If Your Ideas Don’t Sell – Change the Playing Field: Gerrymandering, Limiting the Vote, and The Electoral College

Federal elections are conducted on geographic playing fields under rules established by each of the States and DC. There are a variety of perfectly legal ways to change the playing fields and the rules. Leading up to the 2012 election, a variety of game-changing efforts were underway, and they continue as we head toward the 2014 election.

At this particular moment in history, most of these efforts for change in playing fields and rules are driven by Republican-controlled State governments and political organizations. However, with the possible exception of voter ID laws, Democrats have also tried to change the playing field and the rules when they had control.

Gerrymandering

Leave it to a molecular biologist/neuroscientist to be the latest to study modern gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Sam Wang is an Associate Professor at Princeton University.

Wang makes his case for the impact of modern gerrymandering by examining the Congressional race results in ten States. He has looked at imbalances between the popular vote and the House delegations from that State.

6 States had severe imbalances in favor of Republicans.
1 State had a moderate imbalance in favor of Republicans.
1 State had a severe imbalance in favor of Democrats.
2 States had a moderate imbalance in favor of Democrats.

In all ten States the Republican vote is 7% greater than the Democratic vote. However, the Republicans hold 109 House seats, while Democrats hold 62, a 76% advantage for the Republicans.

Based on a simulation that Wang has prepared, where he removes the impact of gerrymandering, the seat count in the current House of Representatives would be 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats.

At the present time, gerrymandering only affects elections for the House of Representatives. However, if some of the changes being proposed for the Electoral College were to come into being, gerrymandering could become an important issue in Presidential elections.

(For a more extensive discussion of gerrymandering, see “The Great Gerrymander of 2012” by Sam Wang, NYT 2/3/13. If you are not familiar with the Princeton Election Consortium, of which Wang is a founder, it is worth your time to become familiar.)

Limiting the vote

In 2012, as is often the case, efforts to pass laws requiring particular proof of identification in order to vote were designed to limit participation of certain classes of voters, namely the poor and non-white.

There is little, if any, evidence that voter impersonation occurs in elections. A recent study of 2000+ reported fraud cases found only “10 cases of alleged in- person voter impersonation.” The larger problems were absentee ballot fraud and voter registration fraud. Requiring voter IDs at the polls does not solve these latter problems. [Washington Post 8/11/12-News21 investigative reporting project]

Law suits were brought against the majority of the most onerous of these laws, and generally the courts halted implementation. However, in any number of cases, judicial action was premised on the passage of these laws too close to the election. Most of these laws are still on the books, and it is fair to assume that efforts will be made to enforce them in 2014.

Other limitations on the “right to vote” include cutting back the hours for early voting and not having sufficient voting facilities in certain neighborhoods.

The Electoral College

63% of Americans would vote to do away with the Electoral College. On this question there is not much difference between the Parties. 61% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 63% of Independents hold this view. [Gallup]

Up until 1972 all States granted all of their electoral votes to the candidate who won Statewide. In that year, Maine changed to its current system of apportioning electoral votes. In 1992 Nebraska adopted the Maine system.

There has been considerable noise about the possibility of additional States adopting the Maine/Nebraska method. In those States the winner of each Congressional District gets one electoral vote and the Statewide winner gets 2 votes.

7 swing States, currently controlled by Republicans, have been identified as States in which efforts may be made to adopt the Maine/Nebraska apportionment method: Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In these seven States Obama won the electoral contest by 107 to 15 electoral votes. If the Maine/Nebraska system had been in place in these seven States, Obama would have won only 48 electoral votes and Romney would have won 74. Obama would still have won the election, but only by 273 to 265 electoral votes.

In the twelve swing States, Obama received 137 electoral votes to Romney’s 15 electoral votes. If the Maine/Nebraska system had been in place, Romney would have captured 80 electoral votes and Obama 72 electoral votes. Romney would have won the Electoral College victory by 271 to 267.

According to David Wasserman of the “Cook Political Report,” if the whole nation adopted the Maine/Nebraska system, Romney would have won the election by 276 to 262 electoral votes.

Other than the Maine/Nebraska system, a couple of other possible changes have been floated. One plan would follow Maine/Nebraska, except that the two non-CD votes would be given to the candidate who won the most Congressional Districts in the States. In still another modification, the electoral votes of each State would be granted on a proportional basis.

As these ideas have gained some momentum, Republican elected officials in Virginia and Wisconsin have voiced their opposition to the proposals.

Over the years hundreds of proposals to change the Electoral College have been floated. Obviously, other than in Maine and Nebraska, the system in place has been in place since the first Presidential election.

After the 1968 election, in which Nixon received 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191 electoral votes, even though nationwide Nixon accumulated only a half million more votes than Humphrey (Wallace received 46 electoral votes), there was a Democratic-led effort to eliminate the Electoral College.

Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler and Democratic Senator Birch Bayh introduced a Constitutional Amendment to abolish the Electoral College and have the President selected on the basis of the nationwide popular vote. If the winning candidate did not receive at least 40% of the vote, there would be a runoff of the top two candidates.

The proposed amendment was adopted by the House Judiciary Committee and the full House of Representatives in the fall of 1969. The amendment was then adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee. When it got to the Senate floor, proponents were unable to muster the necessary two-thirds majority and the amendment died.

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