Conference to take hard look at Electoral College

[C1ay]

MIT is well known for a "fix-it" approach to problems, be it in engineering, software or science. On Oct. 17, a group of experts will convene at MIT to examine what may be the most vexing issue in the American election process -- the Electoral College.

 

Some may argue for change; others may conclude that this is one "problem" that needs no fixing.

 

The day-long conference "To Keep or Not to Keep the Electoral College" will be chaired by Arnold I. Barnett, the George Eastman Professor of Management Science in the MIT Sloan School of Management. The chair of the conference's Steering Committee is Alexander S. Belenky, visiting scholar in the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals. A group of 11 experts will present their views, debate the issue and engage in extended dialogue with the audience.

 

"Since its creation in 1787, the Electoral College has remained the most mysterious mechanism for electing a president of a country," Belenky wrote on the conference's web site. "There is no consensus among mathematicians, systems scientists and political scientists studying the Electoral College on whether it can satisfactorily serve the United States in the 21st century, especially after two close elections in 2000 and in 2004."

 

Indeed, the 2008 presidential election may raise the issue anew, particularly if one candidate wins the popular vote while the other gains more electoral votes (as occurred in 2000). And there is a real possibility, Barnett said, that candidates Barack Obama and John McCain could tie with 269 electoral votes apiece, throwing the presidential election into the House of Representatives, where each state delegation has one vote.

 

"As we get closer to the election, as people start working the numbers, then there might really be much more hunger to think, 'What's going on? What's this mechanism? Can we do something differently?'" Barnett said.

 

While many voters -- and even many in the media -- lack an understanding of exactly how the Electoral College actually works, efforts to change it can set up fierce opposition, Barnett said. Many argue that the Electoral College should be replaced by nationwide majority rule. But smaller states argue they would lose influence if presidents were chosen by popular vote.

 

"The small states don't want the end of the Electoral College because they fear oblivion," Barnett said. "However, the present arrangements also make most of the large states irrelevant. California is viewed as a done deal, for example. The Democrats are going to carry it so neither candidate is spending much time there."

 

In a series of panel discussions, the MIT conference, which is organized by Sloan and the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, will try to examine the Electoral College objectively, in conversation stripped of political ideology, Barnett said. Several participants will defend the existing system, while several others will call for moving to a national popular vote that, some will argue, could be achieved without a constitutional amendment.

 

Still, "I think there will be very vigorous discussion," Barnett said. "These are people who have thought about the issues a lot. They have reasons they believe one thing and not the other." Barnett himself has co-authored a paper outlining a proposed change in the Electoral College, which would use weighted averages of each candidate's election showing.

 

Ample time will be set for audience participation and give-and-take. Barnett said the conference would be in keeping with the MIT spirit of "Let's fix it -- if it's broken."

 

"It may be good to have MIT people in the audience looking at the issue, because they may be able to shape the compromises" in future debates, Barnett said. He noted that three of the MIT participants in the conference -- himself, Belenky and Alexander Natapoff, research scientist in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics -- will each propose a new set of election rules that might largely meet the concerns of both the "preservationists" and the advocates of a "one person/one vote" election rule.

 

Source: MIT

[HydrogenBond]

One thing about the electoral college is it gives more power to the states. The majority view of a state is represented apart from a centralized view. With popular vote, a national centralized organization, gets to define the direction of the majority in any state. With the electoral college it doesn't matter what any other states does, the voice of the state is heard since the electoral votes of your state are important to the outcome. With popular vote, stacked states count more than balanced states. What that means is stacked states, with lopsided views, will get special treatment from each party with these getting more resources from centralized organizations. It would be the smartest way to go.

 

The Senate was originally designed with states in mind, with Senators chosen by the state assembly, to reflect the best interests of the state and not a particular national party. This was changed to popular vote to reflect national party affiliation. Now you can bring in popular appeal and money from state X to help party affiliation in state Y. The goal is not necessarily what is best for a state but what is best for a centralized organization. This allows other states to indirectly pump money and influence election results in another state.

 

Say we do it the other way, hypothetically. Make a law that only allows the resources within a state to be used for all their election activities, so there is no external centralized party. Since the results are more localized to a state, the central body of power is weaker. Without the ability to pump in resources from a centralized body, the elected officials are not as beholden to the central organization. The input into government reflects more diversity of opinions from which to choice national direction.

 

If you look in terms of extrapolation, the above scenario is closer to the individual than the nationalized scenario. It is easier to get a large herd to move than if the herd is broken into many distinct groups, and even more so, if the herd is broken into individuals. With one or two herds you only need one or two shepherds to get their attention and once a few began to move the rest blindly follow. If the sheep are scattered you need more shepherds allowing more personal attention to the needs of each state and individual.

 

It would be easy to favor only the stacked states and blow off the balanced states. Ironically, the balanced states, by necessity, may have developed the best compromises due to the balance. The other way favors partisan politics. But that is the nature of centralized power.

[C1ay]

The only problem I see with the Electoral College is in how the States have chosen to implement it by doing so in a fashion which utilizess it in a way other than it was intended. Hamilton describes it best in The Federalist No. 68 - The Mode of Electing the President in writing:

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

 

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

 

It was never intended that the people would directly choose the President through the Electoral College or some aberration that caused it to function as a popular vote would. It was intended that the people of each state would elect a body of electors, informed individuals which could make the necessary analysis of the qualities of the candidates, to investigate those qualities and qualifications and to deliberate on them before casting their votes for the best individual for the job, not the most popular one. This is why each State is directed to choose it's electors on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November and those electors are subsequently directed to cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. It was never intended that the electors would simply follow the whims of the people.

 

There are many problems with using a popularity contest in choosing a leader and the Electoral College was a carefully assembled mechanism designed to avoid them. Unfortunately the State's legislatures have found a way to turn it into a simple popularity contest anyhow and we the people are paying the price with one poorly qualified President after another. For me it is very disheartening that our system has produced such an utterly poor selection this election cycle and large portions of the population don't see it as such.

 

One should not complain about how poorly a wrench does the job of hammering in a screw. He should first try using the wrench as it was designed to be used.