 551,112 persons. n196 Thus, an individual voter in Wyoming has more power in determining how his or her state's electoral votes will be awarded than a voter in California. WINNER-TAKE-ALL SYSTEMS OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEAN THAT SUPPORTERS OF THE LOSING CANDIDATES ARE DISENFRANCHISED -Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 598] The operation of the winner-take-all system effectively disenfranchises voters who support losing candidates in each state. In the 2000 presidential election, nearly three million people voted for Al Gore for president in Florida. Because George W. Bush won 537 more votes than Gore, however, he received all of Florida's electoral votes. This effect is unusually well expressed in Matthew 13.12: "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." A candidate thus can win some states by very narrow margins, lose other states by large margins (as Bush did in California and New York in 2000), and so win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote. The votes for candidates who do not finish first in a state play no role in the outcome of the election, since they are not aggregated across states. For every other office in the countryevery governor, every legislator, on both the state and the national level-we aggregate the votes for the candidates across the entire constituency of the office. Only for the presidency do we fail to count the votes for the candidate who does not win a subsection of the constituency. The winner-take-all system takes the electoral votes allocated to a state based on its population and awards them all to the plurality winner of the state. In effect, the system gives the votes of the people who voted against the winner to the winner. THE WINNER TAKE ALL SYSTEM MEANS THAT VOTERS ARE DISENFRANCHISED-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 618] The winner-take-all system not only disenfranchises millions of Americans (distorting majority rule in the process, as we will see), it also distributes influence in selecting the president unequally. Large states enjoy a theoretical advantage in being more likely than small states to cast the pivotal bloc of electoral votes in the electoral college, and thus a citizen of a large state is hypothetically more likely to be able to cast the vote that will determine how his or her state's electoral votes will be cast.'? As George Rabinowitz and Elaine MacDonald have concluded, "In presidential elections, some citizens, by virtue of their physical location in a given state, are in a far better position to determine presidential outcomes than others.... extreme inequities exist between the power of citizens living in different states." 18
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISCOURAGES ATTENTION TO THE INTERESTS IN MINORITIES IN THE UNITED STATESEdwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1428] The electoral college thus discourages attention to the interests of African Americans because they are unlikely to shift the outcome in a state as a whole.' The winner-take-all system ensures that blacks have little or no voice in presidential elections in the South.22 This lack of attention to African American interests as a result of the electoral college is nothing new. Research has found a positive and significant relationship between a state's competitiveness and voting rights enforcement activity in the late nineteenth century.23 Under direct election of the president in which all votes are valuable, black voters in the South and in the urban Northeast, for example, could coalesce their votes and become an effective national bloc. The votes of southern blacks, in particular, might for the first time be important in determining the election outcome. One reason that Judith Best, perhaps the best known advocate of the electoral college, supports the status quo is precisely because it inhibits what she calls "private minorities" from uniting votes across state lines. 14 The evidence clearly shows, then, that the argument that the electoral college aids blacks is based on false premises. Although it may be possible to construct a principled argument that members of a disadvantaged race deserve more say in the election of the president than members of other races, such an argument is unlikely to win many adherents in the twenty-first century. It is difficult in a democracy to give people electoral weight based on the rightness of their cause.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE IGNORES THE VOICES OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] The Electoral College system has been maintained in its current form more or less for the past 130 years, with the minor exceptions of Maine and Nebraska. n149 During this time period, its presence as an institution has determined the course of America's presidential campaigns. The winner-take-all system has resulted in the nation experiencing unnecessary political crises in at least two presidential elections since the Civil War, and coming to the brink of similar crises in at least five more presidential elections in the twentieth century alone. n150 Additionally, and perhaps more perniciously, the Electoral College has shaped the way presidential candidates address the concerns of voters in a manner that effectively ignores the electorate in most of the country. Candidates are able to either write off or take for granted the votes of people living in a majority of the states, and thus campaigns have become less a national debate and more a focus on winning over so-called "swing" states by addressing issues in such a way as to cater exclusively to the population of only a relative handful of states. n151 Because of the modern winner-take-all Electoral College, the voices of the vast majority of Americans are largely taken for granted or [*441] ignored when it comes to choosing the President.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DIMINISHES IMPACT OF THIRD PARTIES

ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM DISCOURAGES THIRD PARTY SUCCESS IN ELECTIONS-Fresia '06 [Jerry; Former Professor of Political Science; Third Parties?; Z Magazine; 28 February 2006; Gale Group Databases] It is nearly impossible to elect third-party candidates because U.S. political institutions are designed in a way that discourages the existence of more than two political parties. To make third-party candidacies viable, the United States should abandon the Electoral College, single-member districts (in which the winner of the election is awarded all of the votes), and plurality elections (in which the person with the most votes, even if he or she does not secure a majority of votes, wins.) These changes would make third parties viable and also would make the United States more democratic. Again and again progressives step forward to remind us of how bad the Democratic Party, or at least its leadership, is. The point of the lament is to encourage the support of third party candidates and parties. This type of analysis is troubling, not because its analysis of the Democratic party is incorrect, but because the analysis leaves unexamined the institutional arrangement that makes a vibrant third party at the federal level impossible. Never in American history has a third party captured the presidency. The Republican success in 1860 was anomalous in that one of the two major parties was simply torn apart by the divisions that issued in the Civil War soon after. The possible election of Bernie Sanders as an Independent senator from Vermont is also anomalous [Editor's note: Sanders was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006.]. Vermont, in terms of population is essentially a congressional district. Sander's Independent Party is not a national or oppositional party. In fact, it may be in virtue of Sanders' distance from progressive third partiesthe nominal independence from politicsthat wins him broad support in a small state. So here is my point: our political institutions were designed to give the appearance of public participation while preventing its substance. The two party system is part of that design. Encouraging third party participation makes sense only if it is one element in a campaign to establish democratic institutions in the US. With that in mind, let's take a look at the three central institutional features of our political system that ensure at the federal level that only two parties will ever have a real chance of governing. They are the Electoral College, single-member districts and plurality elections.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: INCREASES FRAUD

ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS CONDUCIVE TO FRAUD AND PARTISANSHIP-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] Our current method of electing presidents is conducive to the twin evils of fraud and blatantly partisan election administration. Election 2004 witnessed a win by the president of approximately 119,000 votes in Ohio. Narrow margins provide an incentive for fraud and the construction of rules and regulations that promote political advantage over voters' rights. ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM MORE LIKELY TO INCENTIVIZE VOTER FRAUD-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Along that same line, proponents of the winner-take-all approach argue that changing to a national popular election would increase the likelihood of and incentive for voter fraud. n256 This argument seems to ignore the very real brushes with the contested elections that the current system itself has often produced, such as the calamity of the election of 1876, and the fact that so many times over the last century the result of the presidential election has turned on the outcome in a few extremely close states. n257 As it stands today, any party that desires to fraudulently affect the outcome of a presidential election needs only to concentrate its efforts in a handful of "swing states," such as Florida, New Mexico, or Iowa. The fraudulent manufacturing of a few hundred or a few thousand "extra" votes across these states could very possibly alter the national election's outcome. To actually affect the outcome of a national popular election, hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of fraudulent votes would have to be produced. UNDER THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM, THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT INCENTIVES TO CHEAT-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Under the current Electoral College system, n144 the incentives to cheat are substantial, because a few votes could change the result in a state, and thus, in the election: The large differences in the value of a vote in various states in Presidential elections has the additional negative side effect of increasing the likelihood of contested Presidential elections and recounts. Because the statewide winner-takeall system divides the nation's 122,000,000 popular votes into 51 separate pools, it regularly manufactures artificial crises even when the nationwide popular vote is not particularly close. n145 In contrast, under the NPV legislation, "[t]here are fewer opportunities for razor-thin outcomes when there is one single large pool of votes than when there are 51 separate smaller pools." n146 Under the NPV legislation, the diminished likelihood of changing the election result should provide fewer incentives for parties to engage in fraud or disenfranchisement. n147
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: FOCUSES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ON A HANDFUL OF STATES

ELECTORAL COLLEGE ENCOURAGES CANDIDATES TO NOT CAMPAIGN IN MANY STATES-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] At the most basic level, the Electoral College is unfair to voters. Because of the winner-take-all system in each state, candidates don't spend time in states they know they have no chance of winning, focusing only on the tight races in the "swing" states. During the 2000 campaign, seventeen states didn't see the candidates at all, including Rhode Island and South Carolina, and voters in 25 of the largest media markets didn't get to see a single campaign ad. If anyone has a good argument for putting the fate of the presidency in the hands of a few swing voters in Ohio, they have yet to make it. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE EXCLUDED MOST OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] A central issue in the debate over the NPV legislation is the phenomenon of the ever-shrinking battleground during Presidential elections. The force of the argument is augmented by the continuing decline in the number of so-called battleground states n95--those states where no candidate has overwhelming support, meaning that both major party candidates have a reasonable chance of winning the state's electoral college votes--and the corresponding increase in the number of safe states--the "red states" and "blue states," which are insurmountably Republican and Democrat, respectively. Arguably, the Electoral College's most dramatic impact on Presidential elections in recent years was not the misfire in 2000, but the de facto exclusion of most of the United States from Presidential election campaigns. n96 In practice, one effect of the Electoral College is to narrow the Presidential election from a nationwide, fifty-state race to one focused on a few battleground states. The gulf in campaign advertising and personal candidate appearances between the battleground and safe states was dramatic in the 2004 election: of the $ 237 million spent on advertising during the last month of the Presidential campaign, 72% was spent in five states (Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania). n97 The candidates spent nothing at all in twenty-three states. n98 Furthermore, sixteen states received 92% of the Presidential and Vice Presidential appearances; the five states with the highest advertising expenditures received 65% of these appearances. n99 Supporters of the NPV legislation therefore criticize the Electoral College for its effect on the majority of the country: "the remaining two thirds of the states are, for all practical purposes, excluded from the campaign. They are mere spectators in the election process." n100
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISTORTS THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN TO COMPETITIVE STATES-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1612] We must interpret the data on little or no media advertising with care. Even so, the story of advertising in the 2ooo presidential election is clear. People in a large percentage of the country saw little or no advertising on behalf of the presidential candidates, since the candidates essentially ignored twenty-six states and the District of Columbia. Thus, just as in the case of candidate visits, we find that the premises that the electoral college forces candidates to take their cases to small states and to build coalitions from all regions of the country are erroneous. To win candidates' attention, states must be "in play" and have a significant number of electoral votes. As a result, the electoral college encourages campaigns largely to ignore most people in the nation. The focus of advertising on competitive states is nothing new. Hubert Humphrey, the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1977 that campaigns are directed disproportionately at large states: "We had to ignore large sections of the country." Douglas Bailey, who headed the advertising firm that handled Gerald Ford's 1976 campaign, added that "those areas that you are sure to win or lose, you ignore."42 Daron Shaw shows similar patterns for 1988, 1992, and 1996.4 In sum, the electoral college not only discourages candidates from paying attention to small states, it also distorts the presidential campaign, causing candidates to ignore most of the country. In theory, candidates make their cases to the people and citizens then choose for whom to vote. In reality, candidates under the electoral college do not take their cases to the people. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM COMPELS CANDIDATES TO FOCUS ON A HANDFUL OF STATES, LEAVING THE INTERESTS AND ISSUES OF A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION IGNORED-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] I have focused on what might be termed "formal" problems of the Electoral College derived from its legal structure. But there are also pernicious "informal" consequences as well. Professor McGinnis, in a prior encounter, has challenged the common emphasis on the propensity of the Electoral College to elect candidates who did not win a majority of the popular vote by making the entirely valid point that presidential campaigns would not be dramatically different were elections [*15] conducted on a nationwide popular vote basis. George W. Bush may have lagged behind Al Gore in 2000, but one cannot confidently infer that the same outcome would have happened had Bush and Gore been contending in a national popular-vote election. He is surely correct, but that point cuts against the Electoral College itself, for it underscores the extent to which contemporary presidential campaigns have become perversely structured around the reality of the College and its generation of so-called "battleground states" that have become the obsessive focus of modern campaigns. In 2004, for example, a full 99% of all advertising expenditures by the two major-party candidates were concentrated in only seventeen of the states. Florida and Ohio alone accounted for more than 45% ($ 111 million) of the $ 235 million spent in all of these states. Wisconsin, another "battleground," received a total of thirtyone candidate visits, as compared with two visits to California. New York received only one such visit! Other ignored states included Texas and Illinois. This means, among other things, that neither candidate was ever required to prepare serious speeches addressing the needs of the largest states in the Union. As a resident of Texas, I can certainly testify to the fact that it is significantly different from, say, Florida, one of the principal "battlegrounds" in both 2000 and 2004. This undercuts the argument that the Electoral College and the purported benefit given to large states by their ability give the winner of a given state all of the state's electoral votes (and thus deprive the losing minorities of any representation at all in the College) undercuts, at least to some extent, the small-state bonus. Only some large states are "battlegrounds," and there is no reason at all to believe that the lucky few are necessarily proxies for their ignored sister states.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE LEADS CANDIDATES TO FOCUS ON SMALL FACTIONS OF VOTERS IN BATTLEGROUND STATESChang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] In contrast, supporters of the NPV legislation argue that the current system leads Presidential candidates to focus disproportionately on appealing to small factions of voters in battleground states, possibly to the detriment of national interests. For example, Presidential candidates have consistently supported the Cuban embargo to woo Cuban American votes in Florida, "the swing bloc within the swing state." n110 Supporters of the NPV legislation note that other scholars have suggested that the present system can actually exacerbate sectionalist tendencies by awarding electors to candidates with strong regional followings, such as Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968, but not to broadly based, nationally focused candidates like Ross Perot in 1992. n111 The current system may foster candidates aiming to play the role of "spoiler." A spoiler could deny either major party candidate a majority and then bargain for concessions in exchange for their electoral votes. n112 THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISTORTS POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS BY DRAWING STATES AS BATTLEGROUND STATES OR SAFE STATES-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] The fact that battlegrounds change frequently is not clearly a substitute for giving equal weight to every voter in every state. Sixteen states should not represent all fifty, especially as it is unlikely that the battleground states will reflect the interests of all fifty. By dividing the country into safe and battleground states, the Electoral College severely distorts the presidential campaign. If implemented, the NPV legislation would mean that no states are necessarily excluded from the campaign, because the focus of the candidates would be on garnering the majority of the national popular vote, rather than the popular votes of a select number of battleground states. By diminishing the strategic value of locally focused stump speeches, candidates may be motivated to address national issues more comprehensively. THE TENDENCY OF CANDIDATES TO FOCUS ON A HANDFUL OF STATES BECAUSE OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM IS BAD FOR OUR COUNTRY-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] The concept of voters exercising more power in a presidential election because they live in Wyoming instead of California, or Vermont instead of Texas, ought to raise serious concerns about the equity of the winner-take-all approach to the Electoral College, especially given that the system "punishes" voters for living in a larger state. Further, the fact that presidential candidates in the modern age can simply ignore or take for granted the vast majority of the nation's population while focusing on a handful of "swing" states ought to give pause to anyone concerned with upholding federalist ideals. While one of the major arguments behind maintaining the Electoral College is that it benefits smaller states, that argument is accurate only to the extent that the small state at hand has a [*448] closely-divided electorate. n197 States like Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Mexico certainly benefit under the current system, because presidential candidates focus their energies on winning over the voters in those states.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE CREATES INCENTIVES TO FOCUS THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON A SMALL NUMBER OF STATES AND DELEGATES-Davis '08 [Roy T.; Retired Businessman; Electoral College Revisited; Empire Page; 28 October 2008; Gale Group Databases] Slick politicians can focus their money and energy on a very narrow number of states in order to win. New York State is a good example of the deficiencies in the current system. Most heavily populated areas in our country like New York City have a large powerful Democratic Party organization which gives them a solid majority over other parties in the state each election cycle. That in itself is no cause to whine about them winning elections. They work hard to keep their power intact, obviously much harder than the Republicans, etc. In state elections, the candidate with the most votes wins. That's how we elect our Governor, etc. It's democracy; it's simple, it works and it's fair. Not so the Electoral College. Maine and Nebraska elect their Electoral College delegates exactly the same way they vote for their House of Representative candidates. It's not a winner take all but rather the way a democracy should work, by popular vote. The candidates running for President and Vice President in those two states get the number of delegates they deserve based on the popular vote received. It's so simple and the proper way for a democracy to function yet politicians and the media seem to find no fault with the Electoral College. I am more than a little distressed that my losing vote counts for nothing on the national total. The real crux of the problem is that every vote cast in New York State, or any other state for that matter except the two mentioned above, for a losing Presidential candidate does not count. But suppose that candidate carries a state by a large margin of popular votes which, combined with the losing votes in New York would put him ahead in the total carried. It doesn't matter because of the Electoral College. This has brought us to modern times where these slick politicians can focus their money and energy on a very narrow number of states in order to win. It leads to manipulating elections that our politicians are getting very good at. How much time in the last several national elections have candidates spent in New York State? Hardly any at all and particularly when you look at what they spend in the so called battleground states. New York has a guaranteed 31 electoral votes to the Democratic Party column. At the very least, if the popular votes were counted, both parties would win something and have to make some sort of effort to get votes here. Campaigning would be far different than we see today. This forces the politicians to pay attention to each voter and state before, during and after elections. It's clear proof of why the Electoral College needs to be eliminated. ELECTORAL COLLEGE HURTS THE MAJORITY OF SMALL STATES; NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES VISIT THESE STATESRobb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] These small states represent the exception rather than the rule, however. Voters in other - and more numerous - small states never see a presidential candidate set foot within their borders. In 2004, for instance, George W. Bush made virtually no effort to appeal to the populations of states like Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, and Hawaii, because John Kerry had opinion polling leads comfortable enough in those states that Republican resources were deemed better invested elsewhere. Consequently, Kerry need not have bothered, and in fact did not, to address many issues of concern to voters in those states. Conversely, Bush's large leads in small states like Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska meant that neither candidate had to concern themselves with those states either. There was no advantage whatsoever to either Bush or Kerry in attempting to inflate their vote totals in any of those states, or even many larger ones like New York or Texas, because one or the other of them were virtually guaranteed the electoral votes from those states, irrespective of the size of either candidate's ultimate win or loss in them.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: BROAD SUPPORT EXISTS FOR ENDING IT

THERE IS BROAD SUPPORT FOR ENDING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] What have [Republican President] Richard Nixon, [Democratic President] Jimmy Carter, [Republican Presidential Candidate] Bob Dole, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the AFL-CIO [a federation of labor unions] all, in their time, agreed on? Answer: Abolishing the Electoral College! They're not alone; according to a Gallup poll in 2000, taken shortly after Al Gorethanks to the quirks of the Electoral Collegewon the popular vote but lost the presidency, over 60 percent of voters would prefer a direct election to the kind we have now. This year [2004] voters can expect another close election in which the popular vote winner could again lose the presidency. And yet, the Electoral College still has its defenders. What gives? THE PUBLIC CONSISTENTLY SUPPORTS GETTING RID OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 85] Actually, the public has continuously supported abolishing the electoral college. The Gallup Poll reported in 2001 that "there is little question that the American public would prefer to dismantle the Electoral College system, and go to a direct popular vote for the presidency. In Gallup polls that stretch back more than fifty years, a majority of Americans have continually expressed support for the notion of an official amendment of the U.S. Constitution that would allow for direct election of the president" (Gallup Poll, News Release, January 5, 2001). In polls conducted on November 11-12 and December 15-17, 2000, Gallup asked about the electoral college system and found that about 6o percent of the American public favored amending the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide wins the election. Only about a third of the public favored keeping the electoral college, despite the apparent reluctance on the part of Republicans to support the change-which would have given the presidency this year to Al Gore rather than to George W. Bush. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE IN FAVOR OF ABANDONING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Gringer '08 [David; WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE; Columbia Law Review; January 2008; 108 Colum. L. Rev. 182] Despite the college's constitutional status, "the American public would prefer to dismantle the Electoral College system and go to a direct popular vote for the presidency." n28 Gallup's polling on the issue has indicated strong public support for eliminating the electoral college for at least the last fifty years. n29 But the cumbersome constitutional amendment [*187] process has stymied attempts at reform. n30 In the wake of the 2000 election, efforts began anew to abolish the college in favor of a national popular vote.
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ALMOST 10% OF ALL ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION RELATE TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] From the beginning, the constitutional system for selecting the President has spawned proposals for reform. n37 Of 11,000 constitutional amendments introduced to date, more than 1000 have concerned the alteration or elimination of the Electoral College. n38 Of those resolutions, only one--now the Twelfth Amendment--passed, in 1804. n39 The last major congressional effort to pass an amendment pertaining to the Electoral College came in 1969, when the House of Representatives, alarmed by George Wallace's 1968 Presidential run, passed a direct popular vote amendment. n40 The proposal died the next year when it failed to attract sufficient votes in the Senate. n41 A similar effort in the aftermath of the close 1976 election failed as well. n42 By bypassing the Constitutional amendment process entirely, the NPV legislation may avoid some of the political hurdles encountered by earlier reform proposals.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: THE ELECTOR PROCESS IS BADLY DAMAGED

ELECTORS AREN'T NECESSARY FORCED TO VOTE FOR THEIR CHOSEN PERSON AND SOMETIMES GET CONFUSED AND VOTE FOR THE WRONG PERSON-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] Under the Electoral College system, voters vote not for the president, but for a slate of electors, who in turn elect the president. If you lived in Texas, for instance, and wanted to vote for Kerry, you'd vote for a slate of 34 Democratic electors pledged to Kerry. On the off-chance that those electors won the statewide election, they would go to Congress and Kerry would get 34 electoral votes. Who are the electors? They can be anyone not holding public office. Who picks the electors in the first place? It depends on the state. Sometimes state conventions, sometimes the state party's central committee, sometimes the presidential candidates themselves. Can voters control whom their electors vote for? Not always. Do voters sometimes get confused about the electors and vote for the wrong candidate? Sometimes. UNDER THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, THE STATES CAN CHOOSE TO TAKE THE POWER TO CHOOSE THE ELECTORS AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE AND GIVE IT TO WHOMEVER THEY WANT-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 161] Should any state legislature wish, however, it has the right under the Constitution to take the choice of the electors from the people and either do the job itself or deputize another body to make the selection. In the words of a Senate committee in 1874, "The appointment of these electors is thus placed absolutely and wholly within the legislatures of the several States. They may be chosen by the legislature, or the legislature may provide that they shall be elected by the people of the State at large, or in districts; ... and it is, no doubt, competent for the legislature to authorize the Governor, or the Supreme Court of the State, or any other agent of its will, to appoint these electors." ELECTORS THEMSELVES ARE A HUGE WEAKNESS IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] Professor Robert Bennett has recently subjected the Electoral College to his own critique in Taming the Electoral College. Though he is not so unrelentingly hostile to the institution as I am, he nonetheless focuses on yet additional problems, especially the so-called "faithless elector" who might, by voting "independently" rather than complying with the presumptive wishes of the electorate, generate an arguably illegitimate result. Or consider the question of what electors, who are only occasionally what might be termed widely regarded and leading members of the polity, should do if their candidate(s) were to die between Election Day and the meetings in December. As it happens, Professor Bennett believes that statutory solutions might be possible for some of these problems, thus avoiding the futility of attempting reform via constitutional amendment. But this does not in any way reduce the vulnerability to criticism of the Electoral College; it simply suggests that at least some reforms might be easier to attain than one might otherwise think.
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ELECTORS OFTEN DON'T SHOW UP FOR THEIR DUTY AND REPLACEMENTS ARE PICKED FROM RANDOM PEOPLE IN THE HALLS OF THE CAPITOL-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 244] On the appointed day in December, the electors convene, in most states at noon. The meeting usually takes place in the state legislative chambers, the executive chambers, or the office of the secretary of state. Under federal law, the governor of the state must by this time have sent to the administrator of General Services in Washington, D.C., a certificate reporting the names of the electors elected and the number of popular votes cast for them. A state official presents copies of these certificates to the electors when they convene, and the governor or secretary of state generally makes a short speech welcoming the electors to their august duty.28 Often, however, some of the electors fail to appear for their great day. Congress, in a law first passed in 1845, has authorized the states to provide for filling of elector vacancies. In almost every state today, the electors themselves are authorized to choose replacements. Sometimes the replacements are found by scouring the hallways of the state capitol for likely candidates. This process was followed by the Michigan electoral college in 1948, when only thirteen of the nineteen chosen electors-all pledged to Thomas Dewey and his running mate, Earl Warren-appeared. One of the substitutes recruited on the spot, however, a Mr. J. J. Levy of Royal Oak, had to be restrained by his colleagues from voting for Harry Truman and his running mate, Alben Barkley. "I thought we had to vote for the winning candidate," Levy was quoted as saying.29 Sometimes it has been necessary to designate substitute electors because federal officeholders have been improperly chosen as electors, in violation of the Constitution. ELECTORAL VOTES REGULARLY DEVIATES FROM THE POPULAR WILL OF THE PEOPLE-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 578] A popular misconception is that electoral votes are simple aggregates of popular votes. In reality, the electoral vote regularly deviates from the popular will as expressed in the popular vote-sometimes merely in curious ways, usually strengthening the electoral edge of the popular vote leader, but at times in such a way as to deny the presidency to the popular preference. Popular votes do not equal electoral votes-the former express the people's choice, while the latter determine who is to be the people's president.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: FAITHLESS ELECTORS BAD

THE ORIGINAL DESIGN OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ALLOWS ELECTORS TO CHOOSE THEIR CANDIDATES FROM THEIR OWN FREE WILL-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] There is another interpretation of the genesis of the Electoral College that is even less kind in explaining its inclusion in the Constitution: that the Electoral College grew out of the last-ditch efforts of the "states righters" of 1787 to preserve as much of the Articles of Confederation as possible. This group was intent on denying direct popular election of the president and preserving the power of the states. Just as they succeeded in a provision allowing state legislatures to elect the members of the Senate, they wanted the primary power to elect a president to be lodged in the statesnot in a mass electorate comprised of individual voters. James Madison, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris preferred a vote by the people but fell back on the compromise of an Electoral College to appease the die-hard defenders of the Articles of Confederation and their exaltation of each state's right to be its own principal governing force. The original design of the Electoral College was based on the notion that electors would be faithful agents of the people who were "men superior in discernment, virtue and information" and who acted "according to their own will." Fifty years later, Justice Joseph Bradley of the U.S. Supreme Court and a member of the 1877 Electoral Commission established to settle the disputed Hayes-Tilden Election of 1876, said, "Electors were mere instruments of partyparty puppetswho are to carry out a function that an automaton without volition or intelligence might as well perform." Another commentator of the same period, Senator John J. Ingalls of Kansas, opined that "electors are like the marionettes in a Punch and Judy show."
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A/T: FOUNDING FATHERS SUPPORT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

THE FOUNDING FATHERS DIDN'T PUT MUCH THOUGHT INTO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] The founding fathers wanted it that way!Advocates of the Electoral College often appeal to the wisdom of the founding fathersafter all, they set up the system, presumably they had something just and wise in mind, right? Wrong. History shows that the framers whipped up the Electoral College system in a hurry, with little discussion and less debate. Whatever wisdom the founding fathers had, they sure didn't use it to design presidential elections. At the time, most of the framers were weary after a summer's worth of bickering, and figured that George Washington would be president no matter what, so it wasn't a pressing issue. Most of the original arguments in favor of an Electoral College system are no longer valid. The Electoral College was partially a concession to slaveholders in the South, who wanted electoral clout without letting their slaves actually vote. (Under the Electoral College, slaves counted towards a state's electoral vote total.) The framers also thought that ordinary people wouldn't have enough information to elect a president, which is not necessarily a concern today.
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A/T: STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND FEDERALISM ARGUMENTS

STATE/LOCAL INTEREST ARGUMENTS FOR THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ARE WRONG-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It protects state interests!States don't really have coherent "interests," so it's hard to figure out exactly what this means. (Is there something, for instance, that all New Yorkers want purely by virtue of being New Yorkers?) Under the current system, presidents rarely campaign on local issues anywaywhen [political science professor] George Edwards analyzed campaign speeches from 1996 and 2000, he found only a handful that even mentioned local issues. And that's as it should be. We have plenty of Congressmen and Senators who cater to local concerns. The president should take a broader view of the national interest, not be beholden to any one state or locale. PROTECTING SMALL STATES IS A SILLY INTEREST IN THE MODERN ERA-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It's consistent with federalism!All history students recall that the Great Compromise of 1787 created the House, which gives power to big populous states, and the Senate, which favors small states. The compromise was just that, a compromise meant to keep delegates happy and the Constitution Convention in motion. Nevertheless, the idea that small states need protection has somehow become legitimated over the years, and is used to support the Electoral Collegewhich gives small states disproportionate power in electing a president. But what, pray tell, do small states need protection from? It's not as if big states are all ganging up on Wyoming. The fiercest rivalries have always been between regions, like the South and North in the 1800s, or between big states, like California and Texas today. Furthermore, most small states are ignored in presidential campaigns, so it's not clear that the current system is protecting anything. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS NOT A BASTION OF FEDERALISM-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1730] The electoral college is also not a bastion of federalism. It is not based on federative principles and is not essential for the continuance of a healthy federal system. Direct election of the president would not diminish the role of state and local parties and officials or the nominating conventions and national standards for elections are already in place and not to be feared. As Bob Dole put it, direct election is "commonsense federalism."64 THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESN'T STRENGTHEN THE STATES-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] To be fair, Professor Lowenstein does indeed offer five reasons to preserve the Electoral College. Some I've already addressed. But consider his belief that the College helps to "strengthen[] the states." I fail to see how. This is fallacious in the same way that it is fallacious to argue that the Senate strengthens the states. The Senate acts as an affirmative action program for the residents of small states, nothing more, nothing less. In no conceivable sense does it strengthen states as such. If one wanted to do such a thing, the German Constitution offers a far more promising way, by drawing the officials of the Bundesrat from state officialdom itself. Or we might repeal the 17th [*29] Amendment and return to the original scheme of selection of senators by state legislators.
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NO EVIDENCE EXISTS THAT SMALL STATE INTERESTS NEED PROTECTION FROM THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1400] It is difficult to identify interests that are centered in a few small states. Even if we could, however, the question remains whether these few interests, out of the literally thousands of economic interests in the United States, deserve special protection. I know of no principle that would support such a view. Why should those who produce wheat and hogs have more say in electing the president than those who produce vegetables, citrus, and beef? Is not the disproportionate representation of states in which wheat and hogs are produced in the Senate enough to protect these interests? There is simply no evidence that interests like these deserve or require additional protection from the electoral system.
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE PROJECTS MINORITIES/CREATE COALITIONS

ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESN'T PROTECT MINORITIES OR MINORITY INTERESTS-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It protects minorities!Some college buffs have argued that, since ethnic minorities are concentrated in politically competitive states, the Electoral College forces candidates to pay more attention to minorities. This sounds great, but it's wholly untrue. Most African-Americans, for instance, are concentrated in the South, which has rarely been a "swing" region. Hispanic voters, meanwhile, largely reside in California, Texas, and New York, all uncompetitive states. It's true that Cubans in Florida have benefited wonderfully from the Electoral College, but they represent an extremely narrow interest group. All other minority voters have less incentive to vote. It's no surprise that the Electoral College has often enabled presidential candidates to ignore minorities in various statesin the 19th century, for instance, voting rights were poorly enforced in non-competitive states. CLAIMS THAT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM FORCE A BROAD COALITION FOR THE MAJORITY ARE DUBIOUS-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Proponents of the current winner-take-all approach in the Electoral College often argue that the system ensures that the winner of the presidential election is the candidate with the broadest cross-sectional appeal across the country. n251 Given the results of some recent presidential contests, this argument is not compelling. For example, in 1960, Richard Nixon won a greater number of states than did John F. Kennedy, yet still lost under the winner-take-all Electoral College system. n252 The winner-take-all approach hardly rewarded Nixon or punished Kennedy for their respective campaign tactics. Additionally, George W. Bush's Electoral College victory over Al Gore in 2000 owed to a 537-vote victory in the state of Florida, where almost six million people cast ballots for President. n253 With the election decided by such a miniscule margin, it is highly dubious to suggest that either candidate appealed to an appreciably broader cross-section of voters than the other, particularly given the fact that Gore won almost 540,000 more votes nationally, while Bush carried a greater number of states. n254 Had a shift of just four one-thousandths of one percent of the vote in Florida occurred, Gore would have won the election, despite the fact that Bush still would have carried seven more states. In an election like the 2000 presidential election, it seems preposterous to suggest that either candidate was demonstrably superior at appealing to a broader segment of the country. Nevertheless, the national result produced a clear - if close - victory for one candidate. Obviously, had the winner-take-all system not been in place in 2000, no one can say for certain which candidate would [*459] have won the popular vote, as both of their strategies would have been different. However, what does seem likely is that a final result nationally would have been more conclusive, without the need for a month of recounts to figure out who won the Electoral College board game. n255
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS MODERATION/DECREASE OF POLARIZATION

ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESN'T BATTLE THE POLARIZED STATE OF OUR COUNTRY-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It makes presidential races more cohesive!In an August [2004] column for Newsweek, [political commentator] George Will argued that the Electoral College somehow makes presidential elections more cohesive. Again, fine in principle, untrue in practice. Will first suggests that the system forces candidates to win a broad swathe of states, rather than just focusing on the most populous regions. But even if that happened, how is that worse than candidates focusing on a few random swing states? Or take Will's claim that the Electoral College system prevents "factions" from "uniting their votes across state lines." What? Factions already existwhite male voters vote Republican; African-Americans vote Democrat; evangelicals vote Republican; atheists vote Democrat. If our polarized country is a concern, it has little to do with the Electoral College. ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS DIVIDED, RATHER THAN UNITED, OUR COUNTRY-Anderson '05 [John B.; Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate and Law Professor at Nova Southeastern University; The Electoral College Flunks the Test in an Age of Democracy; Human Rights Magazine; Spring 2005; page 17] Our elections, as they are now held, have divided rather than united the country. Battleground states are the focus of both the candidates and the media. In the 2004 campaign, to cite only one example, President [George W.] Bush bothered to poll in only eighteen states. More importantly, most registration drives were focused on battleground states. Is it healthy for the democratic process to see the number of competitive states decreasing? Indeed, if federalism is a principal argument for some last-ditch advocates on the Electoral College in a country where an overwhelming majority of Americans favor direct election but feel increasingly ignored, it is the defenders of the status quo who should feel challenged. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOES LITTLE TO HELP THE WINNING CANDIDATE PUT TOGETHER A MAJORITY TO GOVERNEdwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 1916] The electoral college often does not produce popular vote majority winners, and there is no evidence that the size of the president's majority (as opposed to the size of his party's bloc in Congress) influences his ability to govern. Moreover, presidents elected under the electoral college rarely benefit from the perception of a mandate, and when they do, the electoral college is irrelevant to that perception. There are many reasons why election victories, even landslide victories, do not translate into perceptions of mandates. But the bottom line is that there is no distinction in the ability of majority and plurality winners to govern.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESN'T INCREASE HARMONY OR COHESION-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 2077] Many of the justifications for the electoral college focus on maintaining the harmony and cohesion of the Republic. Its advocates argue that direct election of the president, principally the runoff provision, would harm the nation by encouraging fraud and recounts and corrupt and secret deals between the first ballot and the runoff, allowing for the possibility of the second-place finisher winning the runoff, eliminating a mandate for the winner, splintering and polarizing the party system, and creating disharmony in the nation. Once again, we find that these claims are based on faulty premises. The electoral college does not contain the results of fraud and accidental circumstances within states. Instead, it magnifies their consequences for the outcome nationally. Direct election, by contrast, would create disincentives for fraud and recounts. Similarly, there would be little incentive for secret deals under direct election and severe constraints on the bargains third parties could make. Moreover, there is much less chance of such deals under direct election than under the contingent election provision of the electoral college. There is also no reason to be concerned that the person who came in second in a first ballot would win the runoff. That is what should happen if this is the candidate the people prefer to the first-place finisher in the first ballot.
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS LEGITIMACY/MAGNIFICATION

ELECTORAL COLLEGE DOESN'T PROVIDE LEGITIMACY FOR THE WINNER OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION-Plumer '04 [Bradford; Assistant Editor for the New Republic; The Indefensible Electoral College, Mother Jones Online; 8 October 2004; Gale Group Databases] It gives legitimacy to the winner!Finally, Will argues that the Electoral College strengthens or legitimizes the winner. For example, Woodrow Wilson won only 41.8 percent of the popular vote, but his 81.9 percent electoral vote victory "produced a strong presidency." This suggests that voters are fools and that the electoral vote total somehow obscures the popular vote total. (If a candidate gets 45 percent of the popular vote, voters aren't going to think he got more than that just because he got 81 percent of the electoral vote total. And even if they do, do we really want a system whose aim is to mislead voters about election results?) Furthermore, there's no real correlation between a strong electoral vote showing and a strong presidency. George H.W. Bush received 426 electoral votes, while Harry Truman received only 303 in 1948 and George W. Bush a mere 271 in 2000. Yet the latter two were undeniably "stronger" presidents in their dealings with Congress. There's also no evidence that an electoral landslide creates a "mandate" for change. The landslides in 1984 and 1972 didn't give [Ronald] Reagan or [Richard] Nixon a mandate for much of anythingindeed, those two presidents got relatively little done in their second terms. AMERICAN PRESIDENTS DON'T HAVE MORE LEGITIMACY THAN OTHER ELECTED LEADERS, DIMINISHING THE STABILITY ARGUMENT OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Levinson '07 [Stanford, Professor of Law at University of Texas Law School;SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] Professor McGinnis says that we can ignore all such problems because the Electoral College helps to "bestow[] legitimacy on the president" by "magnify[ing] the winner's margin of victory." Professor Lowenstein agrees. I have no doubt that this was true in the past. But, for better and maybe even for worse, I suspect that most informed American citizens are now all too aware of this conjurer's trick, which can work only if one doesn't know how it is performed. By now, most Americans can see the Wizard-of-Oz aspects of the College. In any event, I think there is little empirical evidence that American presidents enjoy greater legitimacy than, say, British prime ministers or even French presidents because of the distortions produced by our unique system of electing chief executives. Moreover, it is scarcely the case that at the beginning of his first term George W. Bush was "seen as legitimate in all sectors of society [*28] with the possible exception of university professors." A CNN poll published on April 24, 2001, revealed that 48% of the public believed that he had not won the 2000 election "fair and square" and 23% of the public refused to accept him as a "legitimate" president. That surely goes well beyond university professors like myself. Perhaps the "good news" is that 76% of the public accepted its legitimacy, but I don't think this is enough to vindicate Professor McGinnis's appreciation for the legitimacy-enhancing features of the College. (I'm also confident that if the public at large knew in April, 2001, what kind of president he was going to become, they would have rioted in the streets, but that's another matter.)
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THE MAGNIFICATION DEFENSE OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS SUSPECT; WHY DEFEND A SYSTEM BASED ON DECEIVING THE VOTERS?-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 712] Some commentators claim that the electoral college's magnification of the size of a popular vote victory is a benefit, at least to the president. The argument seems to be that at least some people will ignore the actual popular vote and focus on the electoral vote instead. This will give the president more credibility in claiming a mandate and more success in convincing Congress to support his programs. Such an assertion fails on three grounds. The first is ethical and the second and third are empirical. To begin, what possible justification can there be for a presidential selection process that may fool people as to the actual outcome? It is difficult to imagine a response. NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THE MAGNIFICATION DEFENSE OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Edwards '04 [George C.; Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University; Why the Electoral College is Bad for America; 2004; Kindle Location 716] Second, there is no evidence that anyone ignores the popular vote in favor of the electoral vote." Electoral vote totalsexcept in 2ooo-are forgotten the day after the election. Journalists, scholars, and members of Congress know the popular vote, and they reflect it in their commentaries. Members of Congress, moreover, are attuned to how the president ran in their constituencies. (I focus on mandates in more detail in Chapter 6.) And third, there is no evidence that the electoral college vote increases the probability that a president will successfully claim a mandate. Presidents who win election by large margins often find that their victories are not accompanied by perceptions of support for the president's proposals. In nine of the thirteen presidential elections in the last half of the twentieth century, the disparity between the popular vote and the electoral vote exceeded 20 percentage points. Yet only the elections of 1964 and 198o produced perceptions of a popular mandate.27 Many of the most impressive electoral college victories (Dwight Eisenhower's in 1952 and 1956, Richard Nixon's in 1972, and Ronald Reagan's in 1984) did not elicit perceptions of mandates.28 There is more to perceptions of mandates than a sum of electoral votes. The disparities between the popular and electoral vote would be of only marginal interest were it not for the greatest violation of political equality: the candidate who receives the most votes loses the election.
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A/T: MINOR REFORMS THAT WOULD FIX THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

SUBTLE, SMALL REFORMS TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ARE REALLY PARTISAN TRICKS-Raskin '07 [Jamin; Professor of Constitutional Law at American University; Deformed Reform: The cure for the Electoral College that is worse than what ails us; Slate; 24 August 2007; http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/08/deformed_reform.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] It's hardly news at this point that, as it works today, the Electoral College undermines American democracy. It does so in three fundamental ways: First, it betrays the principle of majority rule, threatening every four years to deliver the White House to the popular-vote loser. Second, it reduces the general election contest to a matter of what happens in Ohio, Florida, and a handful of other swing states, leaving most Americans (who live in forsaken "red" and "blue" states) on the sidelines. This in turn depresses turnout and helps give us one of the worst rates of voter participation on earth. Third, because of its proven pliability, the Electoral College invites partisan operatives, legislators, secretaries of state and even Supreme Court justices to engage in constant strategic mischief and manipulation at the state level. This last problem is about to make things much worse, as strategic actors try to exploit spreading discontent with the system by pushing "reform" proposals for purely partisan advantage. Thus, in California, top Republican strategists are now proposing a ballot initiative that would "reform" the system by awarding the state's electoral votes by congressional district. Its real purpose is to break up the state's 55 electors, which typically go to the Democrats in a bloc as inevitably as Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma give their 56 combined electors to the Republicans. Following the proposed division of California's well-gerrymandered blue and red congressional districts, it is likely that the 2008 GOP nominee under this plan would carry away about 20 electors. In one fell swoop, this would ruin the Democrats' chances for winning the presidency. This is very plainly not reform. It is tactical gamesmanship. Save us the sermons about fairness on Fox News by carefully disguised "pro-reform" advocates. If this were truly just a fairer way to divide up electoral votes, why didn't Karl Rove and the highly placed political operatives behind this initiative choose to begin in the states in which they control the legislatures, like Texas, Alabama, or Utah? I know. Don't hold your breath.
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A/T: X OR Y STATE IS IGNORED BY CANDIDATES

STATES THAT FEEL SLIGHTED BY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM WILL INEVITABLE BE IN PLAY AGAIN SOON-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] Think again of the permanent importance of this bias toward the urban and against the rural. One of the interesting things about our current system is that it doesnt stand still. Anyone old enough to remember Ronald Reagan can recall when California was a state Republicans sometimes won. One day it will be again. So complaints that candidates only go to one third of the country ring hollow when we reflect that over time there is considerable change in which third of the country is most heavily targeted by candidates. Any state feeling slighted today need only become more competitive between the partiessomething one of the parties surely wants in every one of those statesto change its fortunes in the next presidential election. But under Soross idea the geography of presidential campaigning would follow the iron law of population density. Movement over time would occur glacially by comparison. BATTLEGROUND STATES CHANGE OVER TIME, REFLECTING CHANGES IN THE ELECTORATE-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Supporters of the Electoral College acknowledge that modern campaigns focus on only a few battleground states, but they argue that the battlegrounds change often and therefore that the Electoral College is not [*219] systematically detrimental to the voters of certain states. n101 For example, although Michigan and Florida are now considered to be battlegrounds, Michigan was not a battleground during the Clinton years, and Florida was considered a sure Republican state in 1996 and even as late as the summer of 2000. n102
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A/T: THE CONSTITUTION MANDATES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] As illustrated, an entire range of inequities exists under the current Electoral College system. This system is not constitutionally mandated, and exists because of political choices made by the legislatures of the several states over the course of many years. American presidential campaigns under this system have become comically divorced from anything resembling a true national debate on substantive issues, and the winner-take-all aspect of the Electoral College has led to the effective irrelevance of the sweeping majority of the nation's voters.
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A/T: FRAMER OF THE CONSTITUTION WANTED THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

THE MODERN ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS DEVIATED FROM THE FRAMER'S INTENT IN FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Despite evidence of careful planning, the Electoral College soon deviated from the Framers' intentions in at least four ways. First, the Framers anticipated that the process would seldom produce an electoral majority, thereby sending most Presidential elections to the House. n24 In practice, however, the House contingency procedure was used infrequently and has not been used once since 1824. n25 Second, the Framers believed that the states would employ the district system n26 to assign electoral votes, rather than the winner-take-all rule. n27 Yet, while states have used a variety of methods to appoint Presidential electors throughout history, n28 by 1836 all but one had switched to the winner-take-all rule. n29 After switching, a state had a strong incentive not to adopt any other system, because switching while other states retained the [*209] winner-takeall rule would diminish that state's influence in the Electoral College. n30 Third, the Framers did not anticipate that Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates would run on the same ticket. The original constitutional provision had each elector vote for two persons for President; n31 the candidate with the most votes would become President, and the runner-up would become Vice President. n32 After the acrimonious election of 1800, n33 the Twelfth Amendment changed this process by separating the elections for President and Vice President. n34 Fourth, the Framers erroneously assumed that electors would exercise independent judgment in voting for President. n35 Instead, the modern selection process for electors assures that the electors are already pledged to a Presidential candidate and deviate only rarely.
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CON
SHOULDNT DEFINE DEMOCRACY AS SIMPLY 50% + 1
IF WE NARROWLY DEFINE DEMOCRACY AS 50% PLUS 1, MANY OF OUR CHERISHED AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS WOULD BE BROKEN DOWN-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] Dissatisfaction with the electoral-vote system has been a staple of populist rhetoric ever since presidential elections became fully democratized in the 1820s. More than 700 constitutional amendments have been introduced to change the systemby far the greatest number on any subjectand although reform prescriptions have varied greatly in detail, their common assumption has always been that our electoral rules prevent the true voice of the people from being heard. But what is the "true voice" of the people? Public sentiment can be expressed and measured in any number of ways, but not all are conducive to securing rights. If ascertaining the consent of the people were only a matter of counting heads until you got to 50 percent plus one, we could dispense with most of the distinctive features of the Constitutionnot only electoral votes, but also federalism, the separation of powers, bicameralism, and staggered elections. All of these devices depart from simple majoritarianism, and for good reason: Men do not suddenly become angels when they acquire the right to vote; an electoral majority can be just as tyrannical as autocratic kings or corrupt oligarchs. MANY OF OUR INSTITUTIONS DO NOT HAVE SIMPLE MAJORITIES AS THE RULE; THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO FOR EXAMPLE-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] But if one believes in what Professor Held describes as participatory or social democracy, the Electoral College may seem very unsatisfactory, particularly in its symbolism. Oversimplifying a bit, under the [*20] model of participatory or social democracy, the legitimacy of all social institutions ultimately depends on popular approval and should be subject to a continuous process of social reform. Thus, even if it is impossible to capture a stable majority with the election of a president, it is important to appear to do so if majority will is the source of legitimacy. Accordingly, it is not surprising that as the United States flirted with social democratic ideas, the Electoral College, which reflects the Framers' more circumscribed view of democracy's purpose, has come under attack. In a recent book, Professor Levinson himself combines his attack on the Electoral College with an assault on other features of the Constitution, like the presidential veto, which are in fact designed to insulate the order of civil society from rapid social reform by majority will. But if one believes, as I do, that social democracy is seriously wrong-headed and that majority rule in political decision making is far from sacrosanct, one will welcome the symbolism of the Electoral College. Its structure on its face rejects the notion of unmediated popular sovereignty--a notion that has made it harder to recognize that society is legitimated not by majority will, but by principles of natural justice, like the right to liberty and property. By giving states a role, the Electoral College includes within its structure elements of subsidiarity--a principle of governance that facilitates the exercise of these rights. Thus, I count it as a virtue, not a defect, that the symbolism of the Electoral College reminds us that simple majority will is not the legitimating feature of society, but that instead popular consent is merely an instrument to protect the deep and enduring principles that make us a free people.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FOUNDING FATHERS DIDNT INTEND A DIRECT DEMOCRACY

THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED TO CREATE A REPUBLIC, NOT A DEMOCRACY, AND PURPOSEFULLY DIDN'T CREATE A DIRECT DEMOCRACY-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Contrary to modern perceptions, the founding generation did not intend to create a direct democracy. To the contrary, the Founders deliberately created a republicor, arguably, a republican democracythat would incorporate a spirit of compromise and deliberation into decision-making. Such a form of government, the Founders believed, would allow them to achieve two potentially conflicting objectives: avoiding the "tyranny of the majority" inherent in pure democratic systems, while allowing the "sense of the people" to be reflected in the new American government. Moreover, a republican government, organized on federalist principles, would allow the delegates to achieve the most difficult of their tasks: enabling large and small sovereign states to live peacefully alongside each other. FOUNDING FATHERS STRONGLY BELIEVED IN PROTECTING MINORITY VOICES IN DEMOCRACY-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] The Founders believed that while the selfish proclivities of human nature could not be eliminated, their baleful effects could be mitigated by a properly designed constitutional structure. Although the Constitution recognizes no other source of authority than the people, it takes pains to shape and channel popular consent in very particular ways. Thomas Jefferson perfectly captured the Framers' intent in his First Inaugural Address: "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate which would be oppression." By reasonable majorities, Jefferson meant those that would reflect popular sentiment but, by the very manner of their composition, would be unable or unlikely to suppress the rights and interests of those in the minority. Accordingly, the Constitution understands elections not as ends in themselves, but as a means of securing limited government and equal rights for all. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WAS STRONGLY SUPPORTED BY CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION DELEGATES-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 8] Todays negative views on the Electoral College are ironic, given the universal admiration in which the system was held at the time of the Constitutional Convention. One influential delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton, publicly deemed the Electoral College excellent. The other Convention delegates agreed with him; they viewed the Electoral College as one of the great achievements of the Constitutional Convention.31 Transcripts of the ratification debates do not record much opposition to the presidential election process, although other aspects of the proposed Constitution were debated intensely. Both at the Convention and during the ratification debates, the Electoral College was considered a clever solution to one problem facing the new nation: It would allow the will of the people to be expressed, but would still provide sufficient safeguards to protect minority interests. The unenthusiastic views of todays citizenry on this topic would almost certainly surprise the founding generation.
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THE FOUNDING FATHERS BELIEVE THAT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE STRIKES THE PERFECT BALANCE BETWEEN MAJORITY AND MINORITY RIGHTS-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; pages 42-44] Discussions regarding the mode of presidential election emphasized the importance of providing the people a voice in the process. The delegates praise for the final product reflected the importance that they placed upon electing Presidents chosen by the people. James Madison declared, [T]he President is now to be elected by the people.132 Alexander Hamilton promoted the Electoral College as an institution that would allow the sense of the people to operate in the choice of the [President].133 James Wilson of Pennsylvania supported the proposed election system during the ratification debates, noting that the President may be justly styled the man of the people.134 In the American republic created by the Founders, majorities canand shouldrule, but only while they are reasonable. The minority views in a 1970 Senate report reflected this sentiment: Accordingly, the crucial question in considering electoral reform is whether one method of election is better than another at creating reasonable majorities. One method might be better at obtaining a strictly numerical majority, but only at the price of failing to protect minorities; another might protect minorities very well indeed, but only at the price of frustrating a truly reasonable majority.135 The Electoral College was considered by the Founders to have struck the perfect balance between minority protection and majority rule. It was a balance that they hit upon only after several months of deliberation and compromise in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: GOOD SYSTEM TO DEAL WITH COMPLEX PROBLEMS

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS A UNIQUE FORMULATION THAT MEETS SEVERAL PERHAPS CONFLICTING NEEDS AT ONCERoss '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Despite these strong statements against democracy, the Founders were also strong advocates for self-government, and they often spoke of the need to allow the will of the people to operate in the new government that they were crafting. "Notwithstanding the oppressions & injustice experienced among us from democracy," Virginia delegate George Mason declared "the genius of the people must be consulted." James Madison agreed, speaking of the "honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." The delegates, then, faced a dilemma. Their fierce opposition to simple democracy ran headlong into their determination to allow the people to govern themselvesand they knew that voters in small states would need to be free to govern themselves, just as would citizens in large states. The Founders reconciled these seemingly conflicting needs by creating a republican government, organized on federalist principles, in which minorities would be given many opportunities to make themselves heard. The Electoral College was considered to fit perfectly within this republican, federalist government that had been created. The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical. The election process was seen as a clever solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem facing the Conventionfinding a fair method of selecting the Executive for a nation composed of both large and small states that have ceded some, but not all, of their sovereignty to a central government. "'[T]he genius of the present [Electoral College] system,'" a 1970 Senate report concluded, "'is the genius of a popular democracy organized on the federal principle.'" THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS PRODUCED AN AMAZING COLLECTION OF PRESIDENTS-Lowenstein '07 [Danial, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] The Electoral College produces good presidents. True, we've had a few lemons and a larger number of unmemorables. But we've had a remarkable number of remarkable leaders. The Electoral College has produced Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan. None of us may approve of all of these without qualification, but taken together, it is a pretty big group of distinguished chief executives. Probably the only country in the world that could point to an arguably comparable set of chief executives is the United Kingdom, and they, like us, elect their executives indirectly.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: 2008 ELECTION WAS JUST FINE!

THE 2008 ELECTION HAD NO PROBLEMS-The Pew Center on the States '08 [The Federal Election System Functioned Well in 2008; Election 2008 in Review; 8 December 2008; Gale Group Databases] The Pew Center on the States identifies and advances state policy solutions and is part of the Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent nonprofit organization that seeks to improve public policy, inform the public, and stimulate civic life. A "meltdown scenario;" "historic" turnout; a system that "has never been taxed or burdened or used to [this] extent." The predictions of what might happen when polls opened November 4 [2008] often relied on superlatives. The results might take days, some guessed, either because of delays in processing mail-in ballots, the need to count absentee and provisional ballots or the possibility of recounts in one or more states that could tip the balance in either direction for the White House and for other offices. Voters could endure endless lines. Provisional ballots could trigger post-election lawsuits as millions might have registration problems or lack proper ID. Yet when clocks on the East Coast struck 11 p.m.the moment polls closed in a number of West Coast states, including California, Oregon and Washington, we had a new president-elect by a wide Electoral College margin. We also discovered that our myriad election systems functioned well enough to restore some of the confidence that had been shaken in previous years. The people spoke, and it appears the voting machines, tabulators and results accurately reflected their choices for president.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: HAS ADAPTED WELL OVER TIME

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS KEPT ELECTIONS RUNNING SMOOTH FOR 200 YEARS-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; pages 172-174] More than an accident of history has kept Americas election systems operating smoothly for two centuries. The Founding Fathers created a stable, well-planned and carefully designed systemand it works. Past elections, even the elections of Presidents who lost the popular vote, are testaments to the ingenuity of the Founding Fathers. Those Presidents who won the electoral vote by landslide victories understood perhaps better than many what the Founders were trying to accomplish as they designed a presidential-election process. In each instance, the Electoral College brought about the intended result, preserved federalism, prevented chaos and uncertainty, or kept an unreasonable or regional majority from trampling the few. The nations presidential-election system has served America well for more than two centuries. An evaluation of the historical results of the nations elections confirms that the Electoral College should be preserved at all costs. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS SHOWN A UNIQUE ABILITY TO ADAPT OVER TIME-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Much has changed since 1787. The Founders could not have foreseen the rapid technological advancements, massive federal bureaucracy, and increasingly populist attitudes that characterize American life today. Could it be that the Electoral College, although once an ingenious solution to many 18th century problems, has today become merely an anachronismand a potentially dangerous one at that? The Electoral College undoubtedly operates in a different society from the one that existed in 1787. Yet the Electoral College has shown an amazing ability to adapt to modern-day America. It may sometimes operate differently than expected, but it still serves the political goals it was intended to serve. In truth, its operation in modern times may be even more valuable. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS ADAPTED OVER TIME TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF MODERN ELECTIONS-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 74] The Electoral College undoubtedly operates in a different society from the one that existed in 1787. Global communications and the rise of national political parties have facilitated the rise of national candidates. They have enabled the average voter to be as informed as he would like to be regarding public policy issues and candidates. He can easily debate these issues with those in other states and countries. Moreover, the Electoral College, in practice, operates differently than it did in 1787. Electors no longer operate as independently as they once did, but they usually merely rubber-stamp the decision of the states electorates. State legislatures no longer select the electors; instead, electors are selected based on a popular election within each state. Over time, these elections have changed so that all states electors (except Maine and Nebraska) are now awarded on a winner-take-all basis. Confounding the Founders expectations, the contingent election is a rarity in this day and age. Despite these changes, the Electoral College has not become an out-of-date electoral tool obstructing the American electorate. It has instead shown an amazing ability to adapt to modern-day America. It operates differently than expected, but still serves the political goals it was intended to serve.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FOCUSES ON STATE ISSUES

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS DEMOCRATIC, BUT FOCUSES AT THE STATE, NOT THE NATIONAL LEVEL-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] In sum, the nation conducts democratic, popular electionbut they are conducted at the state level, rather than the national level. Professor Charles R. Kesler of Claremont McKenna College explains: "In truth, the issue is democracy with federalism (the Electoral College) versus democracy without federalism (a national popular vote). Either is democratic. Only the Electoral College preserves federalism, moderates ideological differences, and promotes national consensus in our choice of a chief executive." THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FORCES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TO BE ORIENTED AROUND STATES AND NOT AROUND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, MAKING THE SYSTEM MORE ACCOUNTABLE-Lowenstein '07 [Danial, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] The Electoral College causes presidential elections to be significantly oriented around states. Perhaps because I spent eight years in the state government of California before I became an academic, I share many of the popular prejudices about the inside-the-Beltway mentality and the arrogance of the federal government. Against all the pressures of nationalization, it is important to maintain the states as strong and vital elements of our system, both in practice and in public understanding. Unlike some conservative jurisprudes, I do not believe constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government are a promising way to accomplish this. In practice, the Electoral College is by no means the most important institution we have for strengthening the states, but neither is it by any means the least important. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BEST PROTECTS STATES RIGHTS AND FEDERALISM-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; pages 87-88] A direct popular election would probably cause some people to feel like they are better protected. After all, the principle of one person, one vote ensures that everyone is treated equallyright? In the presidential election process, this sentiment may feel true, but it is not. Individuals are best protected in the presidential election system when they can combine with others in their state and make their voices heard as a bloc. Obviously, voters will lose in their states sometimes (just as they would sometimes lose in a national direct popular election); however, they are protected even in their loss. No presidential candidate can afford to ignore any segment of the country. To be logically consistent, Electoral College opponents should criticize other federalist features of our government as they have the Electoral College. After all, disparaging the Electoral College as unfair requires that similar criticisms be directed at the Senate or at other, similar features of our government that were created as protections for the small states. No one, however, is seriously questioning the right of the Senate to exist. The Electoral College is simply one of several constitutional devices created by the Framers to protect the diverse interests of the states. The Electoral College protects the interests of the states, and thus their voters today, just as it did in 1787. It forces presidential candidates to build a support base that is national in character. A focus on any one area or special interesturban or rural, east or west, coastal or interiorwill cause the candidacy to fail. Solutions must be proposed that appeal to as many states interests as possible, as at least some of the small states will be needed to win the presidency. The truth of the matter is that many of the people who complain about the Electoral College are more concerned about their own individual votes than about how their states can best be served. They are entitled to this opinion, of course, and they may fight in their own state legislatures to have the rules for their states changed. However, they might be better served to remember the important safeguards provided in a federalist system and then apply themselves towards thinking how their states can best represent themselves within this structure. These protections still serve the states today. November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: DIMINISHES SECTIONALISM

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MINIMIZES SECTIONALISM-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] Supporters of the Electoral College argue that the Electoral College's central importance to federalism outweighs any anti-democratic consequences. n103 In this view, eliminating the Electoral College would not only harm federalism, n104 but also exacerbate sectionalism. These supporters of the Electoral College maintain that the current system causes Presidential candidates "to hear and address the unique interests of the various states," rather than factions based on region, state, or ideology. n105 They distinguish states from interest groups organized around specific issues like gun control or racial preferences; comparatively, in this view, states are "safe" [*220] factions that can better check and balance one another, preventing tyranny. n106 It therefore follows that the Electoral College helps prevent "local needs from being ignored, controls dangerous factions, and requires a balancing of interests." n107 Some supporters of the Electoral College also argue that a direct popular vote, instead of making every vote equally valuable to all candidates, would refocus the candidates' attention on large states at the expense of small states. n108 According to its supporters, the Electoral College minimizes sectionalism, or reliance by candidates on an electorate limited to one geographic section of the country. Some of these supporters argue that the Electoral College forces candidates to broaden their appeal geographically and prevents candidates with solely regional or sectional bases from ascending to the presidency. n109
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: FORCES CANDIDATES TO CREATE REASONABLE, DIVERSE MAJORITY

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FORCES POLITICIANS TO CREATE A REASONABLE MAJORITY TO RULE, A CONCEPT BUILT INTO ALL ELEMENTS OF OUR GOVERNMENT-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] The framers of the Constitution knew that all previous democracies were short-lived and died violently; they became tyrannies, wherein the unrestrained majorities acted only in their own interests and ignored the rights of the minority. The framers' "new science of politics" sought to avoid this. The Constitution encourages the people to construct a certain kind of majority, a reasonable majority, a majority that tempers the passions and interests of the people. While all political authority comes from the peoplehence [James] Madison calls this a "popular" regimethe purpose of government according to the Declaration of Independence is to secure the natural rights of each citizen. The purpose of our intricate constitutional architectureseparation of powers, bicameralism, representation, staggered elections, federalism, the Electoral Collegeis to try to make as certain as possible, knowing that people are not angels, that this be accomplished. The Constitution attempts to combine consent with justice. This is what we mean when we say that the Constitution is a limiting document. It is self-evident that all these devices depart in one way or another, from simple numerical majoritarianism. For the Constitution, the formation of majorities is not simply a mathematical or quantitative problem. Why should California have only two U.S. senators, while Wyoming also has two? Why should the election of senators be staggered so that only a third are up for election in any one cycle? Why should there be an independent judiciary? Why should the president be elected by an Electoral College that is controlled by the states? The answers revolve around this massive fact: The Constitution encourages the people to construct a certain kind of majority, a reasonable majority, a majority that tempers the passions and interests of the people. The Constitution attempts to create a majorityone could even say many majoritiesthat is moderate, that is limited and one that will make violating the rights of the minority very difficult. In short, the Constitution is concerned with the character of majorities formed. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FORCES PRESIDENTS TO CREATE A DIVERSE MAJORITY-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] The current system teaches us that the character of a majority is more important than its size alone. Americans ought to care about whether the winner's support is spread across a broad geographic area and a wide spectrum of interests. That is what enables presidents to govern more effectivelyand what encourages them to govern more justly than they would if their majority were gathered from, say, an aggregation of heavy population centers. By ensuring that the winner's majority reflects the diversity of our uniquely federated republic, the current system also assures his opposition that it will not have to fear for its life, liberty, or property. Direct election can provide no such assurance and may, in fact, guarantee just the opposite.
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THE PRESENTATIONAL ELECTION SYSTEM FORCES CANDIDATES TO FORM REASONABLE MAJORITIES-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] The presidential election system helps to form reasonable majorities through the interaction of its three distinguishing attributes: the distribution and apportionment of electoral votes in accordance with the federal principle; the requirement that the winner garner a majority of electoral votes; and the custom (followed by 48 of 50 states) of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the popular-vote victor within that state. Working together, these features link the presidency to the federal system, discourage third parties, and induce moderation on the part of candidates and interest groups alike. No candidate can win without a broad national coalition, assembled state by state yet compelled to transcend narrow geographic, economic, and social interests.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: WIDENS THE MARGIN OF VICTORY OF CANDIDATES

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WIDENS THE MARGIN OF VICTORY GIVING THE WINNER A CERTAIN OUTCOME-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Historically, most elections have not been close in the Electoral College, even when the popular vote is close. The Electoral College system, when combined with the winner-take-all rule, tends to magnify the margin of victory, giving the victor a certain and demonstrable election outcome. The magnification of the electoral vote can work to solidify the country behind the new President by bestowing an aura of legitimacy. The election of 1960 was one such close election. John Kennedy won only 49.7 percent of the popular vote, compared to Nixon's 49.5 percent. However, Kennedy won 56.4 percent of the electoral vote, compared to Nixon's 40.8 percent. Eight years later, this magnification effect worked in favor of Nixon. Although he won the popular vote by less than one percent, he won 55.9 percent of the electoral vote to Hubert Humphrey's 35.5 percent. This magnification effect increases dramatically as popular vote totals spread apart. For instance, in 1952, the winning candidate won 55.1 percent of the popular vote, but a much larger 83.2 percent of the Electoral College vote. In 1956, the difference was 57.4 percent (popular vote) to 86.1 percent (electoral vote). In 1964, it was 61.1 percent (popular vote) to 90.3 percent (electoral vote). Presidential elections since 1804 have generally seen wide margins of victory in the Electoral College. These margins have gotten wider, on average, through the years as the winner-take-all rule has been adopted by more states and the two-party system has solidified. Since 1804, only two electionsthose in 1876 and 2000were won by fewer than 20 electoral votes. Six elections were won by fewer than 50 electoral votes: Four of these were held in the 1800s. Of the 26 elections held between 1900 and 2000, 17 Presidents have been elected after winning the electoral vote by a margin of 200 votes or more. These consistently wide margins of victory in the Electoral College have come about despite the fact that the margin between the top two candidates in the popular vote was less than 10 percent in 14 of the 26 elections held since 1900. This margin exceeded 20 percent only five times since 1900. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BESTOWS LEGITIMACY ON THE PRESIDENCY-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] The Electoral College also performs well, and perhaps better than the popular vote, in the second important goal of an electoral system: bestowing legitimacy on the president. It has been noted that the Electoral College tends to magnify the winner's margin of victory. Particularly among the general public as opposed to the political cognoscenti, this greater margin bestows a greater legitimacy. The sense of legitimacy is especially important for the president because in our system the president is not only the head of government, but the head of state, unifying the nation in times of crisis. Legitimacy is aided simply by the venerable nature of the system. A large majority understands the basic rules of the game and knows that these rules were not invented with any current election in mind. Given its longevity, even the divergence between the popular vote and the electoral votes does not detract much from the legitimacy of the president. For instance, after the election of 2000, President George W. Bush was seen as legitimate in all sectors of society with the possible exception of university professors. Transitioning to a new system, however, would raise questions about whether its details were structured to aid one or the other of the two great parties. Again, I do not wish to argue that this cost is huge or that in time it would not dissipate, but it is a significant cost not faced by our current system.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE ENHANCES AMERICA'S CONFIDENCE IN THE OUTCOME OF ELECTIONS-Lowenstein '07 [Danial, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] The Electoral College turns the many winners who fail to win a majority of the popular vote into majority winners. It also magnifies small majorities in the popular vote into large majorities. These effects of the Electoral College enhance Americans' confidence in the outcome of the election and thereby enhance the new president's ability to lead. Professor McGinnis addresses this point effectively, so I shall not elaborate further.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: = STABILITY AND MODERATION

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SAFEGUARD OF THE AMERICAN FORM OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] The Electoral College ensures that an elected president would be responsive not to a concentrated majority, but to the nation as a whole. This process is one of the most important safeguards of our democratic form of government. Leave the Electoral College and the Constitution alone. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE LEADS TO STABILITY AND MODERATION IN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] The founding fathers did not intend America to have direct majority rule. Instead, they tried to balance majority power with rationality. The Electoral College system, in which the winner takes all, forces the parties to be ideologically and geographically broad-based and inclusive. This institution therefore makes America's government stable and moderate. Those who are keen on abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a direct election of the president, are, whether they know it or not, proposing the most radical transformation in our political system that has ever been considered. I am opposed to such transformation for the same reason that I support the Constitution. ELECTORAL COLLEGE HAS LEAD TO MODERATION AND A STRONG TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Presidential candidates must build a national base among the states before they can be elected. They cannot target any one interest group or regional minority. Instead, they must achieve a consensus among enough groups, spread out over many states, to create a broad-based following among the voters. Any other course of action will prevent a candidate from gaining the strong base needed to win the election. The necessity of building such a national base has led to moderation and a strong two-party system in American politics. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAKES OUR POLITICAL PARTIES MORE MODERATE-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] The Electoral College ensures that an elected president would be responsive not to a concentrated majority, but to the nation as a whole. Each party is pulled to the center, producing umbrella-like coalitions before an election, rather than after, as happens in the more turbulent regimes of Europe, for example. As a result, we do not have runoffs, as most other democracies do. It forces both parties to practice politics inclusively. Nor do we have a radicalized public opinion as the Europeans do. What we have is a system that produces good, constitutional politics, and the kind of stability that no other "popular regime" has ever experienced.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ENSURES THAT EACH POLITICAL PARTY IS BROAD-BASED AND MODERATE-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] The Electoral College is the lynchpin in this constitutional structure. Although Alexander Hamilton admitted that it wasn't perfect, yet he called it "excellent." The framers of the Constitution debated at length how a president should be chosen before settling on the Electoral College. In large measure because of the Electoral College, each political party is broad-based and moderate. At the Constitutional Convention they twice defeated a plan to elect the president by direct vote, and also defeated a plan to have Congress elect the president. The latter would violate the separation of powers, while the former would, they argued, lead to what Hamilton called "the little arts of popularity," or what we call demagoguery. So they crafted the Electoral College. This has come to mean that every four years a temporary legislature in each state is elected by the people, whose sole purpose is to elect a president. It then dissolves, to reappear four years later. In other words we have a democratic election for president, but it is democratic within each state. Yet, within each state, the winner of the popular vote takes all the electoral votes of that state. Citizens in Colorado this month [November 2004] made the right decision to keep a winner-take-all system. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FORCES CANDIDATES TO CREATE A WIDE NATIONAL BASE LEADING TO MODERATION OF THE PARTIES-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 89] Currently, presidential candidates must build a national base among the states before they can be elected. They cannot target any one interest group or regional minority. Instead, they must achieve a consensus among enough groups, spread out over many states, to create a broad-based following among the voters. Any other course of action will prevent a candidate from gaining the strong base he needs to win the election. The necessity of building such a national base has led to moderation and a strong two-party system in American politics. Third parties are not usually able to achieve more than a minimal base of power, particularly because they tend to target narrower or special-interest groups. Third parties or special interest groups can wield influence only by working toward consensus with one of the major parties. On their own, they cannot usually win more than a fraction of the electoral voteif they even manage to win that much. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS MODERATION, COMPROMISE, AND COALITION BUILDING-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; pages 99-100] Given the general inability to obtain majority consensus, the Electoral College provides the country with the next best alternative. Electing Presidents by states votes, rather than individuals votes, creates a method of electing a President who is a good compromise candidate for the majority of Americans. The Electoral College requires moderation, compromise, and coalition-building from any candidate before he can be successful. Direct elections and a system of runoffs discourage such behavior.
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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DECREASES THE IMPACT OF FRAUD-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 110] The Electoral College system cannot be said to completely eliminate the incentive for fraud. Where people are vying for power, there will always be motivation to cheat. That is human nature. A successful electoral system can hope only to isolate the incidents of dishonesty and provide controls on situations that would otherwise get completely out of hand. The Electoral College system isolates fraud to the state in which it occurred. In most elections, the national election cannot be changed without a concerted plan of action, spanning several states. Recounts, when necessary to ferret out illegal votes, can be isolated in a state or two. The country is given a definite election outcome, even in the face of electoral challenges.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: CRITICS DONT UNDERSTAND CONSTITUTION/CONCEPT

OPPONENTS OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CONSTITUTION-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] Those who make the argument that a simple majority, one man, one vote, as it were, is the fairest system, make the mistake of confusing democracy, or the simple and direct rule of the majority, with good government. When they argue that democracy is subverted by the Electoral College they are mistaken. The opponents of the Electoral College confuse means with ends, ignore the logic of the Constitution, have not studied history and are oblivious to the ill effects its abolition would have.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: SUPPORTS TWO-PARTY DEMOCRACY

ELECTORAL COLLEGE SUPPORTS THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM-Schramm '04 [Peter W.; Professor of Political Science at Ashland University; Is the Electoral College Passe?: No; Ashbook Center; 2004; Gale Group Databases] This method not only bolsters federalism, but also encourages and supports a two-party system. In large measure because of the Electoral College, each political party is broad-based and moderate. Each party has to mount a national campaign, state by state, that considers the various different interests of this extended republic. Majorities are built that are both ideologically and geographically broad and moderate. While the two-party system does not eliminate partisanship, it does moderate it.
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: DECREASES VOTER FRAUD

ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM HELPS PREVENT LOCAL VOTER FRAUD-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] With (for the most part) only two parties in contention, the major candidates are forced to appeal to most of the same voters. This drives them both toward the center, moderates their campaign rhetoric, and helps the winner to govern more effectively once in office. Many factional interests, for their part, are under a reciprocal inducement to buy insurance with both sides, meaning the compromises necessary for successful rule will be made prior to and not after the election. Moreover, by making the states the principal electoral battlegrounds, the current system tends to insulate the nation against the effects of local voting fraud. All in all, the current system forces the ambitions of presidential candidates into the same constitutional mold that defines and tempers American political life as a whole. It thereby prevents the presidency from becoming a potentially dangerous tutelary force separate and apart from the rest of the Constitution's structure. These and other salutary consequences would disappear under direct election, whose deceptive simplicities mask its truly radical character.... We came perilously close to enacting direct election following the 1968 contest, when George Wallace's third-party candidacy shattered the New Deal coalition of big-city machines and the one-party South. Fearing the long-run effects of Republican competition in the New South, Democrats tried to change the rules to their advantage. They will do so again as soon as the opportunity seems propitious. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DECREASES THE CHANCE OF FRAUD OR ERROR-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 106] The Electoral College provides yet another benefit: It reduces the incidence of fraud and error. Obviously, no system can completely eliminate the element of human error. Neither can any system eradicate the tendency of some dishonest individuals to cheat. An election system can, however, minimize the extent to which these human errors or fraudulent behavior impact elections. The Electoral College minimizes the impact of fraud and error by isolating problems to one state or a handful of states.264
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ELECTORAL COLLEGE GOOD: MUST KEEP FAITHLESS ELECTORS

SHOULD KEEP THE FAITHLESS ELECTOR TO HAVE THE POWER TO DEAL WITH RARE BUT HAZARDOUS SITUATIONSLowenstein '07 [Danial, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] As recently as a year or so ago, I was saying that although I support the Electoral College, if I had the power I'd reform it to avoid the "faithless elector" problem, which both Professors Levinson and McGinnis address. I was wrong. If we solved the faithless elector problem by making the Electoral College an automatic process rather than one depending on humans, we would lose what might some day turn out to be the Electoral College's greatest benefit. (There may be other ways to solve the faithless elector problem without the implication I discuss here, but I'll let that pass for now.) I should have learned this lesson from the controversy in the 2002 New Jersey Senate election, when Senator Robert Torricelli withdrew his candidacy for reelection after having been nominated in the Democratic primary and after the apparent deadline under New Jersey law for the naming of a replacement candidate. (As most readers probably know, the New Jersey Supreme Court bent the New Jersey statutes and its own precedents into a pretzel for the good reason of [*24] allowing the Democrats to name former Senator Frank Lautenberg as a replacement candidate. Lautenberg was elected.) It took two comparable incidents in 2006 for the point to penetrate my skull. I refer to the Republicans' unsuccessful efforts to replace House nominees on the ballot who stepped down in Texas and Florida because of scandals. The point is that nominees may die, become disabled, or for other reasons become manifestly unsuitable for the office. Serious though the problems were in the three cases to which I have referred, they were trivial compared to the problems we would face if a presidential nominee--or, even more of a problem, a presidential winner after the election--died, became disabled, or became manifestly unsuitable for any of a variety of possible reasons. True, one might try to legislate on this problem directly (and probably we should, at least to cover the period after the electoral votes are cast). But it would be tough. There would be three problems: defining the circumstances in which the legislation would go into action; establishing a process for applying the definition to the actual circumstances; and deciding how a replacement should be chosen. These would all be hard problems to solve in legislation, where some neutral or at least objective standards would be needed. True, death would be easy enough to determine and disability would not be too difficult, but manifest unsuitability would be a tough enough nut, I think, to withstand any statutory nutcracker. What is needed for such problems is a political solution. And the Electoral College is ideal for the purpose. The decision would be made by people in each state selected for their loyalty to the presidential winner. Therefore, abuse of the system to pull off a coup d'etat would be pretty much out of the question. But in a situation in which the death, disability or manifest unsuitability plainly existed, the group would be amenable to a party decision, which seems to me the best solution. To be sure, it is not a particularly likely situation. But three major incidents in a space of four years make it clear that it is not out of the question. The Electoral College greatly shortens the period during which we would have no handy means of coping with the problem. Even that period could be eliminated if we allowed a very high percentage of the electors who voted for the winner--say, 90 percent--to petition to reconvene the Electoral College any time up to the inauguration. Giving up this and the other benefits I have identified in exchange for Professor Levinson's mathematical niceties strikes me as a very bad bargain.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ISNT PERFECT, BUT BEATS ALTERNATIVES
ALTHOUGH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ISN'T PERFECT, IT IS BETTER THAN THE LIKELY ALTERNATIVES-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] I must decline the first invitation of Professor Levinson's nicely executed attack on the Electoral College. I readily concede that it might well be possible to devise a somewhat better system for electing the president than the Electoral College. Our Constitution is surely not perfect in this as in other respects. But the salient question in politics is always one of alternatives and thus the issue before us is to compare the Electoral College not with the best law that could be enacted but with a range of possible laws that might be enacted. If one believes, as I do, that the Electoral College works pretty well and is risk averse about changing basic political institutions, one will be loath to innovate, given the vagaries of politics and unpredictability of the content of amendments and their interpretations. EVEN IF NOT PERFECT, THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS BETTER THAN ALL OF THE BETTER OPTIONS-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 158-159] The Electoral College is not perfect, nor is it realistic to expect perfection out of a presidential election process. A flawless presidential election system is surely impossible in an imperfect world. The Electoral College system, however, is unusually clever. It is certainly better than the other options, which often sound reasonable but work out poorly in practice.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: INCREASES THE COSTS OF ELECTIONS AND INCREASE CORPORATE INFLUENCE
DIRECT ELECTION WOULD CAUSE THE COST OF ELECTIONS TO SKYROCKET, PUTTING MORE INFLUENCE OF BIG DONORS AT PLAY-Chang '08 [Stanley; JD Candidate at Harvard Law School; RECENT DEVELOPMENT: UPDATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE LEGISLATION; Harvard Journal on Legislation; Winter 2007; 44 Harv. J. on Legis. 205] The skyrocketing cost of Presidential campaigns is already controversial, but a transition to a nationwide popular vote in which every vote counts may increase costs even more rapidly. For the 2004 election, the major candidates for President raised a total of approximately $ 919 million. n148 Both major party nominees also opted out of the federal matching fund program during the primaries, which would have set an overall spending cap and limits in individual states. In the future, more candidates are expected to follow this opt-out practice, which will probably contribute to further escalations in fundraising and spending. n149 The increased cost of a national Presidential campaign has gone largely unnoticed in the debate on a direct popular vote for President. n150 The practical difficulties of conducting a comprehensive nationwide campaign should be of substantial concern to NPV supporters. It seems quite likely that a fifty-state campaign would be much costlier than the present sixteen-state campaign. Instead of buying advertisements on local television stations, the candidates would probably need to buy time on the national networks, which although vastly more expensive than the local stations would still be the most cost-effective way to reach large numbers of voters. n151 The cost of candidates' direct mailings, automated calling, phone banking, public rallies, polling, radio advertising, canvassing, and other operations--all expensive already--would further increase, if expanded nationwide. The suddenly magnified need for fundraising and the accompanying increase in the stature of major contributors could exacerbate the perception that elites and large corporations hold disproportionate influence over the presidency. The influence of money on politics, already criticized, would almost certainly come under greater scrutiny as campaign expenditures ballooned. A serious study of the effects of nationwide direct election on campaign [*228] expenditures is essential in evaluating the ultimate desirability of the NPV legislation.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE RISKS CHAIN REACTION
DIRECT ELECTIONS WOULD BRING A LAUNDRY LIST OF EVILS TO OUR ELECTION PROCESS-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] As the late Rodney Dangerfield might say, the Electoral College just don't get no respect. Polls show that most Americans, given the opportunity, would cashier it tomorrow in favor of so-called direct election. That they'd live to regret their decision only reminds us of H. L. Mencken's definition of democracy: a form of government in which the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. What the people would get by choosing direct election is the disintegration of the state-based two-party system; the rise of numerous factional parties based on region, class, ideology, or cult of personality; radicalized public opinion, frequent runoff elections, widespread electoral fraud, and centralized control of the electoral process; and, ultimately, unstable national government that veers between incompetence and tyrannical caprice. And that's only a partial list. CHANGING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WOULD CREATE A CHAIN REACTION THROUGHOUT OUR POLITICAL SYSTEMUhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] Reformers tend to assume that the mode of the presidential election can be changed without affecting anything else. Not so. As Sen. John F. Kennedy argued in the 1950s, by changing the method of the presidential election, you change not only the presidency but the entire political solar system of which it is an integral part. The presidency is at once the apex of our constitutional structure and the grand prize of the party system. Our method of selecting a president is the linchpin that holds both together. Capturing the presidency is the principal raison d'tre of our political parties, whose structure, thanks to the electoral-vote system, mirrors the uniquely federal structure of the Constitution. This means that two-party competition is the norm; in a country of America's size and diversity, that is no small virtue. ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MIGHT CREATE NEGATIVE IMPACTS THAT CAN'T BE KNOWN UNTIL WE ACTUALLY TAKE THE ACTION-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] Professor Levinson's other complaints about the Electoral College also do not show that it fails in any essential function. He argues that that the Electoral College redounds to the advantage of small states. But the states actually most advantaged by the current system are large states. It is true that small states get an advantage due to the "senatorial bonus" (the two electoral votes awarded any state regardless of population). But so long as states vote under rules awarding the winner all the state's electoral votes, this advantage is overwhelmed by the greater likelihood that the large state will prove decisive. Mathematicians better than I have calculated, in fact, that the voter in California counts more than twice as much as the voter in Wyoming in a presidential election. Oddly enough, the Electoral College compensates in some measure for the gross disadvantages large state voters suffer from the malapportionment of the Senate. I know Professor Levinson objects to the structure of Senate as well (with greater reason than to the presidential election system), but until that structure is changed, he may want to reconsider at least this aspect of his opposition to the College. This point is a small example of a larger truth. Changing complex rules in a reticulated system may have secondary effects not apparent on the surface.
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ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MIGHT CREATE A YEAR 2000 FLORIDA PROBLEM IN THE WHOLE NATIONLowenstein '07 [Danial, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] As I mentioned above, the kind of Burkeanism I subscribe to is the kind that places a high premium on learning from experience. The experience of the last several years has made two additional benefits of the Electoral College evident. The first is the lesson from Florida 2000, that the Electoral College has the great merit of confining such election conflicts to one state (or a few, as in 1876). It is true that there is some weight on both sides of the scale on this question. A squeaky close race in a single state is more likely than a squeaky close vote in a national popular election, because of the smaller number of total votes. The greater likelihood of a contest at the state level no doubt holds, even when one adds that it needs to be a pivotal state in the Electoral College. Point for Professor Levinson. But the greater point is that both types of problem are very unlikely, though both are also possible. So the tiny absolute difference in the probability is outweighed by the far more catastrophic effects that would occur if we were confronted by a Florida-type conflict in which the whole country was up for grabs. Game for the Electoral College. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS AN IMPORTANT LAYER OF PROTECTION AND SHOULDN'T BE MESSED WITH-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 10] It is dangerous to keep or change constitutional provisions just to accommodate one person. Good arguments can often be made for one trustworthy or sympathetic individualbut the status of one individual in one situation is never the primary concern. After all, others may later come along who are untrustworthy or unsympathetic. The most important goal of the Constitution is to protect the freedom of Americans from these latter individuals or situations, even if it sometimes means placing restrictions on people who have elicited our compassion or confidence. Americans would not, for example, consider repealing their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,35 simply because the current Attorney General is an upright and moral man who has promised to use his newfound freedom solely to fight terrorists. Even if that Attorney General is truly honorable, what guarantee is there that his successor will not abuse the power? Nor would Americans give up their right to a trial by jury simply because the current batch of judges seems especially fair and impartial.36 These and other provisions in our Constitution exist to protect Americans freedom when undeserving people follow principled people into office. In many cases, the Constitution may even provide two or three layers of security against those individuals who would abuse the power of government once given the opportunity to do so. The Electoral College serves as one of these many layers of protection. Americans should not decide to alter it based upon the outcome of one election that may or may not have gone their wayeven if a popular vote winner faced with legal disputes in one state cuts an extraordinarily sympathetic figure. A more honest intellectual exercise is to consider carefully the benefits and protections offered by the presidential election process as a whole, over time, regardless of the caliber of candidates who seek the office of President. ALTHOUGH THE CHANCE IS REMOTE, ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAY MEAN FASCISM!-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 100] Granted, America is a long way away from such a multi-party, fractured political system. Psychologically, if nothing else, the electorate is used to thinking in terms of a two-party system. It could take a while before the system deteriorated. However, if the Electoral College facilitated the growth of the two-party system that has brought so much stability to American elections, would it not be natural to assume that eliminating the Electoral College would eventually lead to the end of the nations stable two-party system? Even if the danger of an American election featuring Fascists and Communists is somewhat remote, why remove one of the safeguards that have kept such a scenario exactly that remote?
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OTHER COUNTRIES PROVE THAT DIRECT ELECTION INCREASES EXTREMISM AND RADICALISM-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 100] Other electoral systems utilizing a direct popular vote have seen increased influence by extremist, radical groups due to the fractured nature of the popular vote. Professor Robert Hardaway of the University of Denver has noted the results of a December 14, 1993 Russian election in this context. In that election, the top three candidates were the liberal Democratic (or Fascist) Party (23 percent), the Peoples Choice Party (13 percent) and the Communist Party (11 percent). In other words, Russia was two percent away from having a runoff between Fascists and Communists, even with a democratic election and 66 percent of the population voting for other candidates.260 Historical evidence in other historical systems, Professor Hardaway notes, reveals similar results.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: WILL BRING THE FEARED TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
FOUNDING FATHERS DIDN'T WANT A DIRECT DEMOCRACY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED IT BROUGHT TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] The authors of the Constitution had studied the history of many failed democratic systems, and they strove to create a different form of government. Indeed, James Madison, delegate from Virginia, argued that unfettered majorities such as those found in pure democracies tend toward tyranny. Madison stated it this way: [In a pure democracy], [a] common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Alexander Hamilton agreed that "[t]he ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity." Other early Americans concurred. John Adams, who signed the Declaration of Independence and later became President, declared, "[D]emocracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Another signatory to the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, stated, "A simple democracy ... is one of the greatest of evils.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: WOULD DIMINISH CAMPAIGNING IN STATES AND LOCALITIES

DIRECT ELECTION WOULD DISCOURAGE REGIONAL CAMPAIGNING IN FAVOR OF NATIONAL CAMPAIGNING-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] As the system stands today, presidential candidates have no incentive to poll large margins in any one state. Winning 50.1 percent of the votes in a state is as effective as winning 100 percent of the votes. Presidential candidates therefore tour the nation, campaigning in all states and seeking to build a national coalition that will enable them to win a majority of states' electoral votes. Direct popular elections, by contrast, would present different incentives. Suddenly, winning 100 percent of the votes is better than winning 50.1 percent of the votes. In fact, it may be easier to rack up votes in a friendly state than to gain 50.1 percent of votes in each of two states of similar size, although the payoff would be essentially the same. The result? Democrats would almost certainly spend most of their time in the large population centers in California and New York. Republicans would campaign in the South and Midwest. Large cities would be focused on almost exclusively as the candidates seek to turn out as many votes as possible in "their" region of the country. Small states, rural areas, and sparsely populated regions would find themselves with little to no voice in presidential selection. In this scenario, a handful of states (or heavily populated cities) win, while the remaining states and less-populated areas suffer significantly. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN REDUCES STATES TO A HELPLESS IRRELEVANCY-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] The plan is a schizophrenic nightmare. It would bind states together into an amorphous mass of voters ostensibly for popular election of presidents. Meanwhile the system reduces the less-populous states to a helpless irrelevancy. While professing "every vote equal," the system for choosing presidential electors could result in a member state selecting electors pledged to a presidential candidate who had lost the election in that state. Also, Lord Acton's adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely is exemplified in the power of the member states' chief election officer, who makes a final unappealable determination of the "national popular vote winner."
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DIRECT NATIONAL ELECTIONS WOULD FOCUS CAMPAIGN RESOURCES COMPLETELY ON URBAN AND SUBURBAN POPULATION CENTERS-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] Soross other argument is that this year, for instance, the two major candidates devoted more than 98% of their television ad spending and campaign events to just 15 states which together make up about a third of the U.S. population. (Im not sure I trust that 98% figure, but let that go.) In any electoral environment, the candidates resources will go wherever the payoff is likely to be greatestand that means slighting the scenes of victories you can take for granted as much as those where your defeat is assured. So where would candidates resources be more efficiently expended in an electoral environment in which only the national popular vote mattered? Most likely, we would see campaigning in urban centers and vote-rich near suburbs. The northeast corridor (D.C. to Boston), the great cities of the West and Gulf coasts and the Great Lakes (from San Diego to Seattle, from Mobile to Houston, and from Buffalo to Milwaukee)many of them taken for granted in recent electionswould suddenly become relevant, and would remain permanently so as long as they retained their prominence as dense population centers. Some of the great river cities on the Missouri and Mississippi and Ohio might get some attention too. Advertising in and candidate travel to these rich seams of votes would be the order of the day. Oh, and has anyone noticed that most of them are biased heavily to the Democratic Party? Im sure that has nothing to do with the proposals popularity. Who would lose out? The states and localities in flyover countrythe rural areas, the small towns, the more culturally conservative parts of the country.
IN DIRECT ELECTIONS, SMALL STATES WOULD LOSE ATTENTION AND VOICE -Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] A second argument made by critics is similarly flawed. Although the winner-take-all system causes large states (especially large swing states) to elicit more attention than small states, these critics erroneously compare the amount of campaigning in small versus large states under the current system. They should instead compare the treatment of small states under the current system against the treatment they would receive under a new one. Today, small states undoubtedly receive less attention than large states (unless, of course, the large state is considered a safe state). However, a direct vote system would magnify, not improve, this problem because it would encourage a focus on highly populated areas. Small states would likely never receive as much attention as their larger neighbors. The goal is not to eliminate this disparity, but to minimize its severity. Under the Electoral College system, the states are as evenly represented as possible, given that they are not all the same size.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: CREATES BAD CAMPAIGN INCENTIVES

POPULAR VOTE PLANS WILL ALSO CREATE INCENTIVES TO FAVOR CAMPAIGNING TO SOME VOTERS AND NOT OTHERS-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] Professor Levinson also observes that the Electoral College makes candidates pay attention to swing states rather than the nation as whole. This tendency does seem to be a defect. But a system of popular vote will also cause candidates to pay more attention to some voters rather than others, most importantly the voters who cost the least per voter to turnout. Thus, candidates are likely to campaign more in cities than in rural areas and more in affluent areas than poor ones. This defect of the popular system may be even more substantial than the current focus on swing states, because the voters in swing states are likely to be more heterogeneous than voters chosen by low turnout cost. Both the popular vote and the electoral vote will not actually treat all voters equally in a practical sense, but no system can be devised that will have equal effects, given that voters are only equal as matter of law, but otherwise differently situated.
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DIRECT ELECTION BAD: DIMINISHES STABILITY

DIRECT ELECTION DIMINISHES CERTAINTY-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] A direct popular election, by contrast, would not grant certainty nearly as often. Close popular votes, such as those discussed above, could easily result in demands for recounts on a national scale. America rarely has close electoral votes. It does, however, have close popular votes fairly consistently. Do Americans really want a presidential election system that could result in hotly contested recounts nearly every election? A DIRECT VOTE TAKES THE PROBLEM OF FLORIDA IN 2000 AND STRETCHES IT ACROSS THE UNITED STATES-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] Also, as many people have pointed out (including me on previous occasions), the current arrangement has the advantage of confining recount contests within the bounds of particular states. Any election in which the wrong candidate wins the electoral-vote majority will very probably be a quite close election nationallyas was 2000. Controversies over counts and recounts will at least occur in just one or a few states (e.g., Florida eight years ago), rather than in thousands of precincts in all 50 states. This year it was some days before the state of Missouri was sure which candidate would receive its electoral votes. Take that problem national in a close election, and think about the nightmare of delays and the crisis of legitimacy that might result. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS AN INVITATION TO CORRUPTION-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] The National Popular Vote Plan becomes an invitation to corruption. Voter fraud, hard enough to prove and to remedy when done within the boundaries of any one state, becomes almost impossible to check under the plan. The National Popular Vote Plan forces one state to select electors on the basis of the popular election results for president in other states, where there is no opportunity for the first state to contest the electionbut where significant voter fraud could have occurred. DIRECT POPULAR VOTE WOULD INCREASE THE INCENTIVE FOR FRAUD-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 110] Moreover, a direct popular vote system would increase, rather than decrease, the incentive for fraud. After all, any stolen vote would have at least some affect, regardless of its location. Today, if fraud is suspected in one state, it may not trigger a recount if the vote in the state was not close. The Electoral College minimizes the impact of fraud, isolating it to the one or two states where the vote was close and disputed. Under a direct election, any stolen vote in any location could matter. When taken together with the increased possibility of close popular vote margins, the potential for national challenges and recounts would be greatly increased under a direct election system.
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POPULAR VOTE WOULD DECREASE THE INCENTIVE FOR VOTER FRAUD-Robb '08 [Brandon H.; MAKING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORK TODAY: THE AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE; Loyola Law Review; Summer 2008; 54 Loy. L. Rev. 419] Switching to a national popular election, if anything, would create a disincentive for voter fraud, given the extraordinary lengths a party would have to go to in order to succeed with it, and the greater likelihood that any such Herculean voterigging plot would be discovered and its perpetrators punished. In addition, a losing presidential candidate would be far less likely to contest an election if it involved having to "overturn" an election [*460] in which their opponent won by hundreds of thousands or millions of votes nationwide instead of by just several thousand votes in a few states, like in 1960, n258 or a few hundred votes in one state, like in 2000. n259
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT BAD

NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS CHEATING AND VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTION-Dotinga '06 [Randy; A backdoor plan to thwart the electoral college; The Christian Science Monitor; 16 June 2006; http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0616/p01s02-uspo.html; retrieved 2 October 2011] But in California, GOP Assemblyman Chuck DeVore derisively refers to the proposal as a way to "amend the Constitution without amending the Constitution." "It's like cheating," says Mr. DeVore, who predicts that the plan would force candidates to campaign primarily in urban areas with large populations to win the popular vote. Under the current system "we discourage regional candidacies and basically force people who are running for president to have a message that resonates with the vast middle of America," he says. THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT IS A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] Soros backs an idea first floated by the Brothers Amar (law professors Akhil and Vikram), which would undo the electoral college but not by amending the Constitution to eliminate it. Instead, state legislatures (responsible for legislating the manner in which presidential electors are chosen) would write statutes that would award their electoral votes to the party whose candidate won a nationwide popular-vote majority. So, for instance, if a Republican won nationally but lost badly in New York, and New Yorks state legislature had written such a law, the states electoral votes would go Republican even though more New Yorkers had voted Democratic. Since no state legislature wants to jump off this cliff unless everyone else jumps too, each state that passes such legislation would make its operation contingent on the enactment by enough of the rest of the states to make a total of 270 electoral votes, or a majority in the college. If that threshold were reached, the practice of the remaining states wouldnt matter, since the states in the so-called National Popular Vote Compact would control the outcome. (Of course the votes of citizens everywhere would continue to matter, since the decisive thing would be a national tally of the popular vote.) This idea is a solution in search of a problem. Soros identifies just two reasons to adopt this proposal. The first is that the current winner-take-all practice (in effect in 48 states) leads candidates to campaign only in competitive states, and to ignore states safely in either camp. The second reason is that once in a while the winner of the nationally aggregated popular vote is not the winner of the election, as happened in 2000. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTION-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] A last problem with the compact is that if it really is a compact among the states concerned, it appears to violate Article I, section 10 of the Constitution: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress . . . enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State . . . Do Soros et al. plan to push a bill in Congress that would permit the states to do this? One might say it is no true compact at all since it entails each state merely exercising its independent Article II power to say how its electors will be chosen. But the conditioning of each state laws operation on the choice of other states to do likewise may make this an unconstitutional compact.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS BIZARRE-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] Rankled by any institution which they perceive as less than pure democracy, these populists proposed a National Popular Vote Plan to change the way America chooses its chief executive. Each state's legislature is encouraged to enact legislation establishing a new, uniform method of selecting presidential electors. The program involves an agreement among participating states and goes into effect when adopted by enough states to constitute a majority (270) of the votes in the electoral college. The structure of the agreement is bizarre: Each member state conducts a popular election for president and vice president. The chief election officer of each state must determine the total popular vote for president/vice president in the entire nation even though some states may not have subscribed to the agreement. This is denominated the "national popular vote total." Presidential candidates will name their own state of electors. The state election officer will appoint the state of electors pledged to the candidate who is chosen as the "national popular vote winner" to be the official electors for the state. It is now common practice for states to elect their presidential electors on the popular ballot, with the names of these electors appearing beside the presidential candidate whom they are pledged to support. This will be changed by the new system, and presidential electors will no longer be chosen by popular vote, but by one person onlythe chief election officer in each member state. Note that the presidential candidate declared to be the "national popular vote winner" may thus win a state's electors even though he lost the popular vote in that state. In member states, the chief election officer's determination of the "national popular vote total" is final and no provision for recount (an impossibility since it could be a nationwide recount) is made. Neither is there provision for judicial or other relief in the event of voter fraud. Special provisions are made to break tie votes in the popular presidential vote. If any member state (acting only through its chief elections officer) selects too few or too many electors, the presidential candidate declared to be the "national popular vote winner" may appoint the presidential electors for that state. Note that the job of choosing the state's electors is thereby transferred to someone who is not a holder of public office nor even a citizen of the state in question. Any member state can withdraw from the agreement, except for a window of six months prior to the expiration of a presidential term. If the withdrawal occurs within that window, it is effective only after an intervening presidential election. The agreement terminates automatically if the electoral college is abolishedthe real goal of the plan and its supporters. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN VIOLATES THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] Does the Constitution permit a state to select its presidential electors by a means other than popular election? Yes. The electoral college's enabling provision uses the word "appoint" rather than "choose" or "elect." However, in Article 1, Section 10, the Constitution also declares: "No State shall, without the consent of Congress ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State." Congress would be likely to approve a National Popular Vote Plan if popular support gave the plan impetus: nevertheless, it is significant that the plan has no mention of any mechanism for securing, or even the need to get, congressional approval.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN WILL CREATE ENDLESS LITIGATION AROUND ELECTIONS-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] Constitutional infirmities linger. The Constitution empowers each state legislature to determine how its presidential electors are chosen. By adopting the National Popular Vote Plan, a state delegates this power to the entire nation based on who wins the national popular vote. Both federal and state laws recognize that some powers are delegable, while others are not. Is this a power capable of delegation under either the federal or the various state constitutions? Will state or federal judges be able to grant injunctions in case of violations of election laws? The plan is, after all, a mix of the laws of many states coupled with congressional approval. The plan itself makes no provision for such relief. In such a situation, it would be a legal stretch for a judge to grant an injunction without specific statutory authority. What happens if a state withdraws from the agreement during the six-month window and fails to wait for an intervening presidential election as required by the plan before it pursues its own election laws? No other state has jurisdiction to prevent it. The plan provides no remedy and neither does federal law. All of these issues are food for protracted, unnecessary, costly litigation. THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS FRAUGHT WITH EVIL INTENTIONS-Detweiler '06 [George; Former Assistant General in Idaho and Constitutional Law Specialist; Assault on the Electoral College: A Plan to Give the Presidency to the Candidate with the Most Nationwide Votes Would Make Less-populous States Irrelevant in Presidential Elections; The New American; 26 June 2006; page 33] Despite the litany of infirmities, the National Popular Vote Plan has been introduced in a number of states including California. To date, none has completed the process of enacting it into law. It is important to remember that it is easier to oppose and stop bad legislation than it is to repeal it after it has passed. The usual suspects of the left-wing press ran with the story of the National Popular Vote Plan after it was announced at the press conference. Predictably, it has the New York Times' endorsement. The Times urged state legislatures to enact it. Falling in line were the Chicago Sun-Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Denver Post, the Houston Chronicle, and others. The National Popular Vote Plan is, or should be, an embarrassment to its promoters. To borrow a buzz word form the national education debate, it lacks "intelligent design." It is fraught with evil intentions. It must never be implemented.
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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN VIOLATES THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT-Gringer '08 [David; WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE; Columbia Law Review; January 2008; 108 Colum. L. Rev. 182] Aware of the difficulties of a constitutional amendment, several scholars have suggested what has become the National Popular Vote Plan (NPV). n32 The NPV's sponsors have developed a strikingly simple method for evading the constitutional amendment process. Under the NPV, a state, either through its legislature or via initiative, would pledge its electoral college votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. If enough states agreed to participate (a number of states whose combined electoral vote total exceeds 270 votes would suffice), the electoral college would be effectively abolished in favor of direct election of the President. The plan seems to encounter no constitutional barrier because the Constitution allows states broad discretion to choose a method of selecting presidential electors. n33 The NPV does, however, risk violating either section 2 or 5 of the Voting Rights Act. n34 Since its inception in 1965, the Voting Rights Act has guarded against racially discriminatory voting practices. n35 Its two most significant [*188] provisions are sections 2 n36 and 5 n37 of the Act. n38 Section 2 prohibits all states and their subdivisions from denying minorities the opportunity to "participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." n39 Section 5 requires certain jurisdictions to submit all changes to voting procedures to either the Attorney General or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for preclearance. n40 Part I.B.1 discusses the standards courts have applied to determine what changes must be precleared and when preclearance should be denied under section 5 of the Act. Part I.B.2 presents current issues surrounding claims of minority vote dilution under section 2 of the Act. NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN PUTS THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE HANDS IN AS FEW AS 11 STATES-Gringer '08 [David; WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE; Columbia Law Review; January 2008; 108 Colum. L. Rev. 182] As states begin their 2007-2008 legislative sessions, the NPV appears to be gaining support across the country. n296 Initially viewed by many as an ingenious pipedream, n297 it is possible that enough states will have joined the NPV to make it a reality by the 2012 election. Although we have come close before, n298 it appears that this time the electoral college might finally be in jeopardy. Such a dramatic deviation from the intent of the Framers requires a legitimate political process - not simply legislation passed by as few as eleven state legislatures. n299 Moreover, if state legislatures adopt the NPV, presidential elections will be forced into the murky arena of Voting Rights Act jurisprudence, ensuring vast amounts of litigation.
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEANS THAT VOTES ARE DIMINISHED OR WASTED

VOTES FOR THE LOSING CANDIDATE IN STATES DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ARE NOT LOST OR WASTED VOTES-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Critics of the Electoral College allege that the country's presidential election process does more to trample the rights of individuals than to protect federalism. In this context, they often cite the "winner-take-all" method employed by most states, claiming that it causes the votes of some individuals to be "wasted." As this argument goes, a Texan who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election wasted his vote because George W. Bush was awarded the state's entire slate of electors under the winner-take-all method. Gore did not win so much as one electoral vote from Texas, despite winning nearly 2.5 million of that state's popular votes during the election. In a direct popular election, critics note, these votes would not have been "wasted"they could have instead been included in the final national tally for Gore. Such arguments, however, are a bit disingenuous. These votes were not wasted. They were simply cast on the losing side of a popular vote within the state. If the 2000 election had been conducted based on nationwide popular vote totals only, would people claim that any vote for George W. Bush was "wasted" because Al Gore won the popular vote? Of course not. The votes for Bush were cast in an effort to win. In the event of a loss, they would simply have been votes for the losing candidatejust as in any other election (such as an election for Governor or Senator).
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE FOCUSES ELECTIONS ON A HANDFUL OF IN PLAY STATES

CLAIMS THAT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PUTS FOCUS ON STATES IN PLAY AREN'T TRUE-Ross '04 [Tara; Author and Political Writer; The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy; Legal Memorandum from the Heritage Foundation; 1 November 2004; Gale Group Databases] Many critics dispute this description of the two types of elections. They contend that the current system does not encourage presidential candidates to tour the nation, but instead encourages a focus on mid-sized "swing" states. "Safe" states and small states, they allege, do not receive nearly as much attention on this national tour. There is an element of truth in this observation. Yet to the degree that safe states do not receive a proportionate amount of attention during campaigns, the logical conclusion is that those states, by and large, must already feel that one of the two presidential candidates represents their interests fairly well. When a candidate ceases to adequately understand and represent one of "his" state's interests, the discontent in that state is usually expressed pretty quickly. Consider the situation in West Virginia in recent decades. Democrats considered West Virginia a safe state for years; thus, the state probably saw less post-nomination campaign activity from 1960-2000 than it might have otherwise. However, in 2000, the Bush campaign recognized an opportunity to gain a foothold in the state due to concern about the impact of Gore's environmental policies on the coal-mining industry and his support for gun control. Bush took advantage of this discontent, and he spent more than $2 million communicating his message to West Virginia's voters. When election results were tallied, Bush became the first Republican since 1928 to win an open race for the presidency in West Virginia. In 2004, West Virginia is no longer considered a safe state for Democrats.
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS UNDEMOCRATIC

CLAIMS THAT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS UNDEMOCRATIC ARE SUPERFICIAL-Uhlmann '08 [Michael M.; Professor of Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate University; The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism; 2008; Gale Group Databases] Proponents of direct election indict those delicate balances for being "undemocratic." That is true only in the most superficial sense. If the Electoral College is undemocratic, so are federalism, the United States Senate, and the procedure for constitutional amendment. So is bicameralism and, for that matter, the separation of powers, which among other things authorizes an unelected judiciary. These constitutional devices were once widely understood to be the very heart and soul of the effort to form reasonable majorities. If all you care about is the achievement of mathematical equality in presidential elections, and if to achieve that goal you're willing to eliminate the states' role in presidential elections, what other "undemocratic" features of the Constitution are you also willing to destroy? And when you're done hacking your way through the Constitution, what guarantee can you give that your mathematically equal majorities can be restrained? How will you constrain the ambitions of presidents who claim to be the only authentic voice of the people? THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS PERFECTLY DEMOCRATIC-Franck '08 [Mathew; Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department at Radford University; Junk Arguments Against the Electoral College; The National Review; 15 December 2008; http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/50572/junk-arguments-against-electoral-college/matthew-j-franck; retrieved 2 October 2011] Take the second reason first. Soros does not even attempt to argue that an occasional burp, in which the winner of the electoral college majority is not the winner of a national popular vote plurality, is an injustice. Maybe he regards it as self-evidently undemocratic, but its not. The electoral college with the winner-take-all rule in (most of) the states is perfectly democratic. Its just federally democratic, rather than being nationally democratic. What is needed (and never provided by electoral college critics) is an argument why we should prefer the undifferentiated aggregate majority rule of the nations voters to the differentiated and segmented majority rule of the states voters. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS DEMOCRATIC-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] In my view, the Electoral College fulfills the three essential criteria that any election for a president must meet in a democracy. First, it measures what can be measured of the popular will sufficiently well to make sure that the president has a popular basis of support. Second, its results tend to give the president substantial political legitimacy. Finally, it enables democracy to fulfill its core but modest function--making it more likely that leaders will govern in the public interest rather than in their own interest or in the interest of narrow parochial factions.
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A/T: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DISTORTS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

TRYING TO GET THE REAL WILL OF THE PEOPLE IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE; MANY FACTORS GO INTO THE RESULTS OF ELECTIONS-McGinnis '07 [John, Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law; SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?; University of Pennsylvania Pennumbra; 2007; 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 10] First, all any presidential election system can assure is that the winner is supported by a substantial portion of the electorate. It is impossible in close elections to make sure that any political figure is supported by a stable majority of the electorate. Thus, Professor Levinson's main complaint--that the Electoral College and popular vote sometimes diverge--is not very powerful, because in those cases the margin of error is greater than any measure of stable popular support. If the election were held a few days later or even if the weather patterns were different, we might well get a different result regardless of the electoral method used. For instance, in addition to the examples of close elections provided by Professor Levinson, many observers think that Gerry Ford would have beaten Jimmy Carter in both the popular and electoral vote if the election had been held a week later. [*17] In a world of fickle voters where many make their decisions at the last moment based on evanescent matters, the errors in measuring real support are far greater than the divergences between the Electoral College and other reasonable election systems.
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A/T: ELECTORAL COLLEGE HELP OR HURTS ONE PARTY OR THE OTHER

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BALANCES OUT SUPPORT BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS-Weeden '08 [L. Darnell; Associate Dean of Texas Southern University; Article: Response to Professor Amar: Some Thoughts on the Electoral College's Past, Present, and Future; Ohio Northern University Law Review; 2008; 34 Ohio N.U.L. Rev. 393] A number of people have supported the Electoral College because they believe that it serves their political interest. Although the Electoral College achieved its historical goal of advantaging Southern slave owners in the [*397] antebellum period, it continues to adversely impact those historically underrepresented in the political process. n29 Amar believes that in the 2000 election, the Electoral College system again had a negative impact on women, blacks, and the poor, who would have supposedly voted in great numbers for Gore. n30 In the year 2000, many political pundits believed Gore had a majority of the electoral vote with a minority of the popular vote. n31 Conceptually, the Electoral College benefits small states by granting each state three electoral votes. n32 "This tends to help Republicans, who win among rural whites. However, the college also exaggerates the power of big states, via winner-take-all rules. This tends to help Democrats, who win among urban minorities."
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A/T: AMERICAN SUPPORT ELIMINATING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

WIDESPREAD IGNORANCE ABOUT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE EXPLAINS THE LACK OF SUPPORT FOR IT-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; pages 6-7] Many Americans do not understand the origins or logic behind the Electoral College, nor are they taught about the history of this constitutional device in many schools. One law professor, Professor Abner Mikva of the University of Chicago Law School, made a similar point prior to the 2000 election. In 1997, he complained that the Electoral College is secret because a majority of the American people dont even know it exists, let alone how it works.24 The lack of understanding discussed by Professor Mikva has led to a general lack of support for the Electoral College among the public. Instead, polls consistently show support for a switch to direct popular election of the President. For instance, in 1988, an ABC and Washington Post poll showed that 77 percent of the public was in favor of direct election, rather than the Electoral College system.25 Indeed, as early as 1944, 65 percent of the American public wanted to abolish the Electoral College. LACK OF UNDERSTANDING SHOULDN'T BE A JUSTIFICATION FOR ABOLISHING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE-Ross '04 [Tara; Attorney and Legal Writer; Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College; 2004; page 148] Americans accept the winner of the World Series, even when the winner does not score the most runs during the baseball season. They accept the winner because they understand and accept the validity of the rules. Similarly, voters will accept the legitimacy of the Electoral College winner, even when he loses the popular vote, if they understand the rules of the game. Education is the key to any legitimacy problem that may exist. The Electoral College has a history of more than 200 years of electoral stability and success. Lack of understanding alone, on the part of some of the populace, is an insufficient reason for abolishing the system. A better solution is to educate voters as to the importance and benefits of a federal election system.

Big Sky Debate NFL Public Forum Nov 2011 Electoral College

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Big Sky Debate NFL Public Forum Nov 2011 Electoral College

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Big Sky Debate

2011 November NFL Public Forum: Electoral College

Big Sky Debate Public Forum

Table of Contents META...................................................................................................................... 4

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

Big Sky Debate Public Forum

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM DESCRIBED

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE UNLIKELY TO CHANGE

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

Big Sky Debate Public Forum

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: DECREASES LIKELIHOOD FOR A RECOUNT

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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: INCREASES VOTER TURNOUT

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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DIRECT ELECTION GOOD: EMPOWERS THIRD PARTIES

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT DESCRIBED

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT GOOD

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE COMPACT IS DIRECT ELECTION

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: SYSTEM IS ANTIQUATED

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DOOMSDAY SCENARIO

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: MISREPRESENTS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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November 2011: Electoral College vs. Direct Election

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ELECTORAL COLLEGE BAD: DIMINISHES THE IMPACT OF SOME VOTES