The silent battle over presidential election procedures wages on, and Massachusetts has officially fallen. Last week Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation entering the state into National Popular Vote’s interstate compact, bringing NPV’s total electoral votes to 72 (of the needed 270).

Yet Save Our States is seeing to it that the “silent” aspect of this battle ends and discussions happen out in the open. These are your presidential votes, after all.

Today the Christian Science Monitor published an article by Save Our States Director Trent England: Bypass the Electoral College? Careful what you wish for. In it Trent explains how the Electoral College works, how by decentralizing presidential elections it nationalizes our politics, and how the simple majoritarianism of NPV would endanger American freedom. “Majoritarianism – the idea that nothing should stand in the way of the power of a majority – flies in the face of the Bill of Rights. After all, every check and balance and especially every protection of rights operates to restrain the power of a momentary majority.”

Reading the comments section on any number of articles shows that Americans don’t like having their electoral votes reallocated without being consulted (Who knew?). Time to read up and speak up.

Tara Ross also published two fantastic articles recently, looking at the history of the Electoral College, the Founders’ motives when crafting it, and how NPV puts a few states in control of how the entire nation elects its president. National Review Online: Massachusetts, the Electoral College, and the Lessons of History; The Center for Competitive Politics: Rules for Radical Election Change)

(Cross-posted at www.LibertyLive.org)

Late last week, the Massachusetts state senate voted to approve the National Popular Vote bill.  The house had already approved the measure in June.  These votes mean that Massachusetts is almost certain to become the sixth state to approve NPV. But, as they say, it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings. There is still a chance (however small) that NPV will die in Massachusetts this year.

Massachusetts’s legislative procedure requires that NPV be approved one more time in each chamber. The initial votes are to “engross” the bill.  The second round of voting is to “enact” it. This Texan has taken a crash course in Massachusetts’s legislative procedure this month. From what I gather, the second round of voting is a bit of a formality that is almost certain to happen. On the other hand, NPV failed at this juncture in 2008. Although both chambers had engrossed the bill, they did not complete enactment before the legislative session ended on July 31.

As Massachusetts contemplated NPV’s scheme in 2008, I argued that the state should heed the advice of one of its heroes, John F. Kennedy. I offer the same advice to the state’s legislature today. Kennedy was a defender of the Electoral College and understood the benefits that it delivers to Americans. Speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate, Kennedy stated:

“[I]t is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider all the others.”

Kennedy understood a basic principle that seems to have escaped most Massachusetts legislators: Ripping the Electoral College out of our political system will have a domino effect. Some of the ramifications of such an action may be far more severe than we anticipate.  I have argued elsewhere that such an action would severely undermine our two-party system, fracture the American electorate, and magnify the impact of fraud in our presidential elections. Worse, this particular manner of eliminating the Electoral College has its own special logistical dangers and legal problems.

Massachusetts’s senators should be paying more attention to President Kennedy and less attention to the appealing—but unrealistic—sound bites offered by NPV supporters. It is a hard battle at this point, but voters in Massachusetts still have time to call their senators and representatives. Tell them that successful constitutional institutions should not be so quickly and so casually eliminated. Many unforeseen consequences are certain to follow from such a decision.

According to National Popular Vote, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing. Voters outside of “swing states,” NPV’s materials claim, are “spectators to the presidential election” and are “effectively disenfranchised.”

A closer look reveals that NPV’s claims come from a superficial understanding of political campaigns that does not survive under the scrutiny of common sense. The suggestion that certain votes or voters matter more than others is not unique to the Electoral College. In fact, not all voters are equal even in single-member districts.

A look at some of the actual data is appropriate. Listed below are the states where the margin between the top two candidates was less than five percent in the last dozen presidential elections. The color of the state name indicates the winner of that state (red for Republicans, blue for Democrats); bold indicates the state was not within 5% in the previous election. (I am using close election results to define “swing states.” There are other plausible definitions.)

2008: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio

2004: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

2000: Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin

1996: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia

1992: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin

1988: California, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

1984: Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island

1980: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin

1976: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

1972: none (the closes state was Minnesota, which Nixon won by 5.51%)

1968: Alaska, California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin

1964: Arizona, Florida, Idaho

First, these groups of the closest states in presidential elections are far from static. Of the above elections, only 1996 is a subset of states from the preceding election. With Bill Clinton running for reelection, Ross Perot running again, and Bob Dole representing no significant departure from George H.W. Bush, 1996 turned out to be something like a repeat of 1992. The “swing states” group changes over time–sometimes slowly and other times dramatically–and typically becomes clear only in the closing months or even weeks of a campaign. Moreover, it changes as political parties work to expand their appeal and broaden their coalitions.

Second, contrary to a recent SOS blog commenter, the number of swing states is not in obvious decline. While this last election featured a smaller number of battleground states than usual, one data point is not a trend. (And even if there were a trend, the Electoral College has remained the same, so it could not be the cause.) Over the period of time used above, the average number of close states was between 10 and 11.

But what about the allegation that no matter how many or which states are swing states, the system is unfair? After all, some voters receive more attention from candidates and campaigns. And do votes in “safe states” even matter?

In fact, the Electoral College simply makes more obvious the realities of political campaigns and democratic processes. Most campaigns are fought out in single-member districts, where whoever gets the most votes wins. That’s what National Popular Vote would turn presidential elections into, making the nation one of the biggest and most complex single-member districts in the world. Yet in political campaigns in single-member districts, candidates focus on certain voters and ignore others. Campaigns often spend a great deal of money on data and consultants to slice and dice up the potential electorate. They do whatever they can to identify those voters most likely to change their vote in favor of their candidate. And they ignore everyone else as much as possible. Any city council or state legislative candidate who has sat down with a political consultant has had this conversation. This is the reality of politics, a reality ignored by NPV. They fancifully suggest that under their plan, candidates would campaign for every single vote from every single voter. In fact, NPV would only shift somewhat which voters receive the attention of presidential campaigns.

Do votes in safe states matter? In truth, the vote that matters is the one that puts a candidate beyond their opponent. Every vote after that might be said not to matter. The same might be said of all the votes for a losing candidate. Statistically speaking, voting is irrational. It isn’t something we do because we really expect any of the races on our ballot to come down to our single vote determining which candidate takes office, though the possibility (usually more remote than winning the lottery) is there. Voters understand this, even if subconsciously. Millions of “safe state” voters turnout to vote for president every four years. Even in elections destined to be blowouts (i.e. 1964 and 1972), millions of Americans turned out to vote for the looser.

The United States is a vast geographical territory with a large and remarkably diverse population. Each of those facts creates significant challenges to maintaining a stable political system, the kind of system that can maintain justice and allow for freedom and prosperity. The Electoral College system helps provide stability in our national elections through a democratic process filtered through the states. It creates incentives to building national coalitions and decentralizes election administration.

National Popular Vote fails to recognize the benefits of our current Electoral College system. Worse, it misunderstands the effects its own plan would have on the reality of political campaigns and voting.

The Electoral College was one of the least controversial provisions of the original Constitution. The state-by-state way we elect the President of the United States gives each state a number of Electoral Votes equal to the sum of their U.S. Representatives and Senators (and Washington, D.C., gets three). Nearly all states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in their state (Nebraska and Maine apportion some by congressional district). To win, a candidate must collect the majority of electoral votes (270 of 538), or else the election goes to the House of Representatives (which also has a majority requirement). The Electoral College makes presidential campaigns and elections primarily a state responsibility, part of the American constitutional system called federalism.

Electoral College Map

Federalism, and the Electoral College in particular, reflect the belief that stable institutions are essential for maintaining a political regime and preserving a free society. They are products of the understanding that freedom is never the result of simple legal or even constitutional commands. Freedom requires institutions that channel potentially dangerous political passions into constructive compromise and coalition building. The Electoral College system does this; the proposed “National Popular Vote” interstate compact does not.

National Popular Vote is a San Fransisco-based organization founded and funded by Dr. John Koza. It is also the name of Dr. Koza’s proposal to use state legislation to create an agreement among states that would change how the Electoral College works. In short, states would agree to ignore the result within their state and instead give all of their electoral votes to the candidate winning the most votes nationwide. There is no majority requirement or provision for a runoff. The agreement takes effect when passed by enough states to control an electoral vote majority, and therefore to control the presidential election.

While Dr. Koza’s proposal has been stymied now for over a year, it was previously enacted in five states: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington. Within the last month, it has made some progress in Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York. It is now dead for the year in Delaware, but it remains possible that either or both of the other two states could enact it.

National Popular Vote cleverly takes advantage of the Constitution’s grant of authority to state legislatures to determine how to allocate their electoral votes. For over a century, Electoral College opponents focused on amending the Constitution. National Popular Vote is a clever strategy and, at least on its surface, elegantly simple.

Yet the benefits of the current Electoral College system have nothing to do with surface appeal. In fact, the debate over National Popular Vote exposes just how little most Americans (and many law professors and even politicians) understand the incentives created by the Electoral College that moderate and strengthen our political system.

The Electoral College forces presidential campaign strategists and national political parties to construct broad coalitions across much of the nation. The phenomena of “swing states” makes this clear: the candidates and their parties are currently so evenly matched that recent elections have worked their way down to a small number of states. Thankfully, and in part because of the workings of the Electoral College, neither the safe states nor the swing states represent anything like particular geographic regions or political interests. The states that make up each group (“safe” and “swing”) have been continually shifting as the political parties strive to achieve the constitutional majority defined by the Electoral College.

The greatest historical example of the importance of the Electoral College is the election of 1888. National Popular Vote claims that Grover Cleveland’s loss was a great injustice, yet it was a turning point–for the better–in American politics. Read more in our earlier post: What Grover Learned at (the) Electoral College.

Next week, the Cato Institute will host two leading legal scholars in a debate about the merits of the Electoral College. Tara Ross, author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College (it’s in our bookstore), will face off against Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, who is also a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington School of Law. Tara has also written a forthcoming article for the Federalist Society’s journal, Engage, on the “Legal and Logistical Ramifications of the National Popular Vote Plan.”

Save Our States is excited about any and all opportunities to discuss and debate the Electoral College, especially against Dr. John Koza’s proposed “National Popular Vote” plan. The supposed reform proposal is an end-run around the constitutional amendment process by way of an interstate compact. That’s clever, no doubt about it. It may even be constitutional, though legal questions remain. But as one former NPV cosponsor-turned-opponent says, “An interstate compact is just not a robust way to build a system as important as the presidential election system.” It leads to a variety of potential absurdities, including a total inability to deal with recounts and the potential for state-versus-state shenanigans in close elections.

Claremont Graduate University Professor Michael Uhlmann outlined some of the disconcerting possibilities in the New York Post: “Rx for national vote-count chaos.”

The Delaware Senate spent portions of this week considering HB 198, which would commit the state to NPV’s anti-Electoral College scheme. The House already approved the legislation last year, so senate approval would send the bill to the Governor’s desk. The Senate has three legislative days left in which it could still approve the bill.

Save Our States director Trent England was in Dover earlier this week. He and Shaun Fink of the Caesar Rodney Institute visited with legislators and helped to educate them on the logistical and legal aspects of the bill. A few talk radio hosts in Delaware and a timely National Review Online blog post have all helped to get the word out. The grassroots response was overwhelming: Delaware citizens flooded state senate offices with phone calls. They want their senators to vote “NO” on NPV’s scheme, which would badly hurt a small state such as Delaware. Good news: Senators appear to be listening to their constituents (keep calling!). The Senate has considered, but then postponed, a vote on the measure twice.

An interesting tidbit: Saul Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has taken an interest in the issue and went to Delaware to lobby senators. For someone who claims to be an “unabashed Reagan-conservative,” his position is pretty surprising. He is urging Republican Senators to vote for the NPV plan. He claims that the Electoral College hurts the Republican Party; he says that getting rid of it would benefit Republicans in upcoming elections.

There are three big problems with Anuzis’s analysis.

First, even assuming that Anuzis is correct about the immediate political benefits, he is absolutely wrong to campaign against the Electoral College based on purely partisan concerns. Constitutional provisions are meant to serve the entire country on a permanent basis. It is destructive to change them simply to serve one person or party at one moment in time. The Electoral College serves all of us by ensuring that presidential candidates must always take into account the needs of a wide variety of Americans. They can’t cater to one region, state, or special interest group. Small states such as Delaware have a particular interest in preserving the Electoral College, which prevents them from being tyrannized by the majority in large cities and states.

Second, no one can know which political party will benefit the most if the Electoral College is abolished. As this author has explained elsewhere, eliminating the Electoral College would probably mean at least two things: Elections will become easier to steal and the two-party system will be undermined. So it follows that two types of political parties would benefit the most: Those that don’t mind stealing elections and third parties. Unfortunately, extremist third parties and special interest groups are most likely to benefit from the eradication of the two-party system. Surely none of this is what Anuzis really wants.

Finally, even assuming that the two-party system remains relatively stable after the Electoral College is gone, Anuzis has jumped to some questionable conclusions. He seems to think that the Republican Party will benefit from NPV because it will make candidates more likely to campaign outside of the big cities. (One vote in Delaware has the same weight as a vote in Los Angeles, but the media market is less expensive in Delaware so candidates would be motivated to buy air time where it is cheaper.) But the Los Angeles media market is more expensive because advertisers have the opportunity to reach so many people with their message simultaneously. It’s the simple rules of supply and demand, and candidates will know this as well as anyone else. Since their goal is to amass large numbers of individual votes, they will spend their money where they can reach the most people at once: the big cities.

In a 1977 radio broadcast, Ronald Reagan described the security that the Electoral College affords to all states, but especially to small states: “The very basis for our freedom is that we are a Federation of Sovereign States. Our Constitution recognizes that certain rights belong to the state and cannot be infringed upon by the National government. This is the guaranty that small states or rural, sparsely populated areas will have a proportionate voice in national affairs. Those who want to do away with the electoral college really mean they want the President elected in a national referendum with no reference as to how each state votes. Thus a half dozen rural states could show a majority for one candidate and be outvoted by one big industrial state opting for his opponent.”

Anuzis, the “unabashed Reagan-conservative,” should pay more attention to Reagan’s wisdom on this matter. He should not be trying to sway legislators in Delaware (or anywhere else!) to support NPV’s anti-Electoral College legislation. The Electoral College is healthy for our country. States such as Delaware will act not only in its own interest, but also for the benefit of the country, if it does its part to preserve the system.

Tonight Save Our States is hosting a Citizens’ Briefing to explain the importance of the Electoral College and the threat of the National Popular Vote plan.

A lot of people don’t like the Electoral College. Even more people don’t understand it. There are plenty of arguments for the institution’s irreplaceable contribution to American liberty and prosperity—like how it protects representation and minority rights, preserves national stability, gives every voter a say in presidential elections, etc.

But you don’t have to be a fan of the Electoral College to recognize the National Popular Vote plan for what it is—bad public policy. Even if the United States did choose to ‘reform’ the way we elect our president, the NPV plan’s striking resemblance to Swiss cheese should be enough to deter legislators from going this route.

Right now NPV legislation is poised to pass in Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware.

Join us this evening from 7:00-7:30 p.m. EST for a briefing on the National Popular Vote and what citizens in NY, Mass, and DE can do about it.

What: Urgent Citizen Briefing: The Electoral College under attack in NY, MASS, & DE

When: 7:00-7:30 p.m. EST, TODAY

Where: Simply click here to enter the Dimdim virtual meeting.

As we’ve pointed out before, Michigan has made it onto the NPV radar. Legislators are being lobbied to ignore the will of Michigan voters and cast all 17 of Michigan’s electoral votes for the national popular vote winner—regardless of who wins in Michigan.

Next week, Save Our States is presenting a citizens’ briefing in Redford, Michigan. For any readers with connections in Michigan, please pass this info along. More details are available at: http://savemichigan.eventbrite.com.

This year has been quite a flop for NPV, but it looks like they’re taking a gasp for air in Michigan where recent lobbying efforts appear to have paid off. A few weeks ago former chairman of the Michigan GOP Saul Anuzis announced (on his blog) his endorsement of NPV. Last week, the Detroit News published an editorial by Anuzis. Being a native Michigander, I felt compelled to respond. The Detroit News ran my editorial this morning in their online edition.

The article covers several reasons why NPV is a bad plan, but there are many more. Let’s take a look at three.

The National Popular Vote plan would enable a candidate to win the presidency with a small plurality of votes. Consider what would happen if five competitive candidates ran. If each candidate got even a moderate fraction of the national popular vote, the winner could be elected with a mere 25 percent—or less.

Supporters of NPV will respond that candidates can win without a majority under the current Electoral College system, too. They’re right. But the Electoral College legitimizes that candidate’s win. Take, for example, the presidential election of 1992. Ross Perot drew nearly 19 percent of the national popular vote, George Bush, Sr. had 37%, and Bill Clinton won with a plurality of 43%. But take a look at the Electoral College numbers. Perot failed to win any electoral votes, Bush had 168, and Clinton came out with 370. If there was any doubt who the nation wanted as their president, the Electoral College made it clear.

The National Popular Vote would promote radical fringe parties. Now let’s go back to our five candidates. Some might consider the likelihood of five viable candidates too much of a long shot. Under NPV, it wouldn’t be.

As I pointed out in my article, the Electoral College forces candidates to build broad, national coalitions. Only a moderate candidate with broad support in enough states can even get a campaign underway, let alone compete nationally.

Under NPV, national coalitions wouldn’t matter. Numbers—regardless of distribution—would be the ticket. This means parties wouldn’t have to appeal to people on the other side of the aisle; they could simply target high concentrations of like-minded voters. Radical parties—like anti-immigration parties, white-supremacists, etc.—who would never make it off the ground under the current system, could actually become viable players.

The National Popular Vote plan would allow candidates to win the electoral votes of states where they weren’t even on the ballot. Each state has its own presidential election procedures—including who can vote and who makes it onto the ballot. Candidates have to register to be on each ballot.

Consider this scenario under NPV. If a candidate based in San Francisco knew he could win a plurality of votes by targeting densely populated urban areas on the West Coast and a few other corners, what incentive would he have for going to the trouble of getting on the ballot in Alaska, Wyoming, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Utah, or Idaho? The NPV bill gives the national popular vote winner the power to appoint slates of electors to represent states where he wasn’t on the ballot. What’s more, those appointees wouldn’t have to be residents of those states.  If he won the national popular vote, our San Francisco-based candidate could appoint Californians to be electors for Alaska, Wyoming, New Hampshire, etc. in the Electoral College, casting electoral votes that supposedly represent those individual states.

Again, Electoral College detractors might point out that a candidate can win the presidency without being on every state’s ballot now. And again, this is true. A candidate cannot, however, claim any electoral votes from a state in which he wasn’t on the ballot. Thus, it’s in a candidate’s best interest to be registered. Let’s look back at our San Francisco candidate. If he did manage to win the requisite 270 electoral votes, the nine states where he wasn’t on the ballot would still cast their electoral votes for the candidate who was most popular in their state. Voters in each state determine how that state should cast its electoral votes on Election Day—not the rest of the country.

The list of flaws goes on and on.

As an aside, some will look at this site, read about the issue, and notice that Washington, where I currently live, passed the NPV bill. Note that legislators made this move despite many appeals from citizens. The state’s newspapers afterward criticized the legislature for making such a monumental decision under the radar of the general public and encouraged other states to consider the issue more carefully. A year after the bill passed, another piece of legislation was introduced that would restore Washington’s say in how it casts its electoral votes.

Opponents of the Electoral College often imply that America’s presidential election process is undemocratic and out of step with the world. But is it?

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games featured athletes from 82 countries. I decided to investigate, using that list, which goes from Albania to Uzbekistan and includes all of the largest nations. How do other countries elect (or select) their executives?

A note about titles: in the United States, the president is both “chief of state” and “head of government.” But this is only true of 14 Olympic nations; in most, the chief of state is more-or-less symbolic and the head of government is a separate office with the power to actually run things. I looked at both, focusing on the head of government position because that is usually the more powerful office.

The first thing I noticed is how many chiefs of state are still hereditary monarchs. The Winter Games featured 17 nations that recognize a king, queen, emperor, or prince. These include not only small countries like Monaco and Morocco, but three members of the G7: Canada, Great Britain, and Japan. Many other chiefs of state are elected by popular vote. Half of the Winter Games countries directly elect their chief of state. Yet most of these nations–31 out of 41–select some other person as either prime minister, premier, chancellor, or chairman. None of these offices are directly elected; they are either chosen by a legislative body or appointed.

In only 10 of these countries does a directly elected chief of state also serve as head of government. These are the national popular vote nations.

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Chile
• Columbia
• Cyprus
• Georgia
• Ghana
• Mexico
• Peru

And how are most heads of government selected? Most–40–are chosen by legislative bodies. Another 26 are appointed by other elected officials. Hong Kong elects their “Chief Executive” at a convention. Altogether, 68 of the countries at the 2010 Olympics use other elected officials to select the head of government. These systems are similar to the original design of the Electoral College. But in practice, America’s current Electoral College system is likely the most democratic of any of these indirect methods of election.

In addition to these 68 nations and the ten national popular vote nations mentioned above, Monaco and Morocco’s monarchs appoint their heads of government, Iran’s is elected, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il is a dictator. (All this data is from The CIA World Factbook.)

Comparing America’s presidential elections to the world, we find what we should expect to find: a process that is more democratic than most while incorporating checks and balances in the interest of political stability and individual rights.

There is one other distinction worth mentioning. No other nation’s executive is considered “the leader of the free world,” or is commander-in-chief of so much military power. Anyone who calls for restructuring America’s presidential elections owes it to the world to be thoughtful and deliberate. The burden is on reformers to explain why anyone should consider rejecting a time-tested system.

As the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby wrote, defending “The brilliance of the Electoral College,”

the Electoral College remains the best system for picking a chief executive suited to a nation like ours: a geographically large, ideologically diverse, socially complex federal republic. No political process is foolproof, but this one has survived 220 years and 54 [now 56] peaceful presidential elections.

A big thanks to host Jim Schneider and the crew at Crosstalk radio for today’s discussion of the Electoral College versus National Popular Vote. It was my pleasure to be on the program and to talk with so many listeners from around the country.

You can visit the Crosstalk website for a description of the issue and links to listen in several formats or even buy a CD.

One thing we touched on is whether the Electoral College is “anti-democratic.” It’s important to remember, the very idea of a constitution is, in a sense, anti-democratic. We hold the laws passed today up to the Constitution, we test them against it and not the other way around. Why? Because American government isn’t just about doing what 50% +1 want, it’s about protecting individual rights. As the history of the 20th Century shows (and every other century, for that matter), sometimes big groups of people–even majorities–are willing to violate those rights.

The First Amendment, to take just one example, is anti-democratic. It restrains majorities from violating the rights of others to freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, and petitioning government. Should we throw out the First Amendment because it sometimes restrains the will of the majority?

The same thing is true of the Electoral College, which usually just influences majorities to be more national and centrist than might otherwise be the case. In pursuit of unity, moderation, and stability–all of which work to protect individual rights–the Electoral College will sometimes (only twice for sure) elect a President who received less popular votes than another candidate.

If all you want is raw majority rule, which is really just another way of saying “might makes right,” then the Electoral College isn’t for you. If, on the other hand, you believe that government exists to protect individual rights–if you think the First Amendment is a good idea–then the Electoral College is just another very good, very American invention.

Note: post updated with links to Crosstalk show archive.

On Friday, Alaska’s Senate Judiciary Committee heard the state’s National Popular Vote bill (SB 92). The measure actually already passed the State Affairs Committee with the support of Senators Linda Menard, Hollis French (who chairs the Judiciary Committee), and Albert Kookesh. (Watch the Judiciary hearing.)

Alaska, the largest state by landmass but with one of the smallest populations, is unlikely to be the key to a presidential contest under any conceivable system. But it stands to lose like every other state if NPV sweeps away the protections of the Electoral College. And at least under the current system, Alaska retains the possibility of becoming a swing state. It gets a boost in the Electoral College and, should it turn out to be evenly divided in a presidential race, campaigns will pay attention. Under NPV, it wouldn’t even have that.

NPV bemoans the existence of swing states and pretends that if voters were more mathematically equal, they would receive more equal treatment from presidential campaigns. There are two problems with that argument.

1. Swing states are actually beneficial. What makes a swing state? The answer is balance. While ‘safe states’ are places where most people already favor one candidate, swing states only swing because of their moderation. The current Electoral College system requires candidates to start with broad national support and then, as the campaign goes on, to focus in on the most evenly divided states. Far from being some nefarious plot, swing states pull American politics toward the center. You might say that the Electoral College, through swing states, recalibrates American politics toward the middle every four years.

One other point about swing states: divided government is accountable government. The Electoral College turns presidential elections into separate elections in each state. Where those elections will likely be the closest and most contested (in swing states) government is also more likely to be divided between both political parties. All of America benefits when our elections are properly scrutinized, and the current Electoral College system does this better than any system that just throws all the votes together for a single, national total.

2. NPV’s voter equality is superficial. According to NPV, it’s a moral failing of American politics when one voter sees more campaign commercials than another. Their slogan is “every voter equal,” yet NPV’s voter equality has nothing to do with the real world of politics. Candidates understand this. Even without an electoral college, political candidates “slice and dice” voters by geography and demographics to figure out who to “target” with campaign advertising and other activities. Campaigns will always allocate scarce resources unequally as they look for the most efficient way to win. The Electoral College simply forces campaigns to focus more on politically diverse areas.

The problem with NPV’s arguments (these and others) is that they simply skim the surface. There is no evidence that anyone involved with NPV has ever sat down and studied the history and theories of political systems (or even thought about such questions). They seem uninterested in history and real-world outcomes. Perhaps this is understandable, since the man who came up with the idea, John Koza, is a computer scientist best known for inventing the scratch-off lottery ticket and then convincing state governments to sell them to the public. While Koza’s state lotto monopolies have made him rich, the tale suggests either a lack of thoughtfulness or a dangerous (to other people) self absorption.  How much poorer are many poor Americans because of John Koza?

The most important question about any political system is will it tend to protect liberty and justice or not. The Electoral College helps to stabilize America’s political system in a way that makes liberty and justice possible.