It's a tiny irony: I think we should abolish the electoral college, but without it, the
Swing State Project wouldn't exist. Not to worry - I'm
sure I'd find something else to write about. In any case, we've been discussing the unusual electoral arrangements in Maine and Nebraska recently, and they've prompted me to think a little bit about electoral college
reform, rather than abolition.
Here's how it works in ME and NE: If you win the popular vote in a given Congressional district, you get one EV (which in theory represents each CD's congressman). If you win the overall statewide vote, you get two EVs (which in theory represent the state's senators). So in Maine, which has four total EVs, you could wind up with them getting split 4-0 or 3-1 (but never 2-2). In fact, in 2000, Bush nearly won Maine's 2nd CD. Had Bush won it, Gore still would have netted 3 EVs because Gore's statewide totals would almost certainly have exceeded Bush's. (Nebraska could go 5-0 or 4-1, but 3-2 would be pretty unlikely.)
To get rid of the electoral college, you'd need a Constitutional amendment, which would likely never pass because it would diminish the power of small states. But states could adopt the ME/NE system very easily - I imagine all it takes is some legislation, or perhaps a state constitutional amendment. (Not that I think this wholesale change is likely to happen, though.) On the face of it, the CD-splitting system seems to be more representational than the electoral college. At the very least, it's one step closer to counting the popular vote, I think. I'm not sure if it would truly be an improvement over what we have now, but it might be.
So I have some questions about this potential arrangement:
1) Had this system existed in every state in 2000, what would the EV count have been?
My instincts tell me it would have hurt the Dems, quite possibly very badly. But since this is just a theoretical exercise, this is beside the point, for now. I can't seem to find any listing which shows every American CD in one place, but if anyone wants to look into this, I'd be very interested to see the results.
2) How would candidates campaign if this system existed nationwide?
Obviously, candidates would ignore CDs that lean heavily one way or the other. But they would start visiting states that they otherwise skip entirely now because they'd want to hit populous "swing CDs" in otherwise solid states like California or Texas. This still means they'd skip most major cities (apart from fundraising jaunts) because they lean heavily Dem, and they'd obviously avoid rural areas just because those are both hard to campaign in (physically) and are usually reliably Republican.
The conclusion then, I think, is that candidates would campaign heavily in suburban swing districts. I'm not sure how much this differs from present practices - witness the devotion to "soccer moms" and "office park dads", both of whom are decidedly suburban figures. But at least candidates would hit up the `burbs in NY and GA, rather than just PA and OH.
On balance, I'd say this would be a qualified improvement. As an urba-phile (that's not really a word, is it?), I'm naturally reluctant to hand over any more clout to suburbia, but it's probably already too late to worry about that. And I do think this would get us closer to a true popular vote count. So maybe one of these days I'll be producing the "Swing CD Project". Nah - that sounds a little too Big Bad Voodoo Daddy to me.
P.S. A thought just occurred to me, which I think should have been obvious at the start: Could a state pass a law appointing electors simply in proportion to the total popular vote won? I don't see why note. Article II § 1 of the US Constitution says: "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." Seems like the states have free reign here.