The National Popular Vote Idea comes to South Dakota

The National Popular Vote bill is a curious piece of reform legislation circulating among the states. Here is a brief summary

Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

I can't think of any cases (excepting Constitutional Amendments) where a very important reform passed by a state legislature would take effect only if enough other states acted in the same way. It strikes me that this makes it easier to pass the legislation now without knowing when or if it will accomplish anything. It has been introduced in the SD Senate.

My esteemed blogosphere colleague Cory Heidelberger has a good piece on the reform, and seems to be warming to it. I think Cory is surely right that the legislation isn't unconstitutional. It is surely intended to neuter the Electoral College and ensure the same result in Presidential elections as if we amended the Constitution to elect the President by raw popular vote. However, it does not violate any rules or procedures specified in the Constitution.

I like the Electoral College. In effect, it provides for states to choose the President. That benefits smaller states and especially less populous regions like the one that Cory and I inhabit.

It does involve two significant problems. One is that it can allow a candidate to win the Presidency even if his or her opponent won a larger share of the popular vote. That has happened only very rarely, but it did happen in 2000. I don't think that there is anything wrong with this in principle. It is undemocratic, but so are the U.S. Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights for that matter. However, it clearly makes a lot of us feel uncomfortable, and that is nothing to be ignored.

The more serious problem is that a close Presidential election can be decided by a very small number of votes in an electoral vote rich state like Florida or Ohio. That brought about a constitutional crisis in Florida in 2000 and it very nearly happened again in Ohio in 2004. If there is a sufficient reason for the National Popular Vote reform, that would be it. The national popular vote is far less likely to be close enough to occasion a crisis or invite cheating.

I believe, however, that the reform is too clever for any problems that it might solve. First, it involves a terrible inconvenience, one that Cory points out.

In 2000, SB 138 would have bound Secretary of State Joyce Hazeltine to designate three Democrats as South Dakota's Electors, based on the fact that Al Gore won the most popular votes nationwide, even though George W. Bush beat Al Gore 60–38 in South Dakota.

For better or worse, the Constitution gives South Dakota three electoral votes. This reform would mean that the people of our state would no longer have any control over those votes. No matter who we voted for, our electoral votes would be controlled by national outcomes. That may be more democratic nationally, but it is deeply offensive to democracy within this state.

Suppose a string of popular vote victories by candidates who are despised by the majority in South Dakota. Would the state's voters put up with this? Might they not conclude, quite reasonably, that there was little point in voting at all?

The NPV reform might be reasonable were there not a much simpler solution, one that does not require any multi-state compact and preserves the control of South Dakota over its own electoral votes. There is.

We need only replace the Unit Rule with a proportional rule. Under the Unit Rule, also called "winner take all", the ticket that wins a plurality in the state gets all the state's electoral votes. When Bush won 60% of the vote in South Dakota in 2000, he got 100% of our three electors. The NPV preserves that rule.

We could do something like this. With three electoral votes in play, any ticket that receives at least a third of the popular vote gets one electoral vote. In 2000, that would give one to Bush and one to Gore. The third vote would be awarded to the candidate who won at least a plurality (more than the other tickets) or the majority. That's a second vote to Bush. The outcome would reflect the popular vote in the state instead of ignoring it altogether as the NPV does.

In any state that adopted such a reform, the threshold for winning an electoral vote would depend on the number of votes the state enjoys. Such a system would remedy both the problems mentioned above if enough states adopted it. The Electoral College vote would rather neatly mirror the national popular vote. It would be very unlikely that a candidate would win the one without winning the other. If a controversy should arise over a few thousand or a few hundred votes in a state like Florida, only one electoral vote would be at stake instead of twenty five electoral votes.

It is a sign of dysfunction in our political culture that the National Popular Vote reform has gotten so much traction when a much simpler solution is available.

Comments

[caheidelberger]

Excellent analysis and alternative proposal, Dr. Blanchard! I feel no passionate warmth for this proposal, and I will happily take any reasonable excuse for sticking with the status quo or adopting a simpler, fairer counterplan. The states' rights problem (along with "kohler"'s persistent and widespread spam on the issue) make me suspicious. Your Unit Rule doesn't require a messy interstate compact.

Besides, a game is more fun when it has some tricky rules. Reverting to a straight popular vote and subverting all the twists and turns of the Electoral College (not to mention the possibility of the House and Senate electing when the Electoral College is split by Ralph Nader) makes the game much more interesting. NPV turns Risk into tic-tac-toe.

[con4npv]

"NPV turns Risk into tic-tac-toe."

I will argue the opposite (and, in doing so, carry your analogy to an absurd degree). By my lights, the present system is quite like tic-tac-toe, insofar as everyone candidate knows the right moves. No matter how good you are at the game, whoever gets the center square (i.e. the largest battleground state) wins.

Ken makes a valid point regarding the perception of the NPV legislation. Will South Dakotans FEEL disenfranchised if their votes count toward the candidate that did not win the majority in-state?

Possibly. But under the present system, South Dakota voters ARE disenfranchised, whether they feel it or not. South Dakota may have a disproportionate share of electoral votes, but its status as a "safe state" means that it has no voice in the election. The fact that South Dakotans tend to devote a large majority of votes to one candidate only exemplifies the problem.

Ken's counter-proposal is interesting, though it strikes me that it plays into the objections of both sides of the argument. South Dakota is still ignored, insofar as its results are essentially safe, but still allows for (almost guarantees, in fact) South Dakota voters to lose electors to a candidate they did not support.

[duggersd]

I like Prof Blanchard's proposal for small states such as SD. I also like the model used by NE. I believe NE works like this. The winner of the popular vote receives the two EC votes based upon the Senate. Then each Congressional district has their EC vote go according to how that district voted. In this format, even though Candidate A wins the state, but not one of the Congressional districts, those in that district will not feel so disenfranchised. Imagine how some people in Omaha must feel seeing their EC vote based upon their Congressional district go to the Republican because the Republican won the state. I believe they got it right.

[Ken Blanchard]

Thanks, Cory. I wish to emphasize that I like the Electoral College just fine the way it is. A majority of electoral votes looks as legitimate to me than a popular vote plurality such as Bill Clinton won twice--when more Americans voted against Clinton than voted for him. I just argue that there is a simpler way to solve the problems that the NPV addresses.

[Ken Blanchard]

con4npv: I don't really follow your reasoning. When a person or a state votes the same way on a regular basis, this hardly means that they are "disenfranchised". One is disenfranchised only if he doesn't get to cast his votes as he chooses. The NPV would guarantee that outcome. The unit rule allows SD's voters to decide how to cast all three of their votes the same way that they pick a Governor or a Senator. Contrary to what you say, SD is hardly ignored and for good reason. With our three electors, George W. wouldn't have won in 2000. We usually see the candidates swing by here several times.

If SD's electoral vote automatically went to the national pop. vote winner, there would be no reason to visit SD.

[Ken Blanchard]

Dugger: Nebraska's system is very similar to the one I suggest. I still prefer the unit rule, but if you really want to fix the problems that motivate the NPV then my system would work well in any state that saw fit to adopt it.

[unicorn4711]

I favor this legislation because it would likely increase voter turnout and participitory democracy in South Dakota. In most years, we know the 3 electoral votes will go to one candidate, the Republican. This means that many South Dakotans do not feel motivated to cast their vote, regardless of how they vote. When each vote will have an affect (though very small) on the total popular vote, I think we'll all be a little more likely to show up and make sure our voices are heard.

[Cicak]

By the way, there is a .Thanks, L-girl, for sending reedars my way.The goal of Fruits & Votes is to make political-science theory (well, and also fruit-growing techniques!) accessble to non-specialists. Of course, sometimes it is necessary to get into technical detail, but I try not to compromise the accessibility too much. And I always welcome comments and questions, in the spirit of propagating ideas and mutual learning!(Oh, and L-girl asks about the Dodgers-Padres. There is a post over at F&V on that. Baseball is off topic for F&V, but who cares: Baseball transcends just about everything!!)

[Betty]

I'm just catching on msylef. MSS's work is very detailed, and often too complex for me. I don't think it's necessary to understand it on that level - I'm sure most Canadians don't - but I still find it very interesting. I didn't really understand how the Parlimentary system worked until, shortly after we moved here, the Paul Martin government fell and an election was called, and then held. It was SO interesting for us! It was only then, seeing it in motion, that I "got it" .