I’ve been undecided.  I’ve been considering a write-in vote, in part to express my dissatisfaction with the inadequate alternatives the parties have presented.  (Remember a couple of years ago, there was a movement to have “None Of The Above” added to the ballot?)  But as the day draws near, I’m leaning toward McCain.  I’m afraid my write-in (or 3rd-party) vote of conscience would simply work in Obama’s favor.  Although I’m not excited about McCain, I hope that he’ll do less damage to the nation than a fully-Democratic tag-team government.  Sigh…

I’ve long maintained this race was a shoo-in for the Democrats, I still can’t believe its so close.  Why?  I think Jennifer Rubin said it best:

Barney Frank and Joe Biden are the sodium pentothal of the Democratic Party. Biden told us to be afraid on national security. Frank tells us they Democrats will be coming after us with a big tax increase. Now Frank tells us that he wants a 25% reduction in defense spending.

So let’s get this straight: we are going to see more than $4 trillion in new spending, have a big tax increase, and defund our military — while certain to face international challenges where “it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.” And this is what Democrats are saying?

Reading this article made me ask, yet again, why the US does not alter the electoral college system and elect the president by popular vote.  We all know that eight years ago the winner of the popular vote was not elected president.  Yes, I know that the risk of demagoguery and electing the ‘wrong kind of person’ exists where there is election by majority (or plurality) of popular vote, but that hardly seems to place much trust in the electorate and might be an argument against democracy altogether.  The present complex system risks robbing a legitimally-elected president of his (or her) credibility in the eyes of the world.

I disagree, Terry Tee. We are the United STATES, not the United People. The states are the basic organization of our country. The electoral college reflects that emphasis. If it were just the popular vote, then cities like Chicago, with a notoriously corrupt political system and regular election fraud, and others could stuff the ballot boxes with votes for their favored candidate and affect the national election. With the electoral college, such fraud just affects the votes of one state, not the entire country. It’s a way of grouping votes by states, not individuals. Now Maine (and I think one other state I can’t remember) apportion their electoral votes to the various candidates depending on their percentage of the Maine popular vote - it’s not “winner take all” like it is in most states. This might be something that other states can take a look at and adopt if they think it would be more reflective of their population vote, but it is the state’s decision whether to do that or not.

Connecticutian,

Hail and well met fellow Nutmegger!  I have a boat just like yours, but we are not in the exact same boat.  I remain undecided.  I sympathize with your thinking that a “write-in (or 3rd-party) vote of conscience would simply work in Obama’s favor”.  I have fretted over this same issue. 

I think that, in the end, I will vote for a 3rd party candidate.  CT is pretty much a shoo-in for the Democrats.  They may as well just place a giant hammer and sickle on the pointy part of our capitol dome, paint it all red, and be done with it.  CT is as blue a state as it gets.  The entire South East quadrant of the state is just an extension of New York City.  Even our elected Republican officials are really just Democrats in cheap clothing. [I like to call them “Republicrats” so that I don’t get confused about their conservative credentials.]

So, I don’t really think that our vote much matters one way or the other.  We have 7 electors for our state and they are a “winner take all” voting block.  And, Connecticut law binds electors to vote for candidates to whom they are pledged.  So, I think that it is safe to really vote our conscience here.  We can do no damage to the McCain ticket because our state is already a given for Obama.

Bob Barr (Libertarian) or Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party) are my choices.  Of the two, Chuck Baldwin was endorsed by Ron Paul. 

Give it some more thought.  Do you really want to cast a vote for McCain [of McCain/Feingold, McCain/Kennedy, and the Gang of 14 fame] when you can’t possibly “waste” your vote or end up “helping Obama” in this bluest of the blue, Peoples Republic of Connecticut?  If we were a true battleground state, it would be different.  As it is, I feel wonderfully liberated to vote for someone instead of picking the least bad of two bad choices.

#5, I haven’t given up on the idea of a 3rd-party vote, mostly for the reasons you cite.  Either way, I will be voting YES for a constitutional convention!

“Why [doesn’t the USA] alter the electoral college system and elect the president by popular vote?”—-Terry Tee [#3]

Mainly because direct popular election would work to the disadvantage of those who most benefit from the current system. Right now that means (1) small states and (2) California.

Incidentally, I found VoteMatch to be pretty cool:
http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/Pres2008.asp?quiz=2008

You indicate where you stand on a bunch of issues, and they rank the candidates (including the minor-party ones) according to which is closest to your views.  Barr edged out McCain in matching my responses.  Of course, it’s fairly “sterile” in that it can’t factor in the intangibles like leadership and charisma and trustworthiness and experience… or “Change™”.    But a neat tool anyway.

PS to #7: Another complication is whether, and under what circumstances, to have a runoff election. If you require an absolute majority of the popular vote, you encourage third parties to play spoiler and then cut deals. If you require less than an absolute majority, then what percentage will you require (e.g., 40%)? If you do have a runoff election, how soon after the general election should it take place?

If Americans had made up their minds in favor of direct popular election, these details would be easy to resolve. Meanwhile, they muddy the waters.

Barr edged out McCain in matching my responses.

Me too, then the Constitution Party.  The One was second to last, held out of the basement by the Socialist Party candidate.  Didn’t they get the memo?

William Sulik [#2]: Whoever wins will confront horrendous fiscal problems—-problems that will bring campaign talk about tax cuts and spending increases down to earth with a thud.

For my views on why we will not see a lurch to the left, see this:
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/17451/#296221

The VoteMatch site [#8] is engaging. But the site’s “populist” versus “libertarian” pegs theologically conservative Christians farther to the right end of the political spectrum than is actually the case. In any event, it would be interesting to see what results we’d get (e.g., on political philosophy and presidential preference) if millions of Americans filled out the questionnaire.

It’s not over till it’s over…

The electoral college system gives small states significantly more weight than they would have in a straight popular vote.  A voter in Wyoming has nearly four times as much of a “share” of an electoral vote as a voter in California.

Some people would argue that this is a feature rather than a bug… they would be the people from small states   However, given what it would take to change the system—a constitutional amendment, requiring the consent of at least three-quarters of the states—it’s not likely that you’d get all the small states to agree to a change that would disadvantage them so severely.

Ross [#14]: Agreed. Nor would a political party with a “lock” on California (the Republicans during the 1970s and 1980s, and the Democrats since then) lightly want to do away with the Electoral College.

I think the system is broken.  If these are the best two candidates we can come up with . . ..  Why can’t we do it like Miss America?  Every state send one candidate to Atlantic City for two weeks of debates, speeches and cocktail parties, then let them pick the next president amongst themselves.  At least we won’t be mad at our neighbors for thier Obama 08 sign in the yard.

There are two main problems with the Electoral College.  The first is that candidates all but ignore states that are certain to go against them.  This is problematic for conservative voters in states like New York and California, and for liberal voters in states like Texas, who are functionally disenfranchised in favor of voters in the 10 or 12 states that will actually determine the outcome of the election.  The second is that it can produce results like what we had in 2000, when the winner of the popular vote lost the votes of the Electoral College.  This undermines our government by giving the winner the appearance of illegitimacy.  (I say “appearance” because, as I point to my friends who still complain about 2000, had the winner been determined by the popular vote instead of votes in the Electoral College, the candidates would have run completely different campaigns based upon the point that I made above.  That is, Bush would have been running ads and appearing more in states like New York, Massachusetts, Washington, and Illinois, and Gore would have appeared more in states Texas, Alabama, Arizona, and the Great Plains states.  Bush therefore could have ended up winning by 3,000,000 votes, or Gore could have ended up winning by 3,000,000 votes.  The point is, we’ll never know.  Bush did win by the rules in place, but that point is lost on many people.)

A viable solution to the Electoral College issue should certainly <u>not</u> be to apportion Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district.  This would only give more justification for partisan gerrymandering of districts and would probably create more, not fewer, regions where the vote outcome for a particular candidate is already predetermined.

Never!

Stephen in Falls Church [#17]: Good point about how apportioning votes by congresional district would encourage even more gerrymandering.

Amusing Electoral College fun fact:

I was curious to know just how skewed the electoral result could be from the popular vote.  It turns out that if you take the absolute worst possible case—a candidate wins 50% + 1 vote in just enough states to win an electoral majority, and zero votes in all other states—then you can theoretically eke out an electoral college win with only 22% of the popular vote.

I am supporting McCain because he is a very decent man and really does understand politics at it’s best and is a gentleman.  This is a great story about McCain and Udall.  I hope the link works.  If it doesn’t just google McCain and Udall.  The article was in slate.http://www.slate.com/id/2188545/

“You can theoretically eke out an electoral college win with only 22% of the popular vote”—-Ross [#20]

And that’s just in a two-candidate election.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The closest we’ve come to your 26% scenario was, of course, in 1860, when Lincoln won every free state, garnering three-fifths of the electoral vote; received few votes in the Deep South; and ended up with 39.7% of the popular vote. This four-party contest was the only election in which the winning candidate received less than 40% of the popular vote.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Fact: No Democrat has ever won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. Democrats, by contrast, won the popular vote but did not . . . end up with the electoral vote in 1876, 1880, 1892, and 2000.

I thank the commentators above on their ruminations regarding my point about the electoral college.  After reading Steven iFC and Irenaeus I have come to the conclusion that the electoral college system, while enhancing states’ rights, effectively works to disenfranchise many voters.  It should be abolished and replaced by direct mandate via popular vote.

I don’t think anybody made an important argument in favor of the Electoral College: it moderates the sort of candidate who has a chance of winning, and moderates the kinds of positions they take in order to win votes.  A winning candidate must have broad national support.  If abolished, it would be much easier for extremist candidates with only regional support to scare up 51% of the vote.  Once a candidate has convinced a majority of the voters in an area to vote for him/her, there is no marginal benefit to atttracting voters there.  That’s good - you don’t want a candidate trying to come up with positions that would attract 90% of a vote in an area.

It’s already bad enough that we have class warfare in elections; we don’t need geographic warfare too.

“A winning candidate must have broad national support. If abolished, it would be much easier for extremist candidates with only regional support to scare up 51% of the vote”—-Sidney [#24]

Extremists with a strong regional base have done well in the Electoral College.

—- In 1948, Strom Thurmond, running as a white supremacist with a strong regional base, received 2.4% of the popular vote but 7.3% of the electoral vote. Henry Wallace, a leftist with no regional base, received almost as many popular votes as Thurmond but no electoral votes.

—- In 1968, George Wallace won 13.5% of the popular vote and 8.7% of the electoral vote—-and came close to sending the election to the House of Representatives.

The two-party system, a natural outgrowth of U.S. election rules, provides stronger safeguards against regionally based extremists.