written from Upper Rock, Wisconsin
(find your bioregion/watershed)
(find your bioregion/watershed)
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written from Upper Rock, Wisconsin
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Why the Electoral Congress is Important to Keep,
and how to make it Popular and Geographic;
For a bioregional perspective on the electoral college, the electoral college is useful. Removing the electoral college will only make and engender more clientelistic relationships to unlocalized party politics and will allow the existing parties to further marginalize the geographic qualities of the vote. Proportional representation in the electoral college allows for both a sense of of the popular vote, nation wide, as well as allows for each states demographic of votes to matter in the electoral college. This will assure third parties in electoral and federal level politics. At issue as well is the way the majoritarian parties gerrymander their own districts, instead of actually allowing congressional districts. These districts are uncompetitive. Changing these is required.
What follows are four emails, three relating to proportional representation in the electoral college, which would allow for a simultaneous registering of the popular vote as well as keep each state's voter demographic as important and meaningful. Removing the electoral college only sets up further clientelism on the majoritarian (Democratic and Republican) parties, where they can set the agenda of politics.
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>Yes, I know that the Naderites voted out of conscience and principle. So did
>the NRA, Right to Life, Real Women, Christian Fundementalists and a host of
>other right wing organizations. I'm not bashing anyone who voted the way
>they did. I'm just asking you to take responsibility for putting GWB in
>office (assuming he does win).
>
>
As we bash ourselves over these issues, let's put this into the formal context that leads to such situations, instead of 'blaming' informal groups that are only captive of a certain situation. The electoral votes are majoritarian in 48/50 of the states, i.e., they give divisive states *entirely* to one candidate one way or another, instead of representing that state accurately which would give a certain percentage of the electoral college votes to a certain candidate. Only Maine and Nebraska do something like this, I read somewhere. So instead of bashing ourselves, bash the formal architecture of voting that leads us to split our vote across 'conscience' and 'pragmatic' voting. We can have both conscience and pragmatic voting, actually.
The formal context that leads to such splits conscience and pragmatic voting that we are talking about: the lack of proportional representation in the electoral college and the lack of IRV, or Instant Runoff Voting. IRV means you vote for as many candidates as you like, **only you rank them** so that in the case of a candidate getting less than 50%, you can design what happens and your second choice votes kick in to a certain person in this situation. Then people can vote their conscience, as well as vote pragmatically as the same moment, by ranking what happens to their vote when a lack of plurality context occurs.
Both of these formal changes--proportional representation for electors to the electoral college, and IRV--would be a useful addition to the United States.
Plus, for a bioregional perspective, the electoral college is useful. Removing the electoral college will only make and engender more clientelistic relationships to unlocalized party politics. It will demote geographic knowledges of politics. If the electoral college was proportaional representation oriented, then each state's vote demographic (instead of only one candidate) would get a piece of the electoral college, which would assure smaller, localist party clout on the federal level as well as the local level. If the electoral college is removed, bye-bye to the last figment of a geographic vote in the United States. The issue is hacking away at these two parties that ride roughshod over the United States, instead of hacking at ourselves in a formal context denies us a way to register our votes that take into account both conscience and pragmatics. If I lived in Florida, I would have certainly ranked Gore second in Florida, meaning that in the FL situation, I could vote my conscience as well as vote pragmatically: my Nader vote would have been heaped automatically to Gore in a situation where no one achieved 50%, which would have avoided this very corruptible 're-count' situation. With Florida on IRV and proportional representation (as options), I could vote my conscience for building a Green party as well as vote pragmatically for Gore--on the same ballot. And, tellingly, with proportional representation on the state level for the electoral college, there would certainly have been a Green presence in the electoral college, even without the Greens 'carrying' any states.
Regards,
Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Here are several messages I have circulated around environmental lists. I felt the 'PR' list would find them interesting. Regards, Mark Whitaker]
here are some messages that have recently been circulated on a list for bioregionalism. Frankly Mike I am surprised that you are suddenly so very Democratic. [I was responding to a Michael Moore piece that had been forwarded.] Either way Bush/Gore helps to delegitimate itself, and the majoritarian parties as a context of the United States electorate, and 2004 will be even more interesting. With proportional representation in the electoral college, you could be assured of more varied parties in the running as an accurate 'popular vote.' Removing the electoral college fails to generate a 'popular vote.' It would remove even more of the population from the majoritarian parties already shallow bailiwick, concentrating their campaigns and pitches more exclusively to urbanized states only.
Mark Whitaker
At 06:21 PM 11/8/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Not so simple. If you understand how the electorial college system works you
>would understand that it tends to even out representation across the
>country. It forces candidates to spend time in less populated areas and it
>reduces the impact that the population of one region can have over the other.
>
Exactly. That's a good idea that it does "even it [the vote] out." Otherwise, only entirely heavily populated areas would endlessly be the majority policy areas that the government considers its 'electorate.' And these areas consume more and that degrade and organize environmental relations in peripheral areas--peripheral areas that would be categorically denied any vote. Yes, it does 'force' candidates to spend time in less populated areas, that's fine with me. Otherwise you can rest assured that each of the two parties would say 'f**# off' to rural areas in the United States with more regularity. Each would pitch only to where they could maximize votes, urbanized states, and ruralized voters would CATEGORICALLY be shunned, if the electoral college were removed. Talk about expanding a low level of feedback from rural states, if the electoral college was removed. Talk about further circling the wagons of the United States elections. Without a set of geographical knowledges integrated into the voting, no one would ever ask, say what Louisiana thinks about environmental degradation. It would be all the more easier to ignore low population areas, where a great deal of the consumptive relationships and politics of distanciated urban consumption derives. If there is to be a Green perspective on formal government structure, the arrangement of geographical knowledges into government is paramount, instead of depending on the clientelistic relations of distanciated party elites. Geography should remain integral to how votes are cast. Of course both majoritarian parties, with their fingers in the 50 geographical states, leave only around 20 or so states actually 'competitive' in elections where they give lip service to integrating externalized groups of the electorate. However, until there is some form of generating a voter demographic for the states through a proportional manner of avoiding clientelism of the political processes that legally constructs and 'gives' all the state to one candidate (which allow certain majoritarian parties to durably 'colonize' certain areas of the United States as their fiefs), you can rest assured that environmental degradation will expand. The issue is less the electoral college. It is the unrepresentative and ungeographically related parties that are in it, because they effectively lack any bailiwick at all they are geographically required to represent. They can pick and choose whom they want to represent, which is the inverse of what having 50 states is about.
And of course this gets into how on the local level anyway, gerrymandered districts keep people cordoned off into these clientelistic relationships and dependencies on a particular party. The electoral district maps are drawn that way, so that the parties have secure areas, instead of drawing them so that they are forced to compete with each other and be representative of a particular area.
Regards,
Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison
At 11:30 AM 11/8/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Simple Al Gore won the popular vote organize public protests. The US would
>condem such an election result if it happened in a developing country.
>
Anyway, this is another example how proportional representation in the electoral college would have registered that 49% clout toward Gore, and kept third parties in action on the electoral college floor-- transferring that 49% it into something more accurate than the majoritarian 'one candidate/all the state electoral votes' in this situation. Gore would have 49% of the electoral votes. Plus, the Greens' would get a few electoral votes in this election as well. Then the Green's handful of electoral votes could be used to avoid Bush. Certainly, according to my math, a few of California's 54 electoral votes would have been Green electors. As for Florida, Nader has approximately 90,000 Floridian votes, this makes around 2% of Florida. With proportional representation in the electoral college for the state vote, the Green vote there could have been even HIGHER AND BE SAFE, since the votes in this lack of plurality situation could have still gone to Gore later on the electoral floor--only Gore would be having to deal with the Green party there from a position of power. These votes could have been transferred into clout on the electoral college floor, if more people had voted their conscience. I do assume of course that Green electoral seats would avoid Bush like the plague, and choose Gore to get the 270 required. Though Gore would be doing some serious deals, instead of empty campaign promises.
According to my math, in California's 54 electoral votes, the Greens at it stands would have had 2.16 electoral votes to their credit from that state. Wisconsin's Green vote would have translated into .44 (or nothing, if one rounds down). With proportional representation in the electoral college, more Wisconsin Greens could have voted their conscience, brought the Greens at least one electoral seat from Wisconsin, as well as forced the Democrats to deal with them. In Oregon, the 5% that voted Green could have voted more with their conscience with proportional representation in the electoral college and achieved one Green electoral seat (figuring from the state level). The Greens got 10% of Alaska, which would have given the Greens from Alaska around .3 (nothing), though more if people voted their conscience in a proportional representation context for the electoral college. Perhaps there would have been a Green elector from Alaska, Wisconsin, and Oregon, to match the assured two from California. Actually, 'winning the presidency' would then be a version of an election between all parties with representative voter clout. Anyone else can do the math for the other states, to see what a different voting context of proportional representation in the electoral college would have brought. CNN has a nice breakdown of the Green vote.
Cheers,
Mark Whitaker
[Other views on the wider political feasability of proportional representation in the electoral college,
forwarded a proportional representation listserve.]
>To: Nat Lerner <natscottl@yahoo.com>
>Cc: full-representation@igc.topica.com
>From: Dave Kadlecek <dkadlecek@igc.org>
>Subject: IRV vs. Electoral College PR (was Re: electoral college comment? the
> other way
>Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 12:43:48 -0800
>Reply-To: dkadlecek@igc.org
>X-Topica-Loop: 700000838
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en]C-CCK-MCD (Win98; I)
>X-Accept-Language: en
>
>PR for the electoral college is potentially easier to accomplish than
>IRV by popular vote, and in effect could be an indirect (non-instant)
>runoff. PR for the electoral college arguably moves more in the
>direction of PR for assemblies than does IRV by popular vote. In
>addition, the danger of associating PR with other problems of the
>electoral college is only a danger if we support a proposal that
>leaves unchanged everything else associated with the electoral
>college.
>
>Requiring states to choose electors by PR could be done by an
>ordinary law, without a constitutional amendment, but more
>importantly it could be done without transferring control of
>elections from the states and localities to a federal election
>department. Conducting IRV nationally would require that a central
>body receive the Presidential preference rankings for each ballot,
>not just vote totals, from every polling place in the country. In
>addition, there would be great potential for jurisdictional
>conflicts between a federal election office and state and local
>election officials, as the federal office would take on some but
>not all of the responsibilities now handled at the state and local
>levels. Would there be a single national set of candidates? What
>would proper ballots look like?
>
>If electoral votes were allocated proportionally, and no candidate
>received a popular vote majority in the election, neither would any
>candidate receive an electoral vote majority. The electors of the
>Presidential candidate(s) not in a position to win could then vote
>for their second choice(s) instead. This would avoid both the
>technical and organizational problems associated with a national
>IRV election and the drop in turnout associated with 2-round
>runoffs. It would, however, be vulnerable to both the perception
>and the actuality of backroom deals for electors' votes.
>
>Unless one sees ranked voting leading to STV as the only way to
>get PR in the US, changing to IRV for a single-winner office is not
>really a move towards PR, except in that it opens the possibility
>of changes in election systems. As a step towards actual PR for
>legislative bodies, either STV or party list election of a state's
>electoral college delegation has the advantage that it is actually
>electing them proportionally. It's a small step to using the same
>method to elect the state's legislature and congressional
>delegations.
>
>The "built-in bias of the EC for smaller states" is only as significant
>as it is because the size of the House of Representatives has remained
>fixed at 435 since 1910. (Prior to then, except for the apportionment
>of 1840 it grew along with the population of the U.S., though somewhat
>more slowly.) If the size of the House were roughly quadrupled, the
>smallest states would end up with three seats based on their
>populations (rather than their current one based on each state getting
>at least one), and their five electoral votes each would give them
>around 50% extra in the electoral college instead of the current
>several hundred percent extra. This, along with requiring that states
>choose their electors by PR, could be accomplished without a
>constitutional amendment, unlike abolishing the electoral college.
>
>/Dave Kadlecek
>
>Nat Lerner wrote:
>>
>> PR in the electoral college would be 'fairer' than now but nothing like as
>> obvious and fair as IRV on a popular vote.
>> It is dangerous for us to advocate PR for the electoral college - since PR
>> may be unnecessarily tarred with the built in bias of the EC (for smaller
>> states).
>>
>> Let's have a clear message - IRV and popular vote for single-winner
>> elections (President, Governor, Mayor etc) and PR for assemblies, including
>> congressional delegations. With a single-winner election there will always
>> be a search for the marginal middle, but the urbanised concentration
>> argument forgets there are milllions of non-voters who would vote with a
>> system that gives them real representation. When they are included - then we
>> will find where the real middle is!
>>
>> Yours for democracy
>> Nat Lerner
>>
>
>___________________________________________________________
>T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17
>Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
related links:
link to a map of the present congressional districts of the United States
link to a map of the majoritarian districts of Wisconsin, compared to the bioregions of Wisconsin
link to www.fairvote.org, where you can see the irregular majoritarian districts.
Choose 'redistricting,' then choose 'future I." This site discusses the degree to which they are uncompetitive as well, with 60+ Congressional representatives and senators 'returning' to Congress without having been challenged when they 'ran' for election. There were over 90 of them in 1996. For a sense of scale, there are only 535 members of Congress total (435 House; 100 Senate). The size of the Congress is adjusted occassionally. The House of Representatives has been at 435 since 1910. Additionally, incumbency as a phenomenon is over 90% in the United States as well. There is very little 'running' for office in the United States. Why is this so? Some of this was explained above. See the other pages for more.
other pages on the bioregional state, keep reading them in order (recommended)
or
Work toward sustainability:
bioregional voting districts
that reflect your experience of
health and environmental risk
