AHC: Have the US adopt PR for electoral college
- Thread starter Aaaaasima
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I assume you mean Proportional Representation.
Within each state is comparatively easy, but nationwide you have to do away with the federation, I think.
Which one do you mean?
Within each state is comparatively easy, but nationwide you have to do away with the federation, I think.
Which one do you mean?
Let's say 55.67% of Texas votes for Bob. Texas has 38 electoral votes, so .5567*38=~21, so Bob gets 21 electoral votes from Texas.
The former then.
Well, it's still messy. Perhaps a constitutional amendment mandating such an arrangement as prerequisite to remain in the union? However it's going to clash with the FPTP for the congress...
I think the only way is by political expediency, say making sure that a particularly disliked candidate has fewer chances with PR, but I don't know enough about US history to tell who and when, sorry.
This is almost the same thing as simply switching to popular vote. (Not quite, because the "Senate component" of the Electoral College--i.e., the two electoral votes each state gets regardless of population--would give a slightly disproportionate advantage for the smaller states, but only very rarely would that make a difference.)
It might make sense before the ACW when the southern states would object to going to "pure" popular vote because it would deprive them of the advantage of being able to count three-fifths of their slave population in the presidential elections. But after the ACW it seems rather pointless to do this when you could instead simply switch to popular vote. (Either change would require a constitutional amendment, at least if it were to be applied to all states.)
It might make sense before the ACW when the southern states would object to going to "pure" popular vote because it would deprive them of the advantage of being able to count three-fifths of their slave population in the presidential elections. But after the ACW it seems rather pointless to do this when you could instead simply switch to popular vote. (Either change would require a constitutional amendment, at least if it were to be applied to all states.)
The easiest way to do this is to have Congress announce that it will reject any EVs that are not distributed proportionally, which will force the states to adopt PR as their system of distributing EVs, or have their votes not count. People often forget that it's Congress' prerogative to reject EVs, if it wants to. Of course, doing it this way wouldn't change the Constitution, which is necessary to make the EC a plurality system instead of a majoritarian one.
The question, then, is how to create a majority in Congress that wants proportionality in elections, but doesn't want to abolish the EC. Maybe have the progressives push for a proportional system, get shut out by the two main parties, and then run a successful third party Congressional campaign?
The question, then, is how to create a majority in Congress that wants proportionality in elections, but doesn't want to abolish the EC. Maybe have the progressives push for a proportional system, get shut out by the two main parties, and then run a successful third party Congressional campaign?
Such a broad interpretation of the Counting Clause would very likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. It is one thing to say that Congress has the right to count the votes, another to say that it has a right to dictate how electors shall actually vote.
Note that in the debate in Congress on whether to count the vote of a North Carolina Republican elector who had voted for Wallace in 1968, the majority of both Houses decided to count his vote--and one of the arguments used by the majority was that Congress simply had no constitutional power to disallow an electoral vote. See pp. 1693-4 of http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4003&context=nclr
Simply looking at the language of the Constitution, the counting function seems arithmetical and ministerial, not a license for Congress to decide how electors should vote. One might rebut this by citing the failure of Congress to accept the electoral votes cast for Horace Greeley after his death--but there it could simply be argued that Greeley was no longer a "person" within the meaning of the Constitution. What you are suggesting is an infinitely greater power, even a greater power than the power to reject faithless electors (a power that Congress has rejected). If Congress can do that, why can't it go further and say it will not accept any electoral vote not cast for the Democratic (or Republican) party?
Mine is, of course, an interpretation. Congress already showed how much power it has in the 1876 election, when it decided to give the contested electors to Hayes. Admittedly, Congress's power to discard EVs has only been used when the count has been contested, but I was suggesting that Congress could simply extend that power to force the states to adopt a system used to choose electors, not necessarily to force electors to vote a certain way.
Admittedly, I'm treating the counting of electoral votes a bit like the Qualifications and Returns Clause: While the states have significant control over the process, Congress has the final say over whether the states' votes/electors count or not. I was suggesting that one of the easier paths towards a proportional EC (avoiding the amendment process) would be to have Congress force states into adopting a PR system by threatening to discard electors who were chosen by a different method.
If anything, the Qualifications and Returns Clause can be seen as an argument against a broad interpretation of the Counting Clause:
"When the Constitution contemplates a judging role for each House of Congress in elections, it says so. The House Judging Clause provides that "[e]ach House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members. The House Judging Clause is the font of awesome powers and duties. Under this clause, each House is a judicial tribunal with the judicial power to investigate the elections of its Members, and has the duty to refuse to seat members who are constitutionally ineligible to the office of Representative or Senator. Importantly, no such clause appears in Article II concerning presidential election. The negative implication is made more stark by the fact that the House Judging Clause was considered immediately after the drafting of the Electoral College Clauses at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, but no Framer thought to extend the principle of the House Judging Clause to presidential election..." http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4003&context=nclr (p. 1752)
Quite simply, the Constitution gives the state legislatures power to determine how electors are selected. I would be very surprised if the Supreme Court would hold that Congress can in effect nullify this power through using its counting power to dictate each state's electoral system.
Perhaps, but I'm skeptical. In the end, the power to count (and discard) EVs is Congress's prerogative. I do agree, however, that it would be seen as profoundly undemocratic if Congress discarded the votes of the winner and then elected the EV loser in the House. I was just pointing out a possible solution to the issue that hasn't been discussed very often.