Let's hear it for the electoral college!

[dreamshark]

Electoral college bashing is a very popular sport these days. Admittedly, there are drawbacks to that system, but every now and then we see a scenario where the old EC makes the outcome of an election fairer. This is one of them.

For several hours during the recent election it looked like Obama might lose the popular vote while still winning the election. This was almost certainly because voting participation had been depressed by a mammoth storm hitting the heavily Democratic northeast one week before the election. As it turned out, the Democratic candidate managed to win the popular vote despite this setback. Due to the heroic efforts of both voters and poll managers in the affected areas, voter participation was depressed by only 10-15%, and his nationwide margin of victory was large enough to withstand that.

But if the storm had hit just a few days later, what would have happened?  They're saying that 50-60 million people were affected by the storm - that's 15-20% of the US population!  Because of the electoral college, the effect of a regional disaster on the election outcome is minimized. Even if only half the population of New England and New York had been able to make it to the polls, the outcome on a state by state basis would likely have been the same and the Democrat would have won. That seems a lot fairer to me than the alternative.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, and one I have not previously seen elsewhere.

[quadong.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting point that I hadn't heard before. In other words, the electoral college insures that each region is represented as promised. And this holds whether the size of the region is a state or a congressional district.

In fact, it still holds if the size of the "region" is one person. With one person regions, you must have mandatory voting, which some places do. I wonder how Australia handles voting when there is a regional disaster. How hard do they try to get everyone's vote?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"And this holds whether the size of the region is a state or a congressional district. In fact, it still holds if the size of the "region" is one person."

I don't think that's quite true. If all the states split their electoral delegation, I think the EC would provide a pretty good model for even-handed regional representation. But only a few states actually do that (Maine is the only one that comes to mind). Maybe more of them should.

That might make a good state-by-state cause for people who hate the Electoral College but don't want to open up a constitutional amendment fight.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

While that's a reasonable analysis, I have a slightly differing take on why Romney got as many votes as he did: The Citizen United billionaires who contributed to Super PACS left the PACS awash with money. In the contested states, there were literally no more commercial slots to buy. So they used that money to buy ads in very red states... driving up the vote count.

Obama and the Democratic party did very little advertising or campaigning in safe states, Downballot races got attention, but the presidential race was largely left alone.

The billionaires who contributed to Romney's campaign are mightily pissed. Everyone who contributed small amounts to Obama's campaign is very happy.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Do people still watch commercial TV?

K. [apparently so]