From: bam@bnlux1.bnl.gov (Bruce A. Martin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Electoral College
Date: 9 Apr 92 21:00:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: bnlux1.1992Apr9.210047.21671
Distribution: usa
Organization: (none)

In article <1992Mar31.213536.14234@cco.caltech.edu> jafoust@cco.caltech.edu (Jeffrey Alan Foust) writes:
>...
>Also there were the 'close calls' of 1960 and 1976 (I recall reading an article
>once that stated that if only a few thousand votes each in a few critical 
>states had switched from Carter to Ford, Ford would have earned an electoral
>majority, but without a popular majority or plurality).

The 1976 "close call" was interesting in several ways.

Ford actually won more states (27).  There was also a very strong showing by 
some third-party candidates, and the electoral college vote was actually split
among three different individuals.  

If the election had gone to the (newly-elected) House, most people assume that
Carter would have won because the Democrats had the majority in most of the 
Congressional delegations.  However, Carter was an "outsider" and somewhat 
unpopular among some factions, and Ford won 27 states -- including all those
West of the Mississippi except Hawaii.  

There would have been some pressure for a state's delegation to cast its
single vote as indicated by the voters, rather than along party lines.  One
can only imagine what incentives might have been offered to new Hous members
(by a sitting President, and well-liked former House member) to "defecting"
Dixicrats, Boll Weevils, or whatever (from a sitting President) to cast a
vote "in accord with the will of the people" back home.

Not a certainty, at all.

Another interesting aspect of 1976 is the fact that Carter was a MINORITY
president.  He did not receive 50% of the votes cast for President in the
1976 election.  Here are the figures (from NYTimes and UPI):


        Carter          Democrat                40827394  49.98%
        Ford            Republican              39145977  47.92%
        McCarthy        ---                       745042   0.91%
        MacBride        Libertarian               183187   0.22%
        Maddox          American                  170673   0.21%
        Anderson        Amer.Indep.               153009   0.19%
        Camejo          Soc.Worker                 90109   0.11%
        Hall            Communist                  58689   0.07%
        Wright          Peoples                    48981   0.06%
        LaRouche        U.S.Labor                  40008   0.05%
        Bubar           Prohibition                16228   0.02%
        Levin           Soc.Labor                   9265   0.01%
        Zeidler         Socialist                   5991   0.01%
        Reagan          (write-in)                  1260   0.00%
        Brown           (write-in)                   101   0.00%
        Nixon           (write-in)                    13   0.00%
        Wallace         (write-in)                    12   0.00%
        "None of Candidates Listed"                 5108   0.01%
        Other void etc.                           180811   0.22%
                                                ========   =====
                                   TOTAL        81681858 100.00%

Some written accounts of the 1976 election have fudged the numbers to give
Carter 50.02%, by ignoring the "None of the Aboves" and write-ins in states
which do not tally them.  However, it is indisputable that Carter received
votes from fewer than half of those who cast votes for President in 1976.
(There were many others, of course, who stayed home or who went to the polls
but did not vote for President.  The above counts only those who voted for
someone for President.)

>
>The electoral college is an anachronism, but it's one that will likely remain in

Actually, I think the PURPOSE of the electoral college was to achieve CONSENSUS,
and that this purpose has been achieved by CONVENTIONS of the political parties.

I prefer the more-open Electoral College to the Party Convention system, 
but the parties have corrupted it som much that there's little hope for it.
I understand that in two states (Maine & Nebraska?), you vote for ONE elector
from your district plus two statewide ones.  This is far superior to the
winner-take-all system in most states.

Another purpose, of course, was to give the smaller states a bit more
clout in a Federal system.  (If they had only one vote instead of three,
they'd be even more easily ignored.)

>...[we might be]
>having to dust off the 12th Amendment and have the House decide the election...

I don't see how that would be bad at all.  Much better than the current 2-party
monopoly.

>Jeff Foust                        Junior, Geophysics/Planetary Science, Caltech
>jafoust@cco.caltech.edu   	        	    jeff@seismo.gps.caltech.edu
>         "The only way to kill an idea is to stab a man in the head."
>                  - from Saturday Night Live, 14 March 1992


BAM  /|\Master of the Tripods of Haephestus./|\    -/s/-  Bruce A. Martin
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections