Andrew Warner

I tell you what ... I am not looking forward to this election very much AT ALL.

Neither of the major party candidates for my U.S. House District, the US Senate seat, or the governor's race inspire much confidence.

Fortunately there's at least a Libertarian candidate for governor, and despite these goofballs who keep telling me he has no chance, I'm much more comfortable being the ONLY person voting for someone who represents my consience than trying to "pick the winner".

Maybe some really great last minute scandals will come up at least ... :)

Well said. I ran into the same problem. Like you, I am glad that there was an alternative in some races. A Green secretary of state candidate, as well as a candidate for governor, is a good chance to cast a real progressive vote.

If 3rd parties aren't sustainable at the federal level, why would they be at the state level? Well, to be honest I haven't read the Ohio Constitution but I do know that the U.S. Constitution appears to make it nearly impossible for there to be more than two competitive parties at the federal level. Amendment XII of the Constitution states that a presidential candidate must receive a majority of the possible electoral votes to be declared the winner or else the vote goes to the House (who vote on a 1 vote per state basis). So that means if 3 competive parties existed and they split the electoral votes, the decision of who is the president would always go to the House. This would be unacceptable to the electorate. The Constitution basically gives the people the option of voting directly (through the electoral college)between two prez candidates of having a competitive 3rd party candidate which could throw the choice to the House. My guess is the first option is vastly prefered by the electorate than the second.

Trey,

State governments obviously don't use the electoral college so that argument doesn't make sense.

As for the electoral college, it shouldn't exist and no one is really sure why it still does. However, if the House of Reps were to choose the the one vote of the state, the presidency would just go to the most popular party in the state. More than likely that would follow the popular vote.

Also, there have been strong third party candidates (Bull-Moose Party, Perot even), has this ever happened before?

Andrew, I just discussed state gov't because thats what the prior posts were about. But I just accidently came up with the logic about prez elections last week and I was looking for someone to discuss it with and saw these posts. But I am confident the logic on prez elections holds up. Try to prove it wrong. You just quoted historical occurances. Ok, heres the logic again. If there are 3 competitive national parties and they split the electoral votes (this of course won't happen every year but the possibility exists every election- the possibility doesn't really exist for two parties(except for an exact split)), the election goes to the House. You really believe people would be OK having the House decide the prez. I think your wrong. They want to vote the prez directly(by the way Congress and the Presidency is often controlled by different parties). As I said above, the Constitution basically gives the electorate the choice of voting directly between two candidates and having a third competitive candidate who could very likely cause the choice to be thrown to the House. People would not stand for the vote going to the House on a regular basis. As for the electoral college, looks like thats going to be with us forever also. The reason: it gives small states alot of power because they are given more say in who is prez than a simple national count would. So they will strike down any amendment that tries to change the rule. As for my contention that only two competitive national parties are possible, I remain confident and challenge you to read Amendment XII, think on it, and show why my logic is wrong.

Trey,

Your logic goes wrong here:

"They want to vote the prez directly(by the way Congress and the Presidency is often controlled by different parties)."

We do not elect the president directly. As you point out, we have the electoral college do it for us. Technically, they just take our vote into consideration (It was designed because the writers thought we were illiterate and too easily swept up by the passionate leader).

Also, I fail to see how the electoral college benefits small states. In fact, it insures that many states go completely ignored throughout the campaign season (now that actually may be a good thing).

You also claim that people would not stand the vote going to the house every time. I would argue first that they don't seem to mind the electoral college choosing for them (and at least the House consists of members they elected to begin with). I would also argue that would create the political will to get rid of the electoral college once and for all - a positive by-product of a multi-partisan system.

There are also other ways around it... Instant Run-off voting for example. This would be a necessity if we wanted to retain the electoral college. Aside from that, it's a better process than we have already.

The Constitution, Amendments included, were made flexible for a reason. When there is a better option, you're supposed to amend the Constitution again. That is as simple as logic can be.

Andrew, for someone so interested in politics you are surprisingly uninformed about some of the nuances of the Constitution. How could you be a Senior in college and not know the electoral college is not going away? Its very simple. Sparcely populated states like Alaska get 1 electoral vote for each House member and each Senate member. So they get 3 electoral votes out of a possible 538 or so. Their actual population is probably only about 1/700th (on the generous side)of the total U.S population. So the electoral college gives the Alaskan populace 3/538 of the say in who is the president and a straight national count would give them only 1/700 of a say. People do not give up power just for the heck of it. So if an amendment comes forward to change the rule, all the small states will vote it down. It only takes 13 states(1/4 of total)to defeat an amendment and so AL,ND,SD,WY,ID,RI,etc. will say "I don't think so".---- Next up, my contention that only 2 competitive national parties can be sustained. I know it may be difficult to grasp because there is no example of my scenario occurring recently and there are examples of some 3rd parties that have received substantial votes (as you mentioned:Bull Moose, Perot's party) but I'm not saying that this obscure rule in the Constitution is actively contemplated by the electorate or is even known by much of the electorate (my guess is 80-90% are unaware). I'm just saying this rule is sitting in the shadows ready to pounce when ever the situation presents itself. (Remember both the Bull Moose and Perot were basically one or two election phenomenons).Here is how the basic scenario would play out in the current milieu. The Greens or Libertarians begin to grow in support and eventually start winning states and their electoral votes. Now for simplicity sake, lets imagine the 3rd party wins one or two states and the big 2 evenly split the remainder of the electoral votes. That means no candidate would have the majority it takes to be declared the winner and the decision would go to the House. Now if you have read Amendment XII closely, you would see how complicated the rule is for how the House is to vote. Each state gets one vote and the total to be declared the winner is 26. So Alaska and California would each get but one vote and the votes would naturally go according to party affiliation. So there is also the very real possibility that no one could get 26 because states with an even number of Reps could be evenly split between Dems and Reps and thus not be able to decide. Anyways, it does not sound like a very popular way to decide the presidency. People would be very upset. And then the Constitutional experts would explain the rule to the electorate (who as I said are probably 80-90% unaware currently) As I said above the rule can be explained as simply giving the electorate the choice between two options, either 1.choose the president directly (or at least as directly as the electoral college allows--remember this rule will only be changed when hell freezes over)between two candidates or 2. have a competitive 3rd party who could very likely throw the choice to the byzantine House rule I describes. Now come on Andrew, people are going to prefer choice one. And heres how I am pretty confident it would play out. The lukewarm supporters of the weakest and most probably upstart candidate would leave that party to join one of the big two so they will at least have some choice in who the next prez is in the next election. Also, this rule also appears to be immune to an amendment because it also gives the small states alot of power(remember CA and AK would both get only one vote if it goes to the House) and they would defeat any amendment that tried to change the rule.

Trey, for someone so interested in politics you are surprisingly uninformed about the nuances of political. How could you be some guy and not know that it would only take this happening one time to cause an amendment?

You're asking me, and anyone else who believes there are more than two points of view in the world, to accept a horrible system because of the Constitution is set in stone. The electoral college is already horribly unpopular and if it caused a catastrophe, it would be extinct.

However, I'm a fan of the elastic clause built into the Consitution. If something is bad, like electoral college, work to change it. Don't accept it.

Adding multi-partisan politics to our system is far more important than retaining a bogus part of the Constitution.

Also, as I mentioned already. IRV is an easy solution.

"however, i'm a fan of the elastic clause built into the Constitution. If something is bad like electoral college, work to change it. Don't accept it."

I'm not saying its right or wrong, I'm just saying its not going to change. Heres a quote from some big muckedy-muck if you need that. "the simple reason the Electoral College will not be reformed is that 3/4 of the states have a greater weight (in prez elections) under the present system than they would if every vote was equal" said Dutch Leonard, a political scientist at the Kennedy School of Gov't at Harvard. "approval of 3/4 of the states would be required to change the Constitution. "In the past 200 years, there have been more than 700 attempts to abolish the Electoral Coll. All rejected." Why can't you understand the Constitution provides for a specific form of gov't that is spelled out in detail. It is not an easily altered document.
Hey, I agree the electoral college is out of date but the fact is it gives real power to small states and they won't give it up just to be nice. Many thought the 2000 election was a catastrophe. The guy who won the popular vote didn't get the presidency. But guess what, the electoral college didn't change. Small states would say: fuck off.
Same goes for the rule that I believe makes 3rd parties nearly impossible. The rule gives small states extra weight (remember AK and CA would be of equal weight if vote goes to House)so they would reject any amendment (though I will say they might not be as firmly opposed than with the electoral college)
Again, dude, I'm not saying that any of these rules are good or bad but that they have very,very,very little chance to be changed because of the specific rules of our Constitution.

I'm coming to the discussion late, but you might be interested in a movement to guarantee that the (plurality) winner of the entire country's vote becomes president. Here's how it works: Individual states pass "popular vote" amendments that say that their electoral college votes will be awarded to whichever candidate gets the most votes in the country, even if that candidate wasn't the winner in that state. When a group of states representing a majority of electoral college votes has passed this amendment, it automatically goes into effect, because no combination of non-"popular vote" states will have enough EC votes to offset the others' EC votes.

I think this is a good way to get around one of the worst parts of the EC system - it will make everyone's vote matter again. Today, most states' EC votes will reliably go to the Democrat or Republican. The candidates don't spend much time or money in those states because they want to use their resources in the states where they have a chance to change the outcome (the battlegrounds). So an individual voter in a non-battleground state might as well stay home or write in Jesus for president every time. But if every vote in the country is going to be counted, everyone's effectively voting in one giant single district, and it matters much less if your precinct is in purple Florida or blue California.

I support third parties and independents, but this plan would also make it impossible for an upstart who wins a state or two to throw a monkey wrench into the EC system by preventing an EC majority.

For more information, see www.nationalpopularvote.org .

Josh, thats a clever idea. [This comment has been edited because Trey is a douche bag] I'll have to think on that to see if there are any holes in the logic. The only obstacle I can think up now is that really small states like Alaska wouln't give up there extra weight in prez elections but maybe enough moderately small states would sign on to give your plan a majority. I'll have to think on this.

Josh, I think the plan you mention is possible (unlike the almost complete impossibility of amending the U.S. Constitution directly) but it probably would be very, very difficult to achieve. The very small states would naturally oppose but I think the big swing states like OH, FL,PA,MI might likely oppose also. Those states are the political center of attention under current EC which brings fame, political pork, and even a healthy amount of journalistist's tourist money. It also makes politics alot more fun there. I also have a feeling anti-New York,California feelings could play into effect because they would be the main beneficiaries. People in the Midwest often get very mad about how NY,CA are the media, cultural, financial capitals of the country. This would give them one more thing because I imagine 75-80% of campaigning would center on the mega-cities.--------I am also wondering what you think of my contention that the electoral majority rule in prez elections makes it nearly impossible for the country to sustain more than two competitive national parties.(See longest post above for more thorough description) Does that make sense to you?---------Ha, ha Andrew. But come on, don't be censoring. One of the great ironic joys of the blogosphere is that you can get use someone's own webite to make fun of that person.

Check out the National Popular Vote site, Trey; the idea's getting serious attention from several legislatures. You do make a good point that if it passes, the major population centers would get most of the attention in campaigns, and the sparser plains states (mostly safe states already) might continue to be ignored).

It's interesting that the basic EC rules require a clear majority of votes for the winner, even though the only voters are the state electors. The majority rule is also a main feature of Instant Runoff Voting, the system generally viewed as most accommodating to smaller parties for single-seat elections. IRV does allow third parties to be more competitive than the current plurality rules do, because there aren't any more spoilers, but its supporters should also understand that Democrats and Republicans would continue to be elected under IRV until another party became competitive enough to win a majority in the runoff. A really creative state might fine-tune its electoral vote rules to avoid your scenario by stipulating that if the candidate who wins the state prevents an EC majority, the votes would get transferred to the runner-up; but that doesn't sound fair.

If a third party ever does start to consistently win an important state or two in spite of the inevitable pressure against it, I'd expect Congress to finally do something about the EC itself. Their recognition of a potential crisis would probably outweigh enough of the attachment to the EC system to permit a reasonable reform. This scenario is more likely to happen with a superstar candidate like Ross Perot who attracts a lot of support quickly and who might or might not be attached to an established party.