Elizabeth Warren is wrong: Why we need the unpopular Electoral College
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to get rid of the Electoral College. She claimed this would force presidential candidates “to ask every American in every part of the country for their vote, not just those in battleground states.”
Curiously, she made this claim in Mississippi, which is not a battleground state. It was a shrewd maneuver. By going to a state that doesn’t matter in the Electoral College, a state redder than Mao’s China, Warren sent a message to other states. To them she said, “I’m not the smarmy coastal elitist you think I am. Look, I’m in Mississippi!” If she cares about Mississippi enough to fly there, imagine what she’ll do for your state.
But she’s wrong. If we eliminate the Electoral College, as Warren proposes, presidential candidates will start treating states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina the way the rest of America does — as states not worth visiting. Candidates will invest their time and money in states with the most people, the most money and the most political influence, such as California, New York and the areas surrounding the District of Columbia. This will make American politics more segregated, more centralized and more elitist, not less.
Read more commentary:
Let's fix Electoral College. It'll be easy compared to gerrymandering: Lessig & Painter
How states can fix the Electoral College and prevent future Trumps
Republican ideas would fail in the free market. Ignoring voters' will won't work forever.
Politicians who think they can win elections more easily by a popular vote than via the Electoral College prefer the former for opportunistic reasons. Last year, President Trump explained to the hosts of Fox & Friends, “I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.” This would have made more sense if Trump had won the popular vote, rather than losing it by nearly three million votes, a margin five times larger than George W. Bush’s in 2000.
The day after Warren said she opposed the Electoral College, Trump said he had changed his mind and now supports it, tweeting, “I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A.” And, of course, for him. After all, the Electoral College is the only college in which Trump has ever succeeded.
Only one-third of Americans support the Electoral College. Unlike simple majoritarianism, which is simple and easy to understand, the Electoral College — a mechanism whereby 538 electors decide who gets to be the president — is abstruse, elitist and easy to revile. It is so unpopular that not even Lori Loughlin would send her daughter there.
The Electoral College is better than alternative
Critics of the Electoral College say it thwarts “the will of the people,” and they’re right. But they overlook the salutary effects of thwarting the people’s will, especially when “the people” are a boisterous minority. In 1992, 19 percent of Americans willed that Ross Perot be president. The Electoral College willed otherwise and awarded Perot zero electoral votes. In doing so, this unpopular, undemocratic institution carried out the will of 81 percent of Americans.
Without the Electoral College, the two-party system would collapse. In its place would come something worse: a direct popular election in which independents and candidates of fringe parties vie for a plurality, not a majority, of votes. The likely result is that instead of electing presidents who win (roughly) half of the popular vote, we would elect presidents who win 30 to 45 percent. This happens routinely in parliamentary democracies, and it happened here in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected with just 43 percent of the popular vote (as against George Bush’s 37 percent and Perot’s 19 percent).
Many people welcome this prospect. As usual, many people are wrong. Despite its defects, the two-party system is better than the alternative. It fosters a politics of compromise and gridlock, which makes majority rule hard and minority rule harder. It isn’t popular, but it isn’t supposed to be.
Windsor Mann is the editor of "The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism." Follow him on Twitter: @WindsorMann
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elizabeth Warren is wrong: Why we need the unpopular Electoral College
