The Push to Abolish the Electoral College

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch." - Marvin Simkin

Ever since Hillary Clinton signaled her support for abolition of the Electoral College, the number of people echoing that sentiment has grown and gotten louder.  Posts like this one have popped up on Twitter:

It's easy to understand why.  A lot of Americans are furious with Donald Trump, and not in a "He's implementing policies I don't like" way.  It's more of a "He's a complete disaster" way, and with good reason.  Trump will likely be remembered as one of the worst presidents in history.  Maybe the worst president.  The push to abolish the Electoral College is built on an urge to prevent this from happening in the future, because if the Electoral College had been eliminated before 2016, Clinton would be president and we'd all be spared the ongoing Trump fiasco.  It's a justifiable and well-meaning movement, but I'm going to make the case for keeping it.

Let's start with an easy one.  First, there are about 320 million people in America.  Not all of them are eligible to vote, but if you crunch the numbers, only 59% of the eligible population voted (for any candidate).  This is just my opinion, but it doesn't make sense to switch to a popular vote system when 2/5 of the population stays home on election day (a greater number of people than either Clinton's or Trump's voters). 

Second, people are generally pretty decent, but they're vulnerable to a lot of tricks: things like tribalism, their own cognitive biases, emotion-based choices, misleading information, and so on.  They also vote based on superficial reasons.  A common piece of conventional wisdom is that people vote for candidates based on their likeability rather than any of the candidate's policies - that a vote comes down to which candidate a voter identifies with, or would like to have a beer with.  Then there are the people with "out there" beliefs: anti-vaxxers, racists, conspiracy theorists.  Would you want an any of them to have a direct say in electing the president? To have that person's vote be equal to yours? People, even rational ones, don't always make wise decisions at the ballot box.  A large population can diminish a fringe idea's reach, but it can just as easily amplify it; and historically, people with radical ideas have had this pesky habit of gravitating toward each other to form influential movements.  Does the Electoral College prevent this from happening? No.  But a popular vote system increases the chances of this happening.  This isn't some idle concern, either; here's what James Madison wrote in Federalist #10:

"The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.  The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.  Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose."

Third, let's look at a popular vote system as a whole.  I'm going to provide some reasons for why it's a bad idea.  Let's start with a hypothetical.  Imagine that at the start of every NFL season, the entire country voted on which team they wanted to watch.  One team all season long, for the entire country.  Now look at this map.

(Picture courtesy of USA Today)

I'm guesstimating here, but it looks like Denver occupies the biggest swath of land on that map.  (Woo-hoo! Go Broncos!) That's great if you're a Broncos fan, but not so much for fans of the other thirty-one teams; and if you're a fan of the Texans, Jaguars, or Bucs, for example, you'll probably never get to watch a game in this fictional scenario.

So how does this relate to the 2016 presidential election? Here are a few other images to look at.  The top one is a breakdown of the election based on the counties each candidate won, and the bottom one is the same county-by-county map adjusted to account for population.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

(Courtesy of University of Michigan)

Do you notice anything peculiar? There are a lot more solid red squares than blue ones on that top map - 2,623 to 489 - but the red and blue areas appear to be about equal in the bottom map.  Which they are, approximately.  The popular vote results confirm that.  Here's another way of looking at it.  As of 2013, California's population was over 38 million while seven states had populations of less than a million.  That popular vote proposal looks a lot less fair now, doesn't it? It pretty much guarantees that the 5-10 most populated states will get all the attention (remember how lopsided Trump's tallies were until they called California), and the least populated states will be virtually ignored.  This problem has gone mostly unnoticed, but a popular vote system will only make it worse, because candidates focus on areas that get them the most votes.  So, if you live in a major city that has a higher population than an entire state, you're probably in good shape.  But if you don't, a popular vote system will make your vote worth less.  I'll say that again: your vote will count for less in a popular vote system.  

A president is supposed to govern for the entire country.  A popular vote system makes that less likely.