The most difficult part of running a democracy is deciding who should be in charge of setting up elections. Allowing elected officials to govern over elections presents a clear conflict of interest. After all, once elected, politicians have a strong incentive to rig the game to stay in power (i.e. gerrymandering). Unfortunately, this is not an easy problem to solve, since somebody has to be in charge.
Our best option is to trust in the electorate to choose candidates with good intentions and to trust in our constitutional system of checks and balances, which our founders established in an attempt to withstand power-grabbing. However, recent comments that Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, made in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel suggest that the Republican Party may not be acting with the best of intentions.
In his comments, Priebus argues some state legislatures should change their presidential electoral system so electoral votes are allocated by congressional district. This differs from the current system, which, in most states, is winner-takes-all; the candidate who gets the most votes in a state takes all of its electoral votes. His reasoning for these changes seems thin: The new system “gives more local control” – a classic stand-in argument when the real motivation is too unpopular to be made public.
If Priebus wanted to be more honest, he would provide his actual motivation – trying to rig the system for his party’s gain.
At first glance, congressional districts don’t seem like a terribly unfair way to allocate electoral votes. After all, why should a candidate who gets 40 percent of the popular vote in a state get no electoral votes from that state?
The first problem is that in the way it’s being proposed, proportional allocation would not be enacted in a consistent manner. In Preibus’ own words, these changes should be pursued in “states that have been consistently blue that are fully-controlled red.” Essentially, he seems to want states that traditionally vote Democratic in presidential elections, but whose state governments are currently Republican-controlled to allocate their votes proportionally based on congressional districts. This would be a huge advantage for Republicans because they would get a share of votes from blue states, while Democrats would gain nothing.
If proportional allocation were implemented only in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the 2012 election would have been much closer, despite President Barack Obama winning the popular vote by a margin of four percent. This is nothing but a system specially designed to benefit Republicans. There is no way to rationalize this sort of reform Priebus is suggesting in the states under a fair, democratic system.
But what if all states allocated their electoral votes by congressional district? On the surface, this seems like it would be fair since it treats all states the same, regardless of their voting patterns. It’s certainly better than what Priebus has suggested. However, successful Republican gerrymandering efforts at the start of the decade have tilted congressional districts firmly toward Republicans.
In fact, according to data from the Cook Political Report, Mitt Romney would have won 52 percent of the electoral votes in 2012 election, despite losing the popular vote by a margin of four percent. This isn’t terribly surprising, since Republicans continue to hold a sizeable majority in the House after receiving fewer total votes in the 2012 election. Gerrymandering is a huge issue, but a topic for another day. For the time being, though, we can’t put the presidential election in the hands of gerrymandered congressional districts.
For the moment, it’s unclear how likely these reforms are to become law. On one hand, Republicans have a strong incentive to pass them. The White House is a very valuable prize. After the party’s recent trouncing by the Electoral College, Republicans are looking for ways to help their chances at the White House in future elections.
On the other hand, there is potential for serious backlash from Democrats and non-partisans, perhaps strong enough to deter Republicans. Furthermore, such a reform would bring the latest round of gerrymandering proposals to the forefront of the political discussion, which is something politicians from both parties would rather keep quiet.
As far as Wisconsin goes, the situation is unclear. In a discussion with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Gov. Scott Walker neither embraced nor rejected the idea, saying, “It’s a plausible concept, but it’s not one where I’m convinced either of its merits or lack thereof.” While Walker will surely be under pressure from national Republicans to push for reform, he also does not want to give his opponents more material with which to paint him as a divisive partisan when his office comes up for election again in 2014.
All of this begs the question of whether the Electoral College is simply an anachronism. Does it really serve a purpose in the 21st century? After all, any president who wins the Electoral College vote without winning the popular vote will immediately have his or her administration’s legitimacy questioned. All of these arguments about allocating electoral votes would vanish if we just chose the president via the popular vote.
While there are certainly arguments to be made for its abolition, the Electoral College is unlikely to go anywhere in the near future. For now, we’ll have to make do with our current system.
Clearly, until a better method for redistricting is adopted, allocating electoral votes by congressional districts remains an inherently flawed way of running elections, even if this reform is instituted uniformly across all states. In particular, trying to implement proportional allocation only in select states is, regardless of how Priebus tries to rationalize it, nothing but a thinly-veiled power grab. It would be in the best interest of Wisconsin and the United States as a whole for Wisconsin Republicans to wash their hands of this idea and focus more on governing.
Joe Timmerman ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in math and economics.
