Of our elaborate plans, the end....
Further to a comment made by AravisArwen on my last post on this subject, and thanks to an article in the Observer this weekend, I've been doing a bit of research into the US Electoral system. Specifically, I was looking into the way that the electoral colleges work.
Basically.... in 1787 at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, there was a lot of disagreement about how states would be electorally represented proprotionally to their population. Because the Northern states were more populous at this time than the South, this was seen to represent a threat to slavery, a clause was eventually inserted that artificially boosted the population of the South - the so-called three-fifths clause - every slave (who obviously did not have a vote themselves) was considered as 3/5s of a person for the purposes of deciding the number of votes in the electoral college (this actually prolonged slavery by giving political power to the slavers)
In addition to this, the convention also agreed to allow any state, regardless of its size to apportion only two senators in the upper house. This means that Wyoming, with a population of 1m (and Dick Cheney's state), adds two to its basic electoral college vote of one. California has a population of 32m, but still only gets to add two senators to its electoral college vote of 52.
The 3/5s clause was abolished after the civil war, but the electoral college remains. Why do we care about this today?
Because it means that it is more likely that the winner of the popular vote in a presidential election could be denied the presidency by the electoral college... the winner takes all of the votes, no matter how small his margin of victory. So Bush (officially at least) took all 27 college votes in Florida in 2000 (and the presidency) by 527 votes.
This "winner takes them all" rule with the electoral college votes also explains why the two candidates have spent so much of the last few days of the campaign in the so-called "battleground states" (places like Florida - 27 college votes and 49%/49% in 2000, Ohio - 20 college votes and 46% / 50% in 2000 , Wisconsin - 10 college votes and 48% / 48% in 2000, and so on, and so forth...)- often states with not as much clout in terms of population as many, but with absolutely crucial college votes at stake... these are the ones where all the college votes really could boil down to a couple of hundred ballot papers....
One especially interesting scenario is what happens if we have a electoral college tie 269/269: Under the 12th amendment to the US constitution, in case of a tie, the House of Representatives chooses the president. Because Republicans will probably control the House, President Bush would be likely to win. BUT the Senate chooses the vice-president, making it theoretically possible that Mr Bush could be saddled with John Edwards as his second-in-command.
Not that we British should get too smug - our "first past the post" system means that much the same thing could happen here too....
Sorry if this makes boring reading, either because you are American and know all of this already, or if you are from somewhere else and don't care.
So apologies, but I'm gripped.
And it's not as though the result has no bearing on the rest of the world, is it?
posted by swisslet @ 22:05
5 Comments:
At 11:25 pm,
swisslet said…
I've just read this back through.... perhaps I should come clean and reveal to anyone who cares that I studied history when at University (albeit medieval history - very apt for a career in IT, I'm sure you'll agree).
Usually this tends to reveal itself harmlessly in a desire to watch programmes about the English monarchy in the Middle Ages and be picky when people talk about the existence of "facts".
Today I see it chose to reveal itself in a ridiculously long and over-detailed post on the US electoral system.
Apologies.
At 8:46 am,
LB said…
At the risk of sounding terribly supercilious, I spent most of my degree studying the Americal Presidency and political system. Yes, it is potty, but perhaps not quite as potty as the UK system whereby a party could lose by just 650 votes and get no representation in the House of Commons whatsoever.
it's very exciting though. With my betting head on I put my £20 on the Republicans last night simply on the basis that when push comes to shove, standing in the polling booth if you're unsure, you'll go for "the devil you know" (see John Major's victory in 1992). And that should be just about enough to see Bush through.
At 9:30 am,
The Num Num said…
Its a shame that a country that sells democracy to others as a great freedom, doesn't quite implement it in a fair and honest way.
I still think a large swab of the USA has ingrained racism/xenophobia which really can't be good for the rest of the world.
Another 4 years of Tony Bush and George Blair then...
At 10:28 am,
Teresa Bowman said…
Ever read "Made In America" by Bill Bryson? The organisation of the US constitution was a right shambles from the word Go, and it strikes me that Those In Power still haven't sorted it out to this day. Don't blame them; it must be like trying to solve a Rubik's cube made of cheese.
Myself, I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and singing "La la la, I can't hear you" until this whole US election thing is over. And even then I might just carry on doing it for a while longer.
At 8:53 am,
Aravis said…
Actually, I appreciated the way you laid it all out. Thanks!
What you need to understand, and after the outcome of the elections I don't think you'll find it hard to believe, is that the average American is fairly ignorant about how our government works. We are taught, but few care to remember. Immigrants applying for citizenship know more about our country than we do,and it is treated as a joke, albeit a poor one. The past couple of elections have woken a lot of people up, one way or the other. Noises have been made for the past four years regarding the possibility of tossing the electoral college system. There isn't too much popular interest yet though; it is written off as Democrats being sore losers. You referred to slavery, and that brings up another interesting point. When you look at the breakdown of how states voted, it's closely aligned with the breakdown of slave vs. non-slave states at the time Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. You can see the maps at http://blog.veggiedude.com/ listed under Nov. 7's entry and draw your own conclusions.
Also unfortunately, the typical American doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about our actions, despite the impact we have on it. When the Guardian tried its letter campaign, though well-intentioned it had precisely the opposite effect. People were outraged that a foreign gov't would try to influence voters. I'm afraid it did more harm than good, because the Guardian didn't understand our basic psychology. Nobody from the outside can tell us what to do, and even another American had best be careful about how they suggest something.
I realize that there are layers of irony in this comment I'm posting. To be honest there's plenty of bitterness as well. Though not a Democrat (I'm politically unaffiliated) I really wanted Kerry to win. I can't stand Bush, and I can't stand the mentality that saw him elected. My only hope of surviving the next four years is the the thought of fighting his policies every chance I get, and I dream that his administration will screw up royally in a way that can't be ignored or swept under the rug. I fear it would take a bomb being dropped on us though, because it seems we are a nation of ostriches.
Once again, sorry for the long post. I just feel so strongly about what is happening, and I can't believe- despite all I have said here- that so many of my countrymen are so dumb.
Post a Comment
<< Home