Why Do We Have The Electoral College?

Set aside your feelings on this issue, if you have any, and if you don't know what the electoral college is, no, you can't get a degree or study IT (information technology) there. It goes back to our federal system; that is, a system of divided power, with a national government and the individual states sharing power. When the nation was founded, the legislative branch was given two branches ("houses"), the "upper house" being called the Senate, where each state received two representatives, called "senators," regardless of the state's geographic or population size. Many Americans may not know this, but in those times, senators were NOT elected directly by a vote of the people, but rather, they were appointed by state legislatures. It wasn't until the ratification of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution by three quarters of the states in 1913, that thereafter, senators were elected directly by the vote of the people in their respective states. Senators are elected to serve for six year terms.

The "lower house," called the "House of Representatives," was deliberately set up to be closer to the people, as these representatives, commonly called a "congressman" or "congresswoman," serve two year terms, and they have always been elected directly by a vote of the people. These representatives are apportioned by population, currently with one representative apportioned for about each 700,000 people in a district. Congressional districts in the individual states are typically drawn by the state legislatures, the upper "houses" of which are called "senates," and the lower "houses" of which go by various designations. The state legislature of Nebraska, called the State Legislature of Nebraska (there's an echo in here), is the only one in the United States to have a one house legislature. The district boundaries approved by a state's legislature also needs the approval of the state's governor. Thus, which political party controls the legislative branches of each state and the governorship can be VERY important, for when one party controls both houses of a state's legislature, and also the governorship, congressional district boundaries, as well as that state's legislative districts boundaries, can be drawn favorably for that particular political party. Divided control in a state, can lead to compromises over such boundaries. Boundaries are determined after the national census is certified every ten years, so if the "State of Unrest" has its two legislative houses controlled by the "Chaos Party," and also the governor is a member of that party, the "Chaos Party" will likely draw any boundary adjustments to their favor, giving them an advantage for the next TEN YEARS, in both congressional elections and in state legislative elections. Understand, some states may not see enough change in population to warrant much change in boundaries, while other states may see major changes due to a big population increase or to a big population loss. Further, even a state that remains relatively steady in population, or that has a small gain over a ten year period, might see a loss in congressional representation, as the national population count is what determines how many people are to be represented in each congressional district, and the national count has always increased. The point is to try to keep representation as equal as possible, often summed up in the saying, "one man, one vote." Just for the sake of example, if, after ten years, a state with two congressional districts, has congressional district A with 900,000 residents, while district B has 700,000, that is not equal representation, and both districts will have to be drawn to comply with whatever the new amount per district is determined to be, after dividing the new national population by the number of congressional districts, which is 435. Let's just say that amount is 800,000; so district A will have to shave off 100,000 residents in boundary changes, to be given to district B, making both districts equally representing 800,000 residents. 
       
"Okay Randy, the high school civics lesson is boring .... I mean GREAT, but what does this have to do with the Electoral College? ... Wait a minute, 'high school civics,' but 'electoral college?' I'm confused!"

Well the "Electoral College" is based on the number of United States senators and the number of members of the United States House of Representatives, collectively known as "Congress." The Electoral College has NOTHING to do with the number of state senators and state representatives in the individual state legislatures. The small population states feared big population states would run the country to their own benefit, and to the detriment of the small population states. So EVERY state was given two United states senators, regardless of population. Likewise, the big population states feared the small population states would have too much say in governing relative to their populations, so the system of representation based on population by district was implemented for the United States House of Representatives. As to presidential elections, when the country was founded, information traveled far more slowly than today, which made the Founders fear that if Americans could vote directly for a president, they would not have enough information about candidates from states far from them, and thus they would vote provincially; that is, for a candidate from or close to their own state, keeping the nation divided. Thus they chose an indirect election system for a president. The Electoral College provides for each state to receive one electoral vote for each congressional district within its boundaries, as well as one vote each for the two U.S. senators. So if state "XYZ" has eight congressional districts, it has ten electoral votes (8 representatives  + 2 senators). The smallest number of electoral votes a state can have is three. The District of Columbia, which has no voting member of the House of Representatives and no senators, was given three electoral votes. There are 538 electoral votes available nationwide; 435 congressional districts, and 100 senators, plus the three votes for the District of Columbia. A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Now, I know this a lot, but its our system, like it, not like it, whatever. It is VERY important for Americans to know their election system. Technically, when you vote for a president, you are voting for that person's, or really, that candidate's political party's "electors" to the Electoral College. The political parties of each state choose their electors in the way they have in their state party rules, which is often, but not always, by a state party convention. While we commonly think of the national Republican Party and the national Democratic Party, as well as various other political parties, the reality is, both of the major parties, and some of the smaller parties, each have 50 separate state political party organizations, as well as organizations for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, all with their own rules, although only the 50 states and the District of Columbia can vote in the actual national elections. Naturally the electors chosen by the state parties are considered loyal to their particular party, but on rare occasions, they abandon their party and choose a different course.* 48 of the states, and the District of Columbia, award all electors to the candidate with the most votes in their state. Maine and Nebraska award electors by congressional district, with the two representing the entire state going to the winner of the majority of votes in the entire state (voter turnout matters!). 

After the election is held on the first Tuesday of November every four years, the votes are tabulated and, in theory, although usually, in fact, if candidate A won the state of Virginia, all of Virginia's electoral votes go to that candidate. "Typically," by election night or by the next day, the winner is known, although at times close state results can result in recounts, or the counting of challenged ballots, etc, that can delay the process. The electors meet in each state around the middle of December, depending upon the year, so more than a month after election day. The ballots are then sent to the United States Senate, and they are counted in early January during a joint session of Congress; that is, the Senate and the House of Representatives meet together.

In case you were wondering, it is important to know that, although relatively rare, a candidate can receive more votes from the public nationally, but lose the election, because of the number of electoral votes. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush, in 2000, all lost the popular vote to their opponents, but won the electoral vote, except Adams, who was elected by the House of Representatives, as neither he, nor Andrew Jackson, had the required number of electoral votes. In fact, Jackson led Adams in both the popular vote AND the electoral vote, but the House chose Adams. Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote by the landslide margin of .... ONE!  

* The individual states set the laws governing the votes of electors to the Electoral College. Some states punish electors who do not vote as per the popular vote in their state. The Supreme Court ruled many years ago that states have a right to require electors to vote by the state rules. In more modern times, votes cast contrary to the public vote in some states can be voided. 

WORD HISTORY:
College-This compound word, the second part of which is distantly related to "legal" and "legate," with the entire word closely related to "colleague," goes back to Indo European "leg," which had the notion "to gather, to collect, to pick;" thus also, "select, choose." This gave Latin "lego," which meant "select, appoint." This then was formed into a compound, collegium," ^ meaning, "a collection of people to perform a particular task, including school, group, organization or partnership." This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "college," with the same meaning. It was borrowed by English in the 1300s, with the "organization" meaning, but it's association with schooling continued to grow, although it wasn't until the 1800s that the primary meaning became, "a specialized subject department of a university." American English uses the word more broadly for "an educational facility for undergraduate studies," although in every day speech many Americans use it interchangeably with university ("So your son is off at college and is about to get his doctorate?").  
^ The prefix being an abbreviated form of "con," which was a prefix intensifier meaning, "with, together, totally." From Indo European "kom," meaning, "with, by, near." The suffix, "ium," from  the Latin suffix "ius," derived from Indo European "yos," a suffix often used for adjectives when used as nouns.

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Thirty-Two

"The Contentious Election of 2000," Part Two
"It All Comes Down To A Few Hundred Votes In Florida"

The 2000 election came at a time when the country was enjoying "relative peace and prosperity," as well as budget surpluses.* The surge in Web-based businesses, and the explosion in stock prices for such businesses, masked the trend of a general decline in what I'll call "working class jobs," as both technology and a shift in jobs to foreign countries was accelerating, making it difficult for wage increases for many workers. On top of that, the increase in health insurance costs for those who had it, previously, but not always, picked up by employers, began to be shifted to employees, as employers deducted a percentage of insurance costs from their workers' paychecks, and often, co-pays for certain procedures or prescriptions increased for those covered. This process too seemed to be accelerating. Further still, the price of oil and gasoline, which had fallen tremendously in the late 1990s,** began to escalate at a rapid pace, and gasoline prices surged toward or above $2.00 a gallon for a time, adding psychological pain to the pain in the pocketbook for many Americans. All of these things, as well as perhaps a "weariness" with the Clinton scandals and political battles, must have had an effect on the electorate and tilted the electoral vote ever so slightly towards Republican Bush.

The 2000 election showed that while most Americans were fairly satisfied with the times, and Bill Clinton's popularity increased, Clinton had failed to build a large lasting coalition among voters, although, as I noted in the previous segment, Al Gore did win the popular vote over George W. Bush (see further below). Bush and his campaign emphasized Clinton's scandals, saying Clinton had embarrassed the country and undermined the presidency. Gore tried as much as possible to play down the topic of Clinton's sex scandals, even to the point of sparingly utilizing the politically adept Clinton in his campaign. The use of American troops in military actions, especially in eastern Africa, was also a target of the Republican campaign, as Bush noted that the United States should not be involved in such operations. Bush chose long time Washington insider Dick Cheney to be his running mate, and Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman, also a veteran of Washington politics. Cheney, who had served as Secretary of Defense under George Bush (Senior), added military and foreign policy experience, experience which George W. Bush lacked.

The election showed Al Gore receiving nearly 48.4% of the popular vote to George W. Bush's nearly 47.9%, but Green Party candidate Ralph Nader garnered more than 2.7%. The Gore-Lieberman ticket led the Bush-Cheney ticket by about a half million votes. In the Electoral College, however, Bush won 271 votes to Gore's 266.*** A number of states were very close, barely tilting one way or the other, but none was as close as Florida, where the entire presidency hung in the balance. On election night and in the wee hours of the next day, news agencies first declared Gore the winner in Florida, but then changed it to Bush, before backing away from declaring any winner there. To make matters worse, Gore called Bush to concede Florida and the presidency, only to withdraw the concession as Bush's lead in Florida continued to narrow. Florida had 25 electoral votes, far above what was needed for Gore to be the next president, and just barely enough to give Bush the presidency. In what became a saga lasting for weeks, Bush had a narrow lead of about 1700 votes in Florida's unofficial returns, out of about 6 million votes. After a mandatory recount, done by feeding ballots back through machines, and after the counting of outstanding ballots from military personnel stationed in foreign countries, Bush held a lead of less than 1000 votes. It would get closer. Ralph Nader received more than 97,000 votes in Florida.

The issues involved after this point are many and would require at least another article or two to explain, but with such a close vote count, EVERY discrepancy took on major meanings,**** so this is VERY basic here. Gore legally asked for ballots to be hand counted in certain counties, but Florida law allowed only one week from election day for counties to submit revised totals from recounts. Gore received a favorable decision from the Florida Supreme Court, which extended that deadline for about two weeks. All recounts were not complete by that date and Florida declared Bush the victor by 537 votes. Gore protested, as tens of thousands of ballots had been rejected by the ballot counting machines, and the Florida Supreme Court ordered those ballots to be hand counted, a process that gave Americans some new terminology in the expression "hanging chad;" that is, ballots where the dot to be punched out indicating a vote for a particular person or issue remained connected to the ballot in some fashion; "hanging" from the ballot. News reports showed people involved in the count holding up ballots to try to determine the intent of the voter. It was a mess! Eventually the U. S. Supreme Court stopped all recounts by a 5-4 vote, which awarded Florida to George W. Bush, as Florida then used previously certified results as the final official tally. George W. Bush took the oath of office in January 2001.

* I failed to note this in an earlier segment, but the budget surpluses looked larger than they actually were, because of Social Security being included in the overall federal budget numbers. Understand, that also means the budget deficits of previous years were really worse than most Americans realized, because of the inclusion of Social Security. What do I mean? Well, during that general era, Social Security was taking in more money than it paid out annually, thus, when added to the overall federal budget, it made surpluses look larger in the late 1990s, just as it had made federal deficits look smaller prior to that time.

** If my memory is right, and please note this caution, I seem to remember paying as little as about eighty-five cents a gallon for gasoline in maybe about 1998. 

*** One elector from Washington D.C. abstained in protest over the lack of representation in Congress for the District of Columbia, but had been a Gore voter, abstaining only when this one vote did not make a difference. The Electoral College provides for each state to receive one electoral vote for each congressional district within its boundaries, as well as one vote each for the two U.S. senators. So if state "XYZ" has eight congressional districts, it has ten electoral votes (8 +2). The smallest number of electoral votes a state can have is three. The District of Columbia, which has no voting member of the House of Representatives and no senators, was given three electoral votes. There are 538 electoral votes available nationwide; 435 congressional districts, and 100 senators, plus the three votes for the District of Columbia. A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, so George W. Bush was just over the line.

**** Just a few of the many issues involved were: first, a confusing ballot design in one heavily Democratic county had resulted in Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan receiving what was seen as an unusually large number of votes in that county, 3400, far more than he received in any other Florida county, and "over votes;" that is, where more than one candidate was selected for president. Buchanan received less than a half million votes nationwide, which represented less than a half a percent of the overall vote. Second, a controversial removal of voters from the rolls in Florida by Republican elected officials were found to be incorrect; that is, a number of voter names were removed from the rolls for being "felons," but they were not, and some such voters were never informed of their removal until they tried to vote on election day. Third, Republican Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the state's chief election officer, was heavily involved in the Bush campaign.   

WORD HISTORY:
Stab-The origin of this word is uncertain to some, but I'm not one of them. It is really a variant form of "stub" used in part of Scotland as "stob," and borrowed into English usage in the 1300s. Up until then, English used forms of "stick" and "sting" to indicate the action of "stab." It goes back to Indo European "steupb," which had the notion of "hit, beat, knock, push." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "stubjaz," which had the same meanings, but also developed meanings for things from the result of being "hit or pushed." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "stybb," meaning a "tree stump;" that is, the remnant of a tree after been hit or knocked by humans, wind, lightning. This later became "stubb(e)," before the modern version. The verb developed from the noun, with the idea of making something "stubby" or leaving a "stub" after pulling, cutting, or hitting (plants, hair/whiskers, ticket), and of course, the OUCH part of hitting your toe or finger against something. So "stab" follows the same course, with the notion of "cutting, pushing a sharp object into something." The noun form of course comes from the idea of the result of  "being pierced by a sharp object."

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Thirty-One

This was originally published in December 2012


"The Contentious Election of 2000" Part One

The election in 2000 was the most controversial in recent times. In a "relatively rare" event in American history, the losing candidate, Al Gore, won the popular vote over George W. Bush, but lost the electoral vote, which is the vote that really counts in American presidential elections.

Al Gore, then Vice President, was the consensus candidate of the Democratic Party and he easily won the party's nomination. The Republican nomination proved to be far more contested, as Senator John McCain of Arizona mounted a serious challenge for a time to Governor George W. Bush of Texas, who was the front runner for the GOP nomination. McCain stunned Bush in the New Hampshire primary, winning by a large margin there. McCain attracted moderate Republicans and independents, as New Hampshire permits independent voters to choose either the Democratic or Republican ballot in primaries. Bush needed a big win in South Carolina, and he got it, although his campaign left McCain embittered by allegations that the Bush campaign had used race and lies to clinch the primary vote in the conservative southern state, by implying that McCain had fathered a child with an African-American woman. How much this influenced the vote, if any, was unclear, but it clearly pointed to how much racial politics had become a part of the GOP.* McCain bounced back, winning a couple of primaries, but Bush won a decisive victory on so called "Super Tuesday" in March, by winning several key states. Generally speaking, McCain tended to do well in states where independents, or even Democrats, could choose the Republican primary ballot, and in states with more moderate Republican voters, and Bush did well in states with large numbers of conservative Republican voters. McCain decided to drop out of the race, leaving Bush with a clear path to the GOP nomination.

In other developments, the "Reform Party," founded by Ross Perot, nominated Pat Buchanan as its presidential nominee, in spite of Perot's personal disapproval of the nominee.** Further, in what may have decided the final outcome of the 2000 election, the Green Party chose Ralph Nader as its candidate. 

Next, in Part Two, "It All Comes Down To A Few Hundred Votes In Florida"

* In fairness, such racial politics had once been part of the Democratic Party, when the South was solidly Democratic, as I mentioned in some previous parts in this series.

** Buchanan's selection showed how Ross Perot had lost control of the movement he generally had started and how it became a coalition which attracted right wing elements. Perot originally had put emphasis on the budget deficits, blaming both parties for deficit spending, including the "voodoo economics" of the Reagan administration, and also criticizing trade deals which sent jobs and investments overseas. Perot had been much more libertarian on social issues, steering clear of them as much as possible, but Buchanan was well known for his tough stance, and rough talk, about many such issues (he was anti-abortion and anti gay rights, in particular). This further added to the Reform Party's coalition.  

WORD HISTORY:
Stub-This word goes back to Indo European "steupb," which had the notion of "hit, beat, knock, push." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "stubjaz," which had the same meanings, but also developed meanings for things from the result of being "hit or pushed." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "stybb," meaning a "tree stump;" that is, the remnant of a tree after been hit or knocked by humans, wind, lightning. This later became "stubb(e)," before the modern version, and it also broadened in meaning to short, fat objects, as does the derived adjective "stubby." The verb developed from the noun, with the idea of making something "stubby" or leaving a "stub" after pulling, cutting, or hitting (plants, hair/whiskers, tickets), and of course, the OUCH part of hitting your toe or finger against something ("I stubbed my toe!"). Other Germanic languages have: Danish and Norwegian "stubben, Swedish "stubbe," all generally still meaning "tree stump." Dutch had "stubbe" and Frisian once had "steb/stib." West Frisian has a couple of compounds containing "stub," but whether these are survivors of its previous form or borrowings, I'm not sure.