Legislation to 'Fix' Presidential Voting Process Would Make Things Worse

[Alert: What follows is just my opinion. I don't claim that, because I'm a pastor, any of my political opinions are somehow sanctified, touched by God's imprimatur. My opinions are just that, my opinions.]

Maryland legislators and evidently, its governor, are tired of seeing their state overlooked in presidential election years. They say that their ten electoral votes make them less important in electing Presidents than large states like California and New York or perennial swing states like Ohio and Florida.

But Maryland's legislature and governor appear poised to approve a plan which, in spite of their intentions, will, if adopted by other states, likely give their state even less say in who becomes President than they have now.

The proposal is being pushed nationally by an organization concerned that under the Constitution and its establishment of the electoral college, four presidential elections in all of US history have produced presidents who didn't receive popular vote majorities or pluralities. They want to have a popularly elected President, but daunted by the process involved in amending the Constitution, they've floated a bizarre proposal that's contained on the Maryland legislation.

Here's how The Washington Post explained it today:

The bill, which the [State] Senate approved 29 to 17 yesterday, would award the state's 10 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide -- not statewide.

It's easy to see a huge problem with this proposal right off the bat. Let's say that in 2008, Maryland voters cast 65% of their ballots for Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. But assume that the overall national vote total is closer: Rudy Giuliani beats Clinton by a whisker, 50.1% to 49.9%. Wouldn't Maryland voters, who made their sentiments overwhelmingly known, feel disenfranchised when they see their state's electoral votes give the win to Rudy?

But the bigger problem with the proposal was raised by legislative opponents of the proposal. Says The Post story:

Sen. Michael G. Lenett (D-Montgomery) ...said the system proposed could just switch the target for candidates from closely divided states to large cities with many voters -- a scenario that would not necessarily empower Maryland.

Lennett is right. Under the Maryland bill, which wouldn't go into effect until states with a collective majority--270 votes--in the Electoral College adopted the same system, Presidential campaigns would likely be focused on vote-rich metropolitan areas only: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, and a handful of other places. Lost in the shuffle would be rural, small town, and suburban areas of all sorts.

In establishing the Electoral College, the Framers attempted to ensure that powerful larger states--like Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania--didn't run roughshod over smaller ones. As in so many other places in the Constitution, they sought to prevent majorities from overwhelming minorities. As Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier write:

The system was worked out very carefully to strike a balance between the interests of big and small states. In a direct popular election the big states' votes would drown the votes of the small states, a situation the small states could hardly permit; but the big states could not allow the small states to have a disproportionate say in electing the chief executive...

Contrary to causing states like Maryland to have less importance in choosing our Presidents, the Electoral College makes it possible for it and other states more say in the process than they would in a process decided solely on the basis of the popular vote.

Maryland isn't ignored because its Electoral College delegation is paltry. The state's ten votes equal those of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona. It has more votes than Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, West Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia. Only eighteen states have more electoral votes than Maryland!

The real reason a state like Maryland might get ignored by presidential nominees is its predictability, not the size of its Electoral College delegation! The state's perennial habit of voting for Democrats for President means that Republicans skip the state and Democrats take it for granted.

Lest Marylanders view this assertion skeptically, consider California. Presumably, if the Republicans nominate Giuliani in 2008, that state would be in play for his party for the first time in many a presidential election cycle. In recent years, California has been regarded as being so likely to go for the Democratic candidate that Republicans have made little effort to win over voters there. This, in a state with 55 electoral votes, 20.3% of the total needed to get elected President! Predictability prevents Republicans from pitching their appeals to Californians and causes Democrats to take it for granted. If that's true for California, you can bet it's true for Maryland.

Proposals for converting to the popular election of Presidents may have merit. But since 1789, the Electoral College has been a hedge against disregarding the interests and concerns of smaller states (and communities). Before Maryland and other states throw away the College, they might want to consider what else they might be throwing away!

[Cross-posted at RedBlueChristian.com.]

[THANKS TO: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for linking to this post.]