As much as everyone focuses on the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidential election, the number 269 may be in play on Election Day.
Unless you are convinced of the possibility of a wave, or undertow, turning this into a decisive victory for Mitt Romney (I have been convinced of that possibility for some time), the candidates could wind up deadlocked at 269 electoral votes.
In fact, if you count 11 battleground states (VA, OH, FL, NC, CO, NV, WI, MI, PA, NH, IA) there are 32 possible scenarios that would produce a flat-footed tie in the electoral college. 32!
So what happens then? Well, that’s where it gets really interesting. Following the 12th Amendment (which replaces Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 in the original Constitution), the House would then elect the president, with each state getting one vote, and Mitt Romney would almost certainly prevail. BUT…the Senate would vote for the Vice-President, and if the Democrats still control the new Senate, Joe Biden would almost certainly win…….setting up a Romney-Biden administration.
Unlikely? Of course, but then, George W. Bush winning the 2000 election by the margin of 537 votes in Florida, and winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote for just the second time in American history, was no more implausible.
The electoral college is an issue that won’t go away. Ever since the advent of the republic, and especially in presidential election years with the promise of a close race, much ink has been spilled over this uniquely American system of choosing its chief executive.
Each of America’s 50 states is awarded a proportionate number of votes in the electoral college based on their population, as reflected in the number of congressional districts in that state. That number is added together with the two senators from the state. For example, Virginia has 11 congressional districts. Add the two Senators and the Commonwealth gets 13 electoral votes. The smallest states have as few as three electoral votes (there are six such states, plus DC), while California has the most at 55.
Many have asked why in the world would we not just elect the presidential candidate with the most votes?
There are a few reasons. Each of the original 13 states jealously guarded their own autonomy at a time when our national identity was still young and fragile. They distrusted distant and centralized authority, as obviously reflected in their revolution against the British crown and their ratification of the US Constitution. They also were wary of political parties, which began to take shape in the generation following the formation of our constitutional republic.
Geography was another factor in a nation of four million people spread over a thousand miles at a time when transportation was very slow and communication very spotty. This made national campaigns difficult and undesirable.
There was also a school of thought that gentlemen – presumably, only gentlemen, as opposed to scoundrels, were expected to run office – should not campaign for public office. How unseemly.
There were other options considered by the founders – that the congress or state legislatures should choose the president, or that we would have direct elections in which the popular vote would carry the day. All of these ideas were rejected for reasons ranging from concern over the predominance of parochial interests to insufficient separation of power between the legislative and executive branches.
In the case of direct election, it was feared that little information would be available to voters across the land, and thus voters would tend to support the candidates closest to them, and in such an arrangement, the larger states would dominate the smaller states.
Finally, the Constitutional Convention proposed the electoral college, which most resembles the College of Cardinals employed by the Roman Catholic Church in selecting the Pope. The founders ultimately determined that informed individuals from each individual state would be best suited to decide who should serve in the highest office in the land. Though the procedures used by the electoral college were later modified with passage of the 12th amendment, the structure remains the same.
If you think about it, the electoral college is consistent with our constitutional republic. After all, we the people do not actually decide on matters of law and public interest as if by a large town hall with a show of hands. We decide who should decide when we elect members of congress. That is representative democracy, just as it is in the electoral college.
If the electoral college were replaced by direct election, presidential candidates would never visit small states, but would pitch their tents in the biggest cities, where the most people could see them in the least amount of time.
The lack of a truly national campaign is still a real issue, though significantly mitigated by the internet and 24/7/365 news cycle. In 2012, only about 20% of the states are in play, meaning they are battlegrounds distinct from the 80% of the states that both major presidential candidates deem unworthy of their time and attention because they so heavily favor one candidate or the other. Evidence that the purpose of the electoral college is still relevant is that half of the states where Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are spending all their time between now and Election Day have less than ten electoral votes. The Democratic and Republican candidates may not be visiting Delaware, Rhode Island, Utah or Hawaii, but they are visiting Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire.
If only because of the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments as well as competing amendment proposals, the electoral college is likely to be with us for the duration. After all, if there was no serious movement to abolish the electoral college after the 2000 election, it is unlikely ever to be abolished.
And that is a good thing, because it may be, as Winston Churchill once said of democracy itself, the worst possible system…except for all the rest.
