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And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.
By Jesse Wegman
Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.

Last week, Nate Silver, the polling analyst, tweeted a chart illustrating the chances that Joe Biden would become president if he wins the most votes in November.

The “if” is probably unnecessary. It’s hard to find anyone who disputes that Mr. Biden will win the most votes. This isn’t a liberal’s fantasy. In a recent panel discussion among four veteran Republican campaign managers, one acknowledged, “We’re going to lose the popular vote.” Another responded, “Oh, that’s a given.” The real question is will Mr. Biden win enough more votes than President Trump to overcome this year’s bias in the Electoral College.

Mr. Silver’s analysis is bracing. If Mr. Biden wins by five percentage points or more — if he beats Donald Trump by more than seven million votes — he’s a virtual shoo-in. If he wins 4.5 million more votes than the president? He’s still got a three-in-four chance to be president.

Anything less, however, and Mr. Biden’s odds drop like a rock. A mere three million-vote Biden victory? A second Trump term suddenly becomes more likely than not. If Mr. Biden’s margin drops to 1.5 million — about the populations of Rhode Island and Wyoming combined — forget about it. The chance of a Biden presidency in that scenario is less than one in 10.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me really angry. Yes, I am aware that the United States has never elected its president by a direct popular vote; I wrote a whole book about it. I still cannot fathom why, in a representative democracy based on the principle that all votes are equal, the person who wins the most votes can — and does, repeatedly — lose the most consequential election in the land.

It happened in 2016 to Hillary Clinton, who won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump — a margin of more than two percentage points — but lost because of fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Two months away from Election Day, the odds of something like this happening again are disconcertingly high. That’s a bad thing. The presidency is the only office whose occupant must represent all Americans equally, no matter where they live. The person who holds that office should have to win the most votes from all Americans, everywhere.

The Electoral College as it functions today is the most glaring reminder of many that our democracy is not fair, not equal and not representative. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. The election, as Mr. Trump would say — though not for the right reasons — is rigged.

The main problem with the Electoral College today is not, as both its supporters and detractors believe, the disproportionate power it gives smaller states. Those states do get a boost from their two Senate-based electoral votes, but that benefit pales in comparison to the real culprit: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws, which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never raised by the framers — states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the top candidate.

Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. As a result, most are considered “safe,” that is, comfortably in hand for one party or the other. No amount of campaigning will change that. The only states that matter to either party are the “battleground” states — especially bigger ones like Florida and Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other.

The corrosiveness of this system isn’t only a modern concern. James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, was very disturbed by the state winner-take-all rule, which he considered one of the central flaws of the Electoral College as it took shape in the early 19th century.

As Madison wrote in an 1823 letter, states using the winner-take-all rule “are a string of beads” and fail to reflect the true political diversity of their citizens. He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it.

It’s not only liberals who understand the problem with winner-take-all. In 1950, a Texas representative named Ed Gossett took to the floor of Congress to vent about the unfairness of a system that gave some voters more influence in the election than others, solely because of where they live. New York was at the time the nation’s largest and most important swing state, and the voters who decided which way it swung were racial and ethnic minorities in large urban areas.

“Now, please understand, I have no objection to the Negro in Harlem voting and to his vote being counted,” Gossett said, “but I do resent the fact that both parties will spend a hundred times as much money to get his vote and that his vote is worth a hundred times as much in the scale of national politics as is the vote of a white man in Texas.”

“Is it fair, is it honest, is it democratic, is it to the best interest of anyone in fact, to place such a premium on a few thousand” votes from racial and ethnic minorities, he went on, “simply because they happen to be located in two or three large, industrial pivotal states?”

Two hundred years after James Madison’s letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. Every four years, tens of millions of Americans’ votes magically disappear before the real election for president happens — about six weeks after Election Day, when 538 electors convene in state capitals across the country to cast their votes for president. “Blue” states give all their electors to the Democrat, no matter how many Republicans voted for their candidate; vice versa in the “red” states.

Given that abolishing the Electoral College is not on the table at the moment, for a number of reasons, the best solution would be to do what Madison tried to do more than two centuries ago: get rid of statewide winner-take-all laws. That can be achieved through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award their electors to the candidate who wins the most votes in the whole country, not just within their borders. When states representing a majority of electoral votes join, the compact takes effect, making all Americans’ votes relevant, and all of them equal to one another. The popular-vote winner then automatically becomes president.

If you think this is a plot by bitter Democrats who just want to win, consider this: Texas is going to turn blue. Maybe not this year, maybe not even in 2024. But it’s headed in that direction, and when it gets there, Republicans will be in for an unpleasant surprise. In 2016, Donald Trump won about 4.5 million votes in Texas. The moment the Democratic nominee wins more, all those Republican voters suddenly disappear, along with any realistic shot at winning the White House. As Ed Gossett asked, how is that fair?

Every time a new national poll on the presidential election is released, it’s followed by a chorus of responses along the lines of, Who cares? The national popular vote is meaningless. Well, I care. So do tens of millions of other Americans.

And so does Donald Trump. “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,” he tweeted on election night 2012. Why? Because he believed Mitt Romney would win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College. Not only has he never taken that tweet down, but he continues to claim that he won the popular vote in 2016. Why does he care so much about making that case unless he believed in his heart, like the rest of us do, that the person who gets the most votes should win?


Discuss

How so?

it's in the rules and regulations of cbid Forum Decorum.
you've done nothing wrong.

For 240 years our country was just fine with the electoral college... then in 2016 sore losers figured it was time for a change.

Because all the other BS they tried failed.

dumb take.

Our country has changed significantly over 240 years, including how many electorate members we have, and how they are apportioned.

electors are set by # of house of representatives (plus 3 for DC).
House of Representatives numbers used to be set to a minimum of 1, with an additional HR member for every 30k in population. Until 1911.
In 1911, we fixed the total number of House of Rep members to 435 (essentially)
By 1940 we began using the "Huntinton Hill" method of reapportion, which I don't understand very well, but is intended to minimize the percentage difference in constituency size.

But with a minimum of 1 for every state, that gives you a fixed 385 remaining to split by population centers.
The equation for Huntington hill is: A=V/(sqrt(n*(n+1)))
Now... V is the population of the state, n is the number of legislators you've assigned it on this round, and A is the quotient used to determine if they get assigned a seat on the next round.
As you can see, if you're multiplying N*(N+1) you're going to get a successively large denominator as the rounds progress. This means you're population weight is reduced by a larger and larger factor the higher your population.

This is a significant "punishment" for very dense population centers. And if you were to look at how our country's population density has changed over the 240 years (even over the 80 years since we have used this method) you would see that we are using a method which was designed to manage a country with significantyl different distribution of people.

so, "we've done it this way for 240 years" is an incorrect take, and a bad logic for continuing to do things this way.

More quotes from other people... rather than your own statements.

Well, I hate to break it to you but the arguments you've made are illogical.
The whole "The republic guards us from the tyranny of the masses" argument is bunk. It's a dumb argument. You still have a "tyranny of the masses" you've just chosen a different subset from which to poll your "masses" (ie, rural states). It makes the assumption that laws approved by the majority of people living in rural states are somehow better than those approved by the majority of our country. I hate to break it to you, but rural states are generally uneducated and have little interest in learning.

If you were able to think critically, rather than just quote other people's ideas maybe you'd realize that's a piss poor argument for our current way of doing things.

One man, one vote.

Yes, I know how much intelligent quotes piss you off Victor, that's why I do it.

Of course Victor yer smarter than everyone else, smarter that Dr. Paul and Professor Williams even, other peoples ideas don't matter and people in rural states are just uneducated rubes. They must succumb to the will of those smart big city folk. Got it!

You must be close to a Hamiltonian Nationalist, At the Constitutional Convention Hamilton proposed a President for Life (a King) and a permanent senate and wanted the federal government to have the power to appoint state governors so that the sovereign states would be reduced to mere counties of the the central government authorities. Like Rousseau he thought that society should be guided by the "general will". The people's decisions will properly reflect the "common good" as long as wise legislators guide the people toward what they really want. (Sounds so much like many politicians today) That'll teach those rubes who is truly the boss!

Get a grip Victor, unrestrained democracy leads to mob tyranny.

You forgot the 100 for the senate. 435 + 100 + 3 for DC.

Due to your math being incorrect, your argument is flawed and we shall leave the electoral college alone and continue doing it the way we’ve done it for 240 years.

My neglecting the 100 fixed for senate does little other than make the disparity greater.

Gabby Johnson

I recall it was the state houses voted for senators, not the popular vote. So 240yrs is bogus!

I guess you were not taught gov/election history.

If you assume your azz is doomed ⚠️.

Using an "intelligent" quote incorrectly is a weak move.

This fantasy that you're somehow restraining "mob tyranny" is nonsense. That has nothing to do with the apportioning of the electoral votes.

A Republic restrains mob tyranny by assigning representatives to create and vote on laws. Since our current electoral voting system is based directly off of the popular votes from the state the elector is from, it is not restraining any "mob tyranny" it is simply selecting which "mob tyranny" has more voting power than other "mob tyrannies".

Regarding our presidential elections, our country is literally tyrannized by the votes from uneducated hicks in flyover "swing states"

Carrot Top and banjo music...

Opie gets it.

There is literally no "checks and balances" in the electoral system.

um. The discussion is the electoral college. No laws are made through the electoral college, only the choosing of a president.

The current system, the president is not chosen by a majority of the country, but by a majority of the uneducated rubes in the middle of our country.

It's still the "loudest voice" and "popular opinion"... it's just isolated to a subset of our population.

The process for choosing, not making laws.

All states that's what makes us united and equal for all.

Fake news propaganda is never going to be loud enough.

If you're looking for tyranny you're looking in the wrong place Victor. Uneducated hicks in flyover country? Really?
Yes, If there is "mob tyranny" in the electoral college system, it's in the winner takes all system in most states which is just mob rule, the tyranny of the majority. It effectively nullifies the votes of the minority in each state. Is that reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater and eliminate the electoral college system? Is "winner takes all" constitutional? It appears so since there is no prohibition against it. But is it moral? Like most things governments do, NOPE.
As always, the only time Democrats start a ruckus about abolishing the electoral college is when the winner takes all system isn't working in their favor, otherwise they are silent.


"A Republic restrains mob tyranny by assigning representatives to create and vote on laws"

That's kind of a childish statement unless you really believe the electorate is wise and their representatives are angel-like principled statesmen. Nobody believed that during the founding of the American republic, otherwise the original 13 sovereign states would not have agreed on a republican framework with defined and limited powers delegated to the general government, first with the Articles of Confederation and then the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to limit the powers of the representatives to create and make laws. Democracy was to be as close to the local and as far away from the general government as possible.
Naturally it would prove to be only marginally successful in the short run as elected scumbags and activist courts whittled away at the Constitution, the protections of state sovereignty, the rights of the individual and centralized power more and more in a federal government that increasingly rejected the system of federalism itself.
If the general government or the state governments were held in check by the chains of their constitutions, nobody would need care who is President or what party controls congress or what black robed lawyers sat on the Supreme Court.
Obviously this is more of a fantasy in these later days as many Congressmen, Senators, Presidents, Governors, Mayors and state legislatures seem to recognise no limit to what they can promise the proles, what they can steal, what they can spend, what they can dictate, what individual liberties they can take away or what laws they can pass to purchase votes from the fickle mob or devious conniving special interests. If you are looking for real tyranny, this is it.

I've thought about this issue in the past... came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter.

If you change the rules of the game, all it does is change the effective strategies for winning. In the end, the game remains the same.

Does this make sense to anyone?

It's a limerick... they ain't sposed to make sense... you write em on the bathroom wall, you move on....

The appointment/non-appointment/vacancies of Senators and absence of too many at times was a big problem. So was turmoil in the state's upper chambers being unable to agree who would be that state's senator. That is mostly what lead to the 17th Amendment.

No system of government/election/appointment protects against Senators for sale. It's an honor/integrity/legal issue that can occur with any politician. But, the reasons for it aren't due to popular vote of Senators.

Mob tyranny has everything to do with the electoral college according to you. You're concerned with the tyranny of uneducated hayseeds in flyover country stomping on those smart edumicted big city folk. I almost think you'd like to make those rubes into slaves of those smarty pants urbanites.

Don't complain to me, I didn't write the law. Since the "winner takes all" system of the states is not prohibited in the U.S. Constitution under the electoral college system, it passes to the 10th Amendment.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"

The original Constitution made no mention of the constitutionality of slavery or who has a right to vote. Those concerns were left to the states to deal with. Besides women not being allowed to vote, states made it highly difficult or impossible for free blacks to vote or engage in other civic functions like serving on a jury. Connecticut required adults to pass a literacy test and a one-year residency rule in order to qualify as a voter. This was also used to prevent those ignorant Irish immigrant rubes from voting too.
Illinois had its "Black Codes", which effectively blocked most free blacks from entering the state unless they filed for a necessary bond and received a "certificate of freedom" The bond would cost $1000.00 from a law passed in 1829. (an enormous sum back then) Even then they were refused suffrage.
New York State set a high property requirement for free blacks to vote which obviously most could not meet.
Pennsylvania outright denied free blacks the right to vote in the late 1830s.

I agree that, "the people in power got that way through the system and will not change it, as they will lose their power"
That's why it's quite apparent that what's left of the republic is doomed as the country rubes and the city rubes have no consciousness of the real problem of men loving power above all else.

Drafter said the Progressives were killing bald eagles....