Electoral College threat marches on

With Maryland and New Jersey already approving an interstate compact to bypass the Electoral College, Illinois is now on the verge of joining the pact to force presidential elections to a national popular vote.   The measure has already passed in the Illinois legislature – 102 to 8 in the house, 35 to 27 in the senate – and, at the time of this writing, is sitting on the governor’s desk awaiting his decision.

According to his legislative staff, the governor has given no indication of his plans for the measure. If he signs the bill, he would be adding 21 electors to the 25 already committed by Maryland and New Jersey – still some distance from the 270 needed to activate the compact. 

While I carry no brief for either side of the issue, the workings of the Electoral College are fascinating to any political scientist. In a previous article, we discussed the malapportionment of electoral votes, with California getting one elector for every 660,000 residents and North Dakota getting one for every 210,000 residents.

That is only one characteristic of the College that defies the 1-person, 1-vote principle applied to state legislatures and local governing boards. Perhaps a more significant criterion to consider is the number of votes cast per elector since the turnout varies in states regardless of the number of electors assigned.

Small states benefit most from the system since their two senators give added punch to a single member of the House of Representatives. Using votes cast for the two major candidates in the 2004 presidential election, we find that the eight 3-elector states cast 107,666 votes per elector. (North Dakotans cast 106,666 votes per elector.)

Moving up a notch to the five 4-elector states, the number of voters per elector rose significantly to 142,200 – an increase of 35 per cent.  In the states with 20 or more electors, an average of 250,859 votes was cast for each elector, or 150 per cent more voters than in the 3-elector states. Anyone who believes that equality of voters is more important than any of the offsetting benefits would say that that College ought to be eliminated.

When the issue was debated in the 1970s, conservatives advocated direct vote as a way of freeing conservative candidates from having to appeal to liberal minorities to win larger swing states. The argument had no impact on North Dakota’s senators. Republican Milton Young favored keeping the Electoral College and Democrat Quentin Burdick favored the direct election. So much for ideological arguments.

In present day elections, liberal minorities in large states no longer have significant influence in presidential races. Elections have changed since the 1970s when the 12 large states were considered the real battleground for presidential elections. California, New York and Texas have eliminated themselves by their lop-sided elections.

The important swing states are not the 12 largest states but now consist of a mixed bag, including Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They represent 155 electoral votes – less than one-third of the College.

Because of the evolution of one-party states, the ideological argument for going to a direct vote has been lost. The issue of equality of all voters can now be reconsidered with more objectivity.

­— Lloyd Omdahl

Omdahl is a former North Dakota lieutenant governor

and UND professor of political science.