Focus 580; The Electoral College

People around the country will be going out and casting votes for their representatives in Congress in the House and the Senate for their state legislatures and of course for president the United States. There is however a very important difference between the way that we vote for the president and the way that we vote for just about every other elected official in this country. When people go to vote for the president they will be choosing their president through the Electoral College rather complex system that may not elect the candidate who receives the most votes. And in fact as we remember back to 2000 that is what happened in that year. Al Gore won the popular vote but George Bush won the vote in the Electoral College. And since that time really on and off for some time now but particularly since that time people have been raising the question should this system be changed. And this morning in this part of focus 580 we have two guests who have different points of view on that very question. John Samples is director of the Center for representative government at the Cato Institute in Washington

D.C. and he will be making the argument for preserving the system that we have now. He has contributed scholarly articles to a number of publications including society and history of political thought his opinion writing has been published in various places including USA Today The New York Daily News The Washington Times. He's also a fellow for the Study of American government at Johns Hopkins University. Before going to work at Cato He served eight years as the director of the Georgetown University Press before that he was vice president of the 20th Century Fund. Taking the other point of view this morning we have George Edwards he is distinguished professor of political science at Texas A&M University he is one of the country's leading scholars on the presidency. He has authored dozens of articles and has written or edited 19 books on American politics and public policy making and one that bears directly on the subject that we're talking about here this morning. Yes our recent work which is titled Why the Electoral College is bad for America and it's published by the Yale University Press. So

if you're interested in reading up on the subject you can head out and look for the book and of course as we talk here with John Samples and to George Edward's questions are welcome from people who are listening. The only thing we ask is people just read the brief and we do that to try to keep the program moving to get in as many people as possible but of course listeners are welcome to contribute with their own questions. The number 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's for champagne Urbana here where we are but of course we do also have a toll free line. If you're listening around Illinois and Indiana or in fact if you're listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States you may use that toll free line and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 again 3 3 3 w. while that probably doesn't make it any easier. And toll free 800 1:58 WLM. Well Mr. samples Hello. Hello I'm good thanks and Professor Edwards thanks to both

of you for talking with us they we appreciate it very much. I've played maybe as a way to start because I think that probably there will be some people who are listening who are a little uncertain as to how the Electoral College actually operates and that might be a place to start now I realize that it's fairly complicated and we could take a long time with that. But I wonder maybe I would I would turn to John Samples first and then if Pres Edwards wants to add on you certainly may but I wonder Mr. Sample's can you in the in the just the simplest possible way explain how it is the electoral college works. Well after all college is the means the founders decided upon to elect a president after of conservatism not of struggle at the Constitutional Convention. It's therefore in the Constitution and it allocates to each state a number of presidential electors that equal essentially to the representation in Congress. That is to their house membership plus their equality

that is recognized in the Senate. So you end up with each state having a certain number of electors that slightly out of sync with the population of the country. Those are then cast by the state. First I should mention that the Constitution also allows the states to decide to state legislatures to decide how to allocate those electors and then those are cast after the election. And in almost all cases that is except for two states the states have decided to allocate the electors according to a winner take all system. Whoever gets a plurality in the state wins all of the electors. Two other states made into Brasco follow a slightly different system. OK so in the sim as you say in the simplest possible terms every state has a number of electors. They each have the same number as you or your representatives in Congress all your congressmen your senators that's how many electoral votes you get. And that for at least some

time this wasn't the way it was at the beginning but for some time basically it's a winner take all and whoever wins the popular vote in that state except for the couple of cases that you mentioned that person gets all of the electoral votes of that state and then whoever gets the most electoral votes is elected president. That's correct then the only other. Aspect of it is the electors are generally speaking not bound to vote for the the fall of the electoral the actual results in the polling. But they almost always have done so. NORA No assuming that Professor Edward you don't want to add anything out of that. Well I would add just one thing OK. I thought he did an excellent job. OK. I have no criticism. There is a second round contingent election and no one gets a majority. And it's worth mentioning because the election is so tight it's now once you get a majority either because a third party candidate gets some electoral votes or because it's an exact tie and it's conceivable I'm not

predicting that but it's conceivable their election goes to the House of Representatives and their every state receives one vote. OK well Next what I want to do is have Professor Edwards talk a little bit about how it is that we that we ended up with the Electoral College and and again you devoted an entire chapter in your book to this so I know that it's something we could go into and some depth but but in a in a kind of a simple way as briefly as you can when you go back to the discussions that went on when the the the Constitution was put together and the delegates to that convention were trying to figure out the basic question they were trying to figure out is how should the president of the United States be selected. That is how we come up with the Electoral College can you talk a little bit about about why it is that we have this institution. Sure. I first should say that it's not really the product of a coherent

design or a clear political theory but it was it was the result as many things are of a lot of bargaining negotiation and compromise and there are a lot of different intentions at so different a lot of different members of the Constitution Convention had different intentions. A few feared direct democracy but that really wasn't the dominant concern. Some were concerned about voter voter parochialism In other words how would someone in Georgia know of a distinguished candidate in New England without mass communications and easy transportation so there was some concern about that. Some wanted some intermediaries. In other words elect doors who had to have still discretion to vote as they wish although they they don't do that. Some expected that the Electoral College would be nothing more than an effect a nominating convention and that the House of Representatives would make the decision quite regularly. Some people were concerned about protecting slave interests because these

states with a lot of slaves in the south. Received three fifths of a credit if you will the famous three fifths compromise for slave slaves couldn't vote. And that way those states got electoral votes based partly on the number of slaves they had and so they got more power even though the slaves couldn't vote. So that was a that was another concern. A few people were concerned that the president would be if the president was directly elected he would be too powerful. But frankly in the end fatigue and impatience and pressure to avoid conflict the fact that George Washington which would clearly be the first president I think led the founding fathers to just cobble this together and move on and get out of Philadelphia. Well one thing I think just as as an historical point that it's also important for people to know and might be a little uncertain about is the fact that for

some time and I think this was until perhaps some time in the eighteen hundreds although you can you can correct me on this. The they present the United States was not popularly elected or when maybe the question and let me ask this to Professor Ross Edwards when when is it that we actually started popular the people actually voting for president and then obviously was never popular but sort of voting for the president and then that essentially was what the Electoral College acted upon. Well that's an excellent question and it varies some states always had people cast votes for electors but it was brought to us a patient. And some states I think it was South Carolina was up until the 1820s actually didn't have an election people didn't get to cast ballots. And the state legislature directly chose the electors. Interestingly it's theoretically possible highly unlikely of course but theoretically possible even today that the state legislature of any state can decide that there will not be an election and simply

directly select the electors. Well now I'm in I'm in a moment here. I want to have you address the question that is I want to have Professor Edwards address the question of these these things that were in the minds of the people who crafted this plan in the first place whether that still makes sense now all these years later. But maybe then. First let me give John Samples a crack at that same question because I think that people criticize the Electoral College. That's the criticism that often is made they say you know when you when you look at the concerns that were in the minds of these men at the time. You might say that that it just doesn't. Those things just don't apply anymore we're really not worried about factionalism in the Congress we're not worried about the fact that people that there's something wrong with a popular vote or that people can't make an informed choice because they're not going to know anything about the candidates know that a lot of these things they just it seems that they don't apply anymore to the

United States in 2000 and for and for that reason people say well maybe that this system doesn't make any sense anymore as far as you're concerned. Does it still make sense that we do it this way. Well there is there are a number of arguments like that and this is the sort of argument that it's an anachronism that it was created for other reasons or these various reasons and none of that any longer applies but. I don't think that's a complete statement of the purposes of the Electoral College or the value at all for us today in particular for example you said we don't popularly elect a president we do. It's just the way the votes are counted counted by states rather than treating the nation as one large electoral district. The other point I would make is we have to keep in mind that what's at stake here is not just the Electoral College with its advantages and disadvantages. If we're going to change it we move to something else. And the advantages and disadvantages of that have to be considered too in the most likely move

would be to direct election of the president. Now we're all aware of one of the problems perhaps an alleged problem of the Electoral College from the 2000 election so that's at the front of our mind and direct election as an alternative can therefore pose as you know the true democratic alternative and one that's entirely without problems. But let me point out something that we have to keep the larger picture in mind here. The reform kind of program or agenda of which the Electoral College elimination is part is in fact a long standing effort in American politics and of it. The fact I brought about some reforms Consider for example reforms in the 1970s in Congress which were designed to make it more democratic and to introduce more subcommittees and so on and so forth. Generally speaking those reforms are considered to be now by political scientist to be a mistake and indeed but in 1900 Congress was the most

hated institution in the United States. Consider also the direct democracy reforms of the primaries and two to shape the political parties. Now they're considered to be things that have made the political candidate for president much more extreme than the voters as compared to the older system. So the input by party leaders and also producing candidates that pander rather than lead and third consider also campaign finance which is a reform effort to make things more democratic where we've ended up with a situation where a film maker cannot show a film critical of the president the United States in the in the weeks before a national election. My point is that we have to keep in mind that this is a part of a larger reform effort that has had in bad consequences has had unexpected consequences and that if we move to a direct election as part of that we can expect there to be unexpected. And

harmful consequence is that we're not keeping in front of our minds at this point and they will be reparable we will not be able to move back to another system other than direct election. Well let me turn to a Professor Edwards and have you give you the opportunity to comment either on that the general point of why it is you think reform is advisable. This is this very question about comparing what things were like in the minds of the men who came up with college and what things are like now and anything in fact that Mr. Sample's just mentioned. OK well first of all I think most of the intentions of the of the framers or are now irrelevant and we have to evaluate the Electoral College on its consequences today positive or negative. Now Dr. samples just said that this changing electoral college to be part of a larger reform movement. I actually think that's that's an exaggeration but it is it is always wise as he suggested to pay careful attention to the consequences of any reform no I don't think that we should infer anything from changing

the subcommittee structure in Congress in the 1070 as to the changing the way that we select the president in the 21st century. So I think we have to be careful about that as well. But in any rate the Electoral College we know does certain things. And I think there are indisputable First of all it doesn't count everybody's vote the same which is why the. Candidate who gets the most votes doesn't win. That's a central violation of a central tenet of democracy. Political equality in addition to that it distorts the political campaigns that we don't have a national discourse as all your listeners know. I believe right now in the presidential election takes place and effect in a few states now all the states actually have ballot boxes on Election Day but I live in Texas the second biggest prize and the Electoral College. There's no campaign here. There hasn't been any campaign here and there's been no ads no candidates or visiting no one's. You know no one's doing anything so it distorts it's distorts the

campaign. And not only are large states like Texas California New York the three largest states ignored but also most of the smaller states in fact one can draw a band right down the middle of the country with North Dakota South Dakota Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Texas no campaign. So that's. And because there's no campaign and because people in Texas for example know that if George W. Bush gets another million votes in Texas and think of this adding another million votes that have no impact on the outcome of the election at all. And that discourages participation in the political process. I think that's that's very unfortunate. A number of claims have been made and I and I'll wait for Dr. samples to raise these but a number of claims have been made about advantages of the Electoral College over the years. But the principal reason I wrote my book was to address these very directly and to see whether or not the claims actually pan out such as the claim that the Electoral College provides special protection to small states that need it.

And it doesn't they don't the claims the claims don't so I don't think we have advantages and I think there are substantial disadvantages I also would add that we know a great deal about direct election because as you said David. Ninety nine. We elect ninety nine point nine percent of the public officials in America with direct election and a straightforward process we understand a great deal about that we have vast experience we've elected I'm sure over a million officials that way. So we know quite a lot about it. So I'm not very concerned about the unintended consequences in this particular case. OK we're we're getting close to the midpoint. Reading my line phone lines are full so I want to get to people in a conversation obviously. You know this is one of those things that we probably could go two hours in if we if we actually had the time. Maybe just the Real quick. I want to ask John Samples to respond to one of the point that you made and that is essentially the first one that says because of the because of the system of the way that it is. What happens is that candidates have identified

particular states that they think are crucial and that means that they are campaigning heavily some places and not others and in fact here in a state of Illinois is another one that was it was written off a long time ago has apparently for reliably the last few times elected a Democrat. So so no so nobody in the can is not come to Illinois I don't think they came to Indiana either because they're expecting Indiana is going to go bush in Illinois is going to go carry on. So they're off someplace else. I mean and a lot of people for that reason feel that even though as a Professor Edwards says they get to vote that somehow that the process has passed them by and and that somehow we would address that by going to a directly popular election of the president. Well it strikes me that that's a function not so much the Electoral College as the choice that the states have made under the Electoral College which is to almost in all cases. Ninety six percent of the cases

to choose a winner take all system. If they look at their electoral votes the way Maine and Nebraska did then you would in fact without a constitutional amendment you would have the kind of incentive to solve about these contingent matters I'd say contingent that the states are not in play and therefore they don't get a lot of attention that can change over time. But if you just the states chose to do something else to not have a winner take all but a more proportional system. You could have both the Electoral College and an adequate response to the concerns. I should mention also though it's not it's not as if everyone is going to get an attention under a direct system I mean it's very likely that what you'll see is a much more regionalization of the presidential system because people right now under the Electoral College once you get beyond winning a state you're at the Senate for a presidential candidate are to use the resources and time to broaden their attraction to other states and therefore to have a kind of broader coalition

under direct election. Mr. Bush can run the score up in Texas to whatever he could and that would be where his attention is. In fact I think that a not so subtle result of direct election would be to move presidential systems directly into the population centers the urban areas of the country at a cost. And perhaps the intended cost to rural areas or to areas that aren't particularly on the coast or Texas. How do you think you have to say about the direct election the president is you. You would either have to accept a plurality winner for nationwide or you would have to run. Don't move to some kind of runoff system there would be a lot of incentives for a lot more entry across outside the two major parties or just independent candidates and I think what you would see is a movement also toward political strategic streams because candidates that represented relatively small proportions of the nation would have every reason to run and would have

bargaining power in a runoff of any sort that wouldn't give them even more incentive. Respond Yes sir. But first of all we don't need a runoff. And so that's we wouldn't have any of the problems we right now regularly elect presidents without a majority vote as in 2000 one thousand nine hundred one thousand ninety two. Harry Truman John F. Kennedy Richard Nixon Woodrow Wilson twice. The point is clear we regularly elect presidents without a majority so a plurality election will do just fine and thus we don't have the distortions of a of a runoff. Also under the Electoral College third parties have extraordinary incentive to create mischief in one into the 2000 election and again this is indisputable Ralph Nader determine the outcome of the election because you determine the outcome in Florida and New Hampshire and that's after we look at the second preferences of Nader voters compensate that with the Buchanan voters compensate that for the voters who would've shown up if Nader hadn't been on the ballot. There really is no dispute that the preferred candidate in Florida was

was Al Gore whether you like Gore or not is irrelevant to this. But Ralph Nader the third party created the mischief in. If you have regional candidates as you did for example George Wallace in 1968 they have a great incentive to run under the Electoral College because they can win a few electoral votes. And it's straightforward direct election they can't win anything. And there's a disincentive in who wants George Wallace having the balance of power also in this. This is this is quite important. Doctor samples argued Well I'll tell you what we'll have a less attention to rural areas if we have direct election frankly right now. And we know exactly where candidates go we know exactly what they say when they get there we know exactly the ads that they run. They ignore almost all the rural areas in the country. There are a few they get attention in the few battleground states but for most of them they get no attention whatsoever. You can't do worse than zero but under direct election. Because this the cost of advertising for example is a product of market size and since every vote

would count the same and every vote would be equally valuable to a candidate candidates unless they're complete fools would have every incentive to take their take their case to people everywhere. So they're much more likely to pay attention. But it's also the case that right now we are ignoring most of the people in America under the under the Electoral College and because of the electoral college most people get ignored as you point out. Illinois Indiana in the heartland as I pointed out on the West Coast the East Coast in tech. They're ignored. There is absolutely no principle of democracy which will justify ignoring the great bulk of the American people. So we're going to have under direct election we would certainly have a more even distribution of attention from candidates. We have a number of callers and they've been patient so I'd like to join them and bring them in here and give them a chance to ask questions and you can react to them. I will go first. First in line as a caller in Indiana on our line number four. Hello. Hello. I guess more I'm anecdotal here. This took me back to my days in high

school. I remember my most fundamental confusion about the American way of life was when I learned and actually read myself that the electorial don't have to vote for anybody in particular that that is because the state is carried by one person doesn't mean you have to vote for them. So I thought the whole system was you know rotten from the beginning. We never went into why these things were done too much in high school of course. Now I've learned you know more of the in and out of the politics really has nothing to do what's going on with us today. I'm one of those people who would like to see a direct. You know I'd like to see the old days as I remember as a child in the 40s when the candidates actually came through each and every of the states more than once a lot doing north south east west you know trying to pitch the thing. I'd like to see that come back again. And I'm certainly against what's happening now. So I guess I would vote for some change in the electoral college particularly especially when they can do

what they say they want to and I could see that actually happening under another four years of Bush that some semantic it's getting pulled off to do just those kinds of things. All right well I don't know if the doctor samples anything that you could do to persuade that that caller that we should maintain the system that we have. Well I guess I would point out that the world he remembers was a world where everyone with a presidential candidate came around with a world also under the Electoral College. The question of the faithless elector and that is a possibility had happened in 2000 it was won in the District of Columbia which was done as a protest really didn't have any. Effect on the outcome. It's been a very minor problem. It happens from time to time but it hasn't changed anything I don't vary largely the way the electors are chosen Now I'm sure that they will stay and vote for the candidate they're supposed to.

Let's talk with someone else. Charleston line number one. Hello. Yes the whole process becomes correlates. Under virtual capitalism we live under capitalism. It is has all the power in the hands of a few people and most Americans understand that to try to perceive the process otherwise is counterproductive. When honesty and integrity and the sorts of things that we are. Tought do not exist. And suddenly you go to adulthood. Probably this time you're forty five years old you'll begin to understand the system and understand how thoroughly corrupt it is. Therefore the whole process then cannot be looked upon as anything that is progressive and for so long as that happens that we're not going to have any any sort of progress in the lives of ordinary

people and or ordinary economics and the whole thing now is degenerated into what we witnessed in 2001 then it has become so abstract now that most people are turned off. And I think the prognostication now is that 51 percent of eligible voters will vote. That should tell the people who are in power that they have ultimate power. Always hang up and take my answer off the air thank you either if the caller obviously is calling for a more dramatic kind of change in American politics than we're really talking about during this program I don't know if either of you want to make a comment on what the caller had to say. I'll leave the bush while capitalism to Professor of course. Well I am a capitalist and proud of it but I I really do think that that's quite right David. That that's a that's a much bigger issue and one way beyond Electoral College. Well well we're talking about here in this part of focus 580 is talking about the Electoral College the way that the present United States is selected and looking at some of the arguments both

for and against there. There has for some time now been this discussion in the United States about whether or not the system should be changed. And particularly there has been more discussion since the last presidential election in which Al Gore received the popular vote but George Bush received the electoral vote. And some people have said they have a problem with that now I guess we also should note that the for the last time that happened before 2000 was an eight hundred eighty eight. So it hasn't happened a lot but it's happened in fact it's happened three times 1876 1888 and 2000. And some people make the argument that we should make a change. And for a number of reasons obviously they make the argument that we should make a change that's what George Edwards is arguing in his book why the Electoral College is bad for America. Published by the Yale University Press. He is professor of political science at Texas A&M University and arguing that the system we should maintain the system that we have John Samples director of the Center for representative government at the Cato Institute Washington

D.C. We do have another caller here someone on a cell phone. They've been waiting patiently So we'll get to them. Line two. Hello. Yeah I want to make a couple quick points. In a past life I was educated as a political scientist. I'm doing something else now. But anyway one of the things that I remember is that I really think that a lot of civics education is just terrible. I can I liken it to simply bad homiletics as opposed to giving people relatively critical an analytic understanding of what's going on. One of the key results I think of political science over the last 50 years is that there really isn't a perfect election system and you're going to have to make lots of tradeoffs among them. And by setting up different incentive structures you get different results and sometimes the results are ones that you

don't necessarily like. But I want to make one quick point and then I'm going to. You know I think one of the flaws of the electoral college system is that states are under the Electoral College system states are essentially electoral electoral districts and they never get redistricted. And it's fairly well known that if you don't re district I mean this is in the U.S. Constitution you can end up with what the English used to call rotten boroughs. And I think one of the big problems with the Electoral College system is that there are a lot of rotten boroughs in the system now there's a number of states that have maybe 100000 people in them and they get three votes. So I think there's a huge weighting of the very small. And that's something that just can't change because there's no mechanism for changing things in the Constitution. I mean happen well. That was mine.

Our thinking as a person who lives in Iraq and brought a fictional one called the District of Columbia this this is not true then this goes to the whole issue of one person one vote which Professor Bush got close to earlier the United States system is not a system where one person one vote is the applicable principle all across the board. Madison said about the electoral college late in his life that it is embodied the federal principle that if it did two things State Equality is recognized as well as in terms of electoral districts as well as population. Now that's the point I want to focus on that I haven't made to this point which is this. I think if you move to direct election you're going to have much more of a concentration in power for one thing in the presidential elections. The single most powerful person in the world perhaps you're going to get rid of intermediate bodies called the States they are no longer going to have any role in electing the president. They're not going to decide how to allocate the

mechanism for electing a president and they're not going to meet each other on a principle of equality anymore. They're essentially are going to stop existing Now that is I think at that the margins this is a move to weaken federalism and that's important because federalism was in. Tend to give the states some role in the government as a check on national power. And that's certainly what's going to happen here is you're going to have a more nationalized centralized system if you move to direct election and you're going to have a president that's going to be more of a club of working on a plebiscite as the representative of a national majority. That is probably going to be concentrated in a few population centers. So on these grounds as a liberal who wants a liberal democracy that is democracy that has some concern for rights and individual liberty. The move away from the Electoral College and twar direct democracy and toward direct election is one that concerns me.

Probably words yes. First of all Madison favored direct election and he argued forcefully throughout his life that states have no stake in the act and the election of the president. Citizens do. I think the argument that states as Professor Dr. samples I just said the states will cease to exist. Frank I think is entirely wrong. The Electoral College was not the federal principle. There is not a single word in the Constitutional Convention regarding the actual college in terms of it being a federal principle. It doesn't enhance the power sovereignty of states at all. Federalism is not based on the electoral college it's based on representation in Congress and it's based on the that this power is given to states in the Constitution. It's pretty easy to do a mental experiment and if you think about the electoral college just imagine it being gone. None of that would change none of that would change at all. So I don't see any any threat to federalism of any of any kind in the in the electoral vote I think it's also interesting that the last time that the Congress got to vote on this which was after the 1968 election in

one thousand sixty nine members of the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for it and it was only stop the Constitution and was only stopped in the Senate because of a filibuster. The there is there is a rather important argument here. Dr. sample said well you know we don't always have one person one vote in the United States. That's true. The United States Senate is the is the exception aside from the Electoral College and the United States Senate. Cannot be changed. It will not be changed in fact it's the one UN amendable part of the United States Constitution. And so it's always going to be there to protect the interests of states. I don't think we have to worry about that and I think the one thing that all of us can agree on is as far as protecting interest to stay constituencies United States Senate does a magnificent job. Can I just ask. Go back to an earlier point that Dr. samples raised and get your comment for Edwards and he can too and that is

to change the electoral college to some kind of a different system we would have to amend the Constitution of United States which is not an easy thing to do it's on purpose not an easy thing to do. However as as he pointed out that states can decide to to allocate their electoral votes any way that they want. And in fact it seems that in Maine there are movement or at least there's there's discussions various places around the country to move to a proportional way of allocating the votes and that is rather than it would be a winner take all kind of a system where it is almost every place there would be some method to proportionally award electoral votes based on the popular vote in that state so instead of the guy who gets who gets the most of the popular vote gets all of the electoral votes. You would parcel them out. And I wonder Professor Edwards what you would think about a change like that and would it address. The kind of concerns that you have about the Electoral College overall. It would only address part of them right now in Colorado this Proposition 36 which is

which is to do exactly what you just suggested to allocate the votes proportionally partly in response to the great distortion and misrepresentation of the vote of the people of Colorado in the Vote For example in 1902 Bill Clinton got 40 percent of the vote in Colorado that 100 percent of the electoral votes. So 60 percent of the people in Colorado did not vote for him for president but he got 100 percent of the of the vote so there's obviously a great misrepresentation going on there. The problem with that or with the with the district system which is in the main in the Brask I have to say is that it still leads can have the distortion of the public preference. It is also the case and one of your callers earlier raised the question about redistricting and all of that. That over 90 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives and that would be the districts that we'd be talking about here in Maine in the brassica are safe seats. So we already know how they're going to go and all you have. Again you only have to. You only have to win them. You know just just just getting one more vote that's

that's what you have to do what we already know how they're going to go. It's like I can predict a 2000 in 10 House elections right now with quite a high degree of accuracy knowing nothing about what's going to be happening in 2010. So again you have this great distortion of the. Of that not only of the preferences of the people but also of the campaign so it really doesn't really doesn't solve the big problems I think. But just me just Mr. Sample's would it if that was the kind of change that we could make. Would you favor that change. Well I mean I think one of my points here is what I favor or don't favorite of a matter that's not the substance isn't the point the point. Is that the states make the decisions and certainly the proposal reforms are moved to direct election is going to and fact by the nature of the case. Take away the right of the states to make those decisions. Now it's gone. There's all sorts of benefits are supposedly going to follow from that. But in fact this reform is in part and parcel of a 60 to 70 year

old tendency to as to get rid of the states or to emasculate the state as part of the federal system. And yes you can say well the Senate still exists but for the time being it still exists. I mean this is at the margins another step. Not the greatest one not the most important one but still another step to take the states out of the larger complex system that Madison and others defined in that Madison himself. As I said in toward the end of his life I came to recognize it as a desirable sort of mixture of principle. I have some other callers here and we're coming down to about our last seven eight minutes so I'd like to try to get in some more listeners if that would be OK with you we'll do that and go next to champagne. And that's line number one. Hello hello. Well the moderator kind of just asked the question that I was going to bring up a couple of callers ago. The man who I think correctly said we become adults after 40 or

something like that had supplants to make that you kind of sidetracked because you were just talking about the electorate electoral college and not the overall situation. The key is the pretty progressive or something like that. It seems to me to to offer a very significant advantage. That would say one of the other parties or both can't focus all of their energies and their vast sums of money and their various dirty tricks schemes. On a small area if you if it was spread out so that maybe not my vote counted because I'm in the district that that's already you know a majority is the other way is that it breaks it down but it certainly is the all or nothing thing has got to be considered. Crazy. The founding fathers didn't have to consider the polls

the way that they can clue people or the the candidates and their parties into focusing their their energies in such a way as to distort things and so I think some something's got to be better than this all or nothing and so I think that that person even though he may be overstated that the bad situation that we're in now days. Nonetheless his point is I think it is a good one that needs to be discussed. Of course that's what you're talking about now. So I can't see how anybody could could go for this all or nothing. I guess having said that much out Hang up give somebody a chance. OK. Well I don't know if either of you ever would want to comment further on this. Doctor samples. Well the objection to the winner take all system is not an objection to the Electoral College. His objection to the decisions that the various states have made about how to allocate their votes which is a power accorded to them

under the Constitution that so infamous Specter I think it's a misplaced objection. Professor Edwards Well I think it will take all system is part and parcel of the Electoral College because in Madison again lamenting this this this very aspect of the Electoral College system that states the dominant party and a state and we're talking early 900 century now decided that it would like to have all the electoral votes. And as long as the dominant party has that incentive to take all the electoral votes it will and that distorts the preferences of the American public as I as I have pointed out and so it's as if you're going to have electoral college you're going to have this. I would like to raise the issue again since Professor Edwards is a scholar of the president. My objection that the move to direct election will make the president the ever more powerful than it is now a process which on a Libertarian or liberal the you know at the

margins of that development do you agree that that would be true because he would be the kind of public. Fight speak for the national will the national majority. No I don't think that that would make the president too powerful. I think a quick examination of the president's ability to get things done in Congress or to move the public and change public opinion I've recently written a book on that as well into a completely independent electoral college I might add. What's the title of the book Professor on deaf ears. The limits of the bully pulpit from the royalties. At any rate we find the president have a very very difficult time moving the public even great communicators like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to take a Republican and a Democrat. And as we know presidents are regularly stymied and in Congress so I don't think that there's much danger that they will be too powerful. On the other hand where they exercise their greatest power and their unilateral power for example and as

commander in chief they don't seem to be overly restrained. And frankly I wish they would be a little more restrained. But but they were actual college doesn't seem to have done that. So I don't really think that that there's a concern here. Well let me just finish. That is exactly that point if I was a person who grew up in the 50s and 70s during Watergate I was stunned by the enormous power that President Bush had in taking this country to war and that call it connects directly to my concern about moving away from the Electoral College because again I think that what's going to happen is a psychological change where the president would be seen as the embodiment of the national majority will and would not and would not be focusing on states or having to when those kinds of electoral districts and I think that the question's not too powerful but at the margins are we going to make the president more powerful. And I think that's probably a good outcome. I think that the president is already seen by most people as the embodiment of national will and

some in some fashion or another. And as I say he was he's been he's been unrestrained as it is. And your concerns are concerns under the Electoral College I don't I don't really frankly I just don't. I think it's a very good question to raise I think it's very important very serious. And you raise it very effectively. But my my own my own view is that it's unlikely to make much difference in this regard. I want to try to at least get maybe one more caller we're getting so short on time the callers a nearby community of Belgium and let's do that one number four. Hello good morning. Who really wrecked her colleagues for her. Cooper our power grid around our Green Party viewpoint program and it's OK. Well is there anything that can be said about weather I think earlier I think it was Dr. samples maybe it was Professor Edwards talked about the fact that this makes it easier for a third party to be a spoiler. It does it

does it do anything one way or another with just the ability of a third party to to to be to mount a challenge to the two established parties. Well I'm sorry both direct election of the president and the electoral college provided discouragement for third parties because within the electoral college it's winner take all of the state within direct elections winner take all with with the whole nation and I think that the Electoral College provides a little more incentive for third parties because you can win a state in theory like an original candidate can or you can and it does. Have the consequence I don't know if it's an incentive for third parties. It has the potential for third parties as we have seen to actually determine the outcome of the election mis represent the preferences of the people. I also know political scientists many many people in politics have a strong preference for a two party system but I know that is an awful lot of people in America and I get this all the time who really want third parties to have a role and of course there's nothing in either system which would which would prevent

third parties from running. Well I would just add that Ross Perot got 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992 and didn't get a final electoral vote. So I suspect there are there is something about the system now. Some people feel that encouraging the two party system and providing stability for the overall political system. I'm not so sure I buy those kinds of arguments for the Electoral College but it certainly seems not. The other thing is I think third parties I think once you go the direct democracy route or direct election route you're going to have strong pressures build for the president being a majority rather than a plurality. I wonder and I think the result of that will be you will have to go in the runoff system and third parties will have along with the problems of that have much more incentive to form. Well I think that we're going to have to stop my apologies we have a caller we can't take we have for the most part exhausted our time for people who are interested in reading more

on this subject. You might look at the book which we mentioned by one of our guests. George Edwards he's distinguished professor of political science at Texas A&M University has written a number of books about American politics and the one that deals with the subject is titled Why the Electoral College is bad for America and is published by the Yale University Press and Professor Edwards we want to say to you thank you very much for talking with us. I play appreciate it. And also Dr. John Samples He's director of the Center for representative government at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. And if you're interested in learning more about Cato and what it is all about and some of the various issues that they explore they have a website and if you have internet access you can just go to w w w the Cato that spelled see a t o dot o r g and you can find out about him and another things that Cato is interested in and duct samples will thank you very much for joining us. Thanks to go to you David and also to the great debate.