Remember where you heard it first

I think there's a small--but nontrivial--chance that McCain will win a majority of the electoral college while losing the popular vote.

Which would bring forth the by-now familiar shrill calls to abolish the electoral college. Jeff Jacoby reminds us why that would be a bad move (Boston Globe, July 16.)

Comments

[Speedmaster]

I agree, the EC is brilliant and exists for a very good reason. Democracy is bad.

[Dano]

I too like the EC. Notice that in 2000, a majority of voters in 30 of the 50 states voted for Bush. If I recall correctly, if California wasn't included, Bush would have won the popular vote as well. So in some respects, without the EC the voters in one state would have overruled the majority of the voters.

I also wonder if the outcry to eliminate the EC would have been the same intensity if Bush had the majority of the votes but Gore won the Electoral College.

Those who want to do away with the EC need to read what J. S. Mill wrote about the tyranny of the majority in "On Liberty."

Finally the opposite reform should be made. Instead of the "first past the post" election system used for congressional seats, we need larger, multi-representative districts with some proportional allocation.

[kyle8]

"Finally the opposite reform should be made. Instead of the "first past the post" election system used for congressional seats, we need larger, multi-representative districts with some proportional allocation."

I have long called for this. With the house being chosen at large in each state, you could finally have some meaningful third parties in the USA. You would eliminate jerrymandering. And people who live in larger states would have several representatives to try and get constituent services from. Not just the one.

[Fred]

Expedient gain trumps all for some people. If that has side effects they don't like then there will be an expedient to deal with that.

[Dano]

In addition, remember that people at Clinton's election night victory party in 1992 shouted landslide. It was a landslide in terms of the EC but Clinton received less than 50% of the popular vote. How many calls to eliminate the EC were made then? I imagine that after the 1992 election, most of the bills were authored by Republicans.

To engage in a bit of alternative history, imagine that the amendment authored by Mr. Jackson of IL had been past before the 1992 election. Section 2 of his bill reads "The persons having the greatest number of votes for President and Vice President shall be elected, so long as such persons have a majority of the votes cast." Would we have then had a run-off election or would have Congress decided who won? What if we had a run-off election, and Perot voters went for Bush instead Clinton?

My point is