Thank you, Ray, for a very well written and quite informative outline of a complex issue!

The holidays will soon be upon us and everyone will be super busy, but I wanted to set some time aside to reflect on your commentary re: the Electoral College. You wrote earlier this week, “About time to abolish the outdated Electoral College and let the majority decide, which means that every vote counts equally.” You have set a very high bar for folks who agree with you and yourself with that statement. How? Well, abolishing the Electoral College would require a Constitutional Amendment ratified by 38 states, and that seems very unlikely. If all 21 states with 10 or more Electoral College votes ratified a Constitutional Amendment to install a “winner take all” presidential election, you would still need 17 of the remaining 29 states with 9 or less Electoral College votes to ratify the change. Again, that’s very unlikely because under the present system, the votes in those 29 other states have value they would lose if the Electoral College was abolished. I’m assuming when you write, “let the majority decide,” you are advocating a “First Past the Pole” vote count. In other words, the candidate with the most votes wins. So, would a winner take all system guarantee that “every vote counts equally”? No. In the 2016 presidential election, the candidate with the most votes in California received more votes than all candidates on the ballot in California, and more votes than all candidates in 8 other states plus the District of Columbia. In other words, one candidate from one party in one state had more influence on the outcome of a national election than all voters in nine other jurisdictions. Allowing presidential elections to be decided by only a handful of states doesn’t appear to promote a system where “every vote counts equally.” Additionally, a winner take all system permits a candidate with a plurality, not a true majority, decide who wins the presidency. That’s what happened in 1992 when Bill Clinton posted 43% of all votes cast. (However, he easily won the Electoral College and the presidency.) When a candidate wins with a plurality, he or she greatly influences the outcome of an election even though more voters preferred a different candidate. Finally, abolishing the Electoral College could lead to some unintended consequences. For example, a First Past the Pole system can lead to one-party rule (which has its own set of inherent problems). That’s what you have in California, and now that this month’s midterm vote totals are in… California’s supermajority single party rule is veto-proof. How will that single party deal with huge increases in poverty, low performing schools, crumbling infrastructure, high gas prices, and high taxes? We’ll see.

Ray Fowler
Redwood City, CA