by Ron Diener

G21 Alumnus

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WENDELL, NC, USA - The Constitution of the United States, as originally conceived and adopted, was a deeply flawed document. Thanks to the ongoing process of amendment, some of the worst problems with the document have been at least ameliorated, if not fixed. The chief architect, Thomas Jefferson, remains to this day a puzzle and a conundrum - an architect of freedom and the owner of slaves, a believer in democracy and the fashioner of electoral tricks. Perhaps the worst flaw of the Constitution and a remaining major problem is the Electoral College, followed closely by the methods for electing the U.S. Senate.

There are three important flaws to the Electoral College, if one were to go no farther than simple arithmetic.

The first is that the system of electoral votes depends on the population of a state, not on the numbers of eligible voters, registered voters or actual voters. A state that manages to create the most barriers to the ballot box leaves those who are entitled to the vote with a disproportionately weighty vote. As we know, bare majorities can create such barriers, making it all but impossible for the other political party to win an all-or-nothing election.

The second is that the system of electoral votes is built, in part, on the distribution of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and of the U.S. Senate. Given the inequalities of numbers of voters represented by each senator, that system is perpetuated in the vote for President. There is nothing sacred about state lines for many other purposes: why not apportion seats in the U.S. Senate by population, five congressional districts conjoined to form one senate district? The maldistribution of senate seats as they are now treated gives disproportionate power to the states with the least population. These states are western, containing much Federal land, dependant on extractive industries, tending to be conservative, with some of the worst records in social services and education.

Third, it is simply not just that a voter in Wyoming, voting for the President of the United States, counts almost three and a half times as much as a voter in Minnesota. Look at the Wyoming/State index [W/SI] to see which states' voters count the least. [SEE Chart Below.] Which states are hurt the worst? Not the largest states (California [W/SI 1.20], New York [W/SI 1.18], Texas [W/SI 1.22]), but the middle-size states (Minnesota [W/SI 1.00], Michigan [W/SI 1.04], Wisconsin [W/SI 1.03], Massachusetts [W/SI 1.08]). And which state has its voters treated to a weighting that makes their ballots count twice as much (and more) than these? New Mexico [W/SI 2.04], Delaware [W/SI 2.23], South Dakota [W/SI 2.31], Rhode Island [W/SI 2.38], District of Columbia [W/SI 2.42], Vermont [W/SI 2.49], North Dakota [W/SI 2.54], Alaska [W/SI 2.57], Hawaii [W/SI 2.65] and, of course, the Grand Champion, Wyoming [W/SI 3.42].

After the Civil War, the congressman who shepherded the several western lands first into territories, then into states, was James Ashley (1822-1896) of Toledo, Ohio. He served eight terms in Congress, then accepted an appointment as a territorial governor and later attempted twice (unsuccessfully) to hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his many years out of office, his was a powerful editorial voice in local papers in Ohio, as well as occasionally reprinted throughout America.

At the end of his career in the House, he recognized that there had been a terrible mistake in admitting the sparcely settled territories of the west, because their populations would never approach that of the industrial/agricultural states of the midwest. And he saw thereby the weakening of his own political power expressed through the ballot. As his final days in the House approached, he tried to reassemble the new territories of the west (Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska) into one or possibly two states. Anticipating the eventual st atehood for Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona; he thought these should be brought into the Union as one state.

He said that he was moved by comparing the election results of 1824 (the first election after his birth) to that of 1892 (he lived only four more years). While the post-bellum House and Senate had succeeded in correcting some of the problems with the Jeffersonian Constitution, the critical challenge of the Electoral College remained. He pointed out that a candidate with only thirty-seven percent of the popular vote could win the Electoral College. The combination of varying ballot strength per vote and the winner-take-all election rules made the Electoral College (and the voting for U.S. Senate) the most undemocratic remnants of the revolution era of U.S. history. Ashley was correct then, and his arguments retain their value today.

After 1992, many conservatives thought that the election of William Jefferson Clinton was not legitimate, because Perot had siphoned off votes that "rightfully belonged" to George Herbert Walker Bush. President Clinton did have a plurality of the vote and the majority of the Electoral College. In 2000 George Walker Bush did not have a majority of the vote, nor a majority of the votes in the critical state of Flordia, yet with the help of partisans in the U.S. Supreme Court was able to seize office. Only the African-American representatives in the U.S. House wanted to pursue an investigation before Bush could take office.

After the Florida 2000 election flap, there was brief discussion of reform. The discussion was intended to go no further than to acknowledge that there is a problem. The most powerful individuals in the U.S. Senate - from disproportionately small states - would have to vote against their own interest in order to fix the problem. Politicians in this country may have voted against their interests and on behalf of a deeper justice in the past - perhaps with women's suffrage, civil rights voting act - but those times are gone.

Elsewhere the U.S. Supreme Court has decided several times on behalf of one-man one-vote - which carries the day in the sole exception of the U.S. Constitution and the Electoral College. I believe in justice and I believe in one-man one-vote, especially for the office of President of the United States of America.

2000 Figures

	TOTAL	Bush/Cheney	Gore/Lieb'man	Other	Electoral Votes	Total/EV	W/SI
Alabama	1,666,272	941,173	692,611	32,488	9	185,141.33	1.32
Alaska	284,492	167,398	79,004	38,090	3	94,830.67	2.57
Arizona	1,532,016	781,652	685,341	65,023	8	191,502.00	1.27
Arkansas	921,781	472,940	422,768	26,073	6	153,630.17	1.59
California	10,965,856	4,567,429	5,861,203	537,224	54	203,071.41	1.20
Colorado	1,741,368	883,748	738,227	119,393	8	217,671.00	1.12
Conn'ticut	1,460,177	561,104	816,659	82,414	8	182,522.13	1.34
Delaware	327,529	137,288	180,068	10,173	3	109,176.33	2.23
Dist C'lmb	201,894	18,073	171,923	11,898	2	100,947.00	2.42
Florida	5,963,070	2,912,790	2,912,253	138,027	25	238,522.80	1.02
Georgia	2,583,208	1,419,720	1,116,230	47,258	13	198,708.31	1.23
Hawaii	367,951	137,845	205,286	24,820	4	91,987.75	2.65
Idaho	501,615	336,937	138,637	26,041	4	125,403.75	1.94
Illinois	4,739,935	2,019,421	2,589,026	131,488	22	215,451.59	1.13
Indiana	2,199,302	1,245,836	901,980	51,486	12	183,275.17	1.33
Iowa	1,314,395	634,373	638,517	41,505	7	187,770.71	1.30
Kansas	1,072,216	622,332	399,276	50,608	6	178,702.67	1.36
Kentucky	1,547,106	872,520	638,923	35,663	8	193,388.25	1.26
Louisiana	1,765,656	927,871	792,344	45,441	8	220,707.00	1.10
Maine	651,790	286,616	319,951	45,223	4	162,947.50	1.50
Maryland	2,021,987	813,724	1,143,888	64,375	10	202,198.70	1.21
Mass'etts	2,698,994	878,502	1,616,487	204,005	12	224,916.17	1.08
Michigan	4,232,501	1,953,139	2,170,418	108,944	18	235,138.94	1.04
Minnesota	2,438,685	1,109,659	1,168,266	160,760	10	243,868.50	1.00
Missis'ppi	994,184	572,844	404,614	16,726	7	142,026.29	1.72
Missouri	2,359,892	1,189,924	1,111,138	58,830	11	214,535.64	1.14
Montana	410,986	240,178	137,126	33,682	3	136,995.33	1.78
Nebraska	697,132	433,850	231,776	31,506	5	139,426.40	1.75
Nevada	605,655	301,575	279,978	24,102	4	151,413.75	1.61
New Hamp	567,795	273,559	266,348	27,888	4	141,948.75	1.72
New Jersy	3,187,226	1,284,173	1,788,850	114,203	15	212,481.73	1.15
New Mexo	598,605	286,417	286,783	25,405	5	119,721.00	2.04
New York	6,821,999	2,403,374	4,107,697	310,928	33	206,727.24	1.18
No Carolna	2,914,990	1,631,163	1,257,692	26,135	14	208,213.57	1.17
No Dakta	288,256	174,852	95,284	18,120	3	96,085.33	2.54
Ohio	4,701,998	2,350,363	2,183,628	168,007	21	223,904.67	1.09
Oklahoma	1,234,229	744,337	474,276	15,616	8	154,278.63< /td>	1.58
Oregon	1,530,549	713,577	720,342	96,630	7	218,649.86	1.12
Pennsylva	4,912,185	2,281,127	2,485,967	145,091	23	213,573.26	1.14
Rhode Isl	409,112	130,555	249,508	29,049	4	102,278.00	2.38
So Carolna	1,383,902	786,892	566,037	30,973	8	172,987.75	1.41
So Dakta	316,269	190,700	118,804	6,765	3	105,423.00	2.31
Tennessee	2,075,753	1,061,949	981,720	32,084	11	188,704.82	1.29
Texas	6,407,637	3,799,639	2,433,746	174,252	32	200,238.66	1.22
Utah	766,697	515,096	203,053	48,548	5	153,339.40	1.59
Vermont	293,794	119,775	149,022	24,997	3	97,931.33	2.49
Virginia	2,736,640	1,437,490	1,217,290	81,860	13	210,510.77	1.16
Washingtn	2,487,433	1,108,864	1,247,652	130,917	11	226,130.27	1.08
W Virginia	648,251	336,473	295,497	16,281	5	129,650.20	1.88
Wisconsin	2,598,607	1,237,279	1,242,987	118,341	11	236,237.00	1.03
Wyoming	213,726	147,947	60,481	5,298	3	71,242.00	3.42