--Norman Thomas

Okay, before getting to today's entry, I ought to get to a couple of things I haven't yet gotten around to mentioning. First, for those left in suspense after Sunday night's entry, I did find my W-2 forms around 4 AM, and my financial aid forms were sent out the next day.

Second, I received word on Monday that I didn't make the first cut for the British Marshall Scholarship.

Third, I received word on Wednesday that I was chosen for Phi Beta Kappa.

Fourth, I never did make it to class on Wednesday, although I did make it to the wedding. Which was nice, and lovely, and might have been even more so if I had been fully conscious.

The elections have been far from the only roller-coaster in my life lately.

Isn't it wonderful?

No, really, I'm serious. I think this is great. In close elections, there's no reason why we should have the final results in one night flat, even if we do live in an age of instant gratification. I've been enjoying every minute of this. But that's not quite what I want to write about this week.

What I want to write about is the misguided notion that it would be a good idea to abolish the current Electoral College system in favor of a simple popular vote, and the even more misguided notion that the results of the election at hand support that idea.

First things first. That popular vote number you'll find in the newspapers, magazines, and almanacs, showing the total number of people across the nation who voted for any given candidate? It means nothing. Sure, it'll be great for trivia questions, but that's about all. Assertions about candidates winning the electoral vote but not the popular vote give the latter an unwarranted degree of validity.

The argument for using the popular vote assumes that a vote in New Mexico is the same as a vote in New York and the same as a vote in New Orleans; that every person's vote is governed by the same rules and is of equal value. This is a nice thing to believe, but it's not true. Every state has different rules for voter registration, different rules for absentee voting, different rules for voting in general, different degrees of access to polling places, and so on. It won't surprise me if by 2004 some states will allow voting over the Internet, while others will stick to more traditional voting methods. If the rules in State A make it easier for its citizens to vote than the rules in State B, then State A will have a disproportionately high degree of influence in the presidential election.

For a popular vote to work, then, there would need to be federally-imposed standard rules for elections used across the nation. In the absence of that, any such numbers being bandied about are effectively meaningless.

Okay, you might say. So the current popular vote number doesn't count. Still, it's a good idea in principle, right? Why not standardize the procedures and switch to that system?

There are any number of problems with this. First, there's the practical problem: even if everybody agreed that this was a super idea, creating and imposing a whole new voting system across the nation would be a royal pain, and would cost a fortune. And it would require amending the Constitution, which isn't especially easy either.

It would also be a radical shift in the nature of the election, taking it out of the hands of the states, and putting it entirely under federal control. It seems to me that this would be removing one of the checks the states have on the federal government, and would not be an especially good idea.

In fact, looking further down the line, the implications of that really bother me: if, for the first time, a wholly federal election system were imposed, possibly taking full advantage of modern technology to make vote tallies almost instantaneous, it's not hard to imagine a scenario down the line when state governments are bypassed entirely and federal referenda are used regularly, perhaps in the name of increased democracy. I refer the reader to The Immortals, by Tracy Hickman, for a vivid picture of the potential problems with that.

Switching to a popular vote system would also take power away from smaller states. At the moment, each state gets a number of electors equal to the sum of its senators and representatives. The former is always two; the latter is proportionate to its population. This means that the smallest state has three electors, while a purely proportionate system would give it one; this slight curve means that aspiring candidates have to attend to the needs of the smaller states, which they otherwise might be able to overlook entirely. This, again, is a state-centric argument, but it's one that needs to be considered carefully before abandoning the current system.

Incidentally, the silliest argument I've heard is that, if the popular vote were used, we wouldn't be suffering through days of waiting for the Florida recount. On the contrary, the popular vote was so close that, as I type this, it's still not completely clear who won it, despite those oh-so-accurate network projections. If it were being used, we'd now have to endure a national recount. That's supposed to be easier?

But the current system works; if anything, this year's election proves that. We don't have anybody threatening to take military control, and the government hasn't come grinding to a halt.

The one loophole that ought to be sewed up is the fact that, technically speaking, the popular vote is used to vote for electors, and those electors can, technically speaking, vote for anybody they choose. This is an artifact of the system, one that serves no useful purpose. And, in fact, it would seem that a week before the election, the Republican Party was actively looking into the possibility of getting Democratic electors to change their votes, should Bush have "won" the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. That would've amounted to a coup d'état, and would have been the one course of action that would legitimately have been grounds for a revolution.

There are two ways of fixing this: amending the Constitution, so that "electors" are no longer actual people with free will of their own, but are rather a fictional construct determined by the outcome of state elections; or creating new legislation in every state requiring electors to choose the candidate voted for by the people, with the penalty, if violated, being the maximum possible for treason, which is what such an action would amount to. While the former would be better, the latter may be the best we can manage. It ought to be pursued, though, as the integrity of the electoral system is too important to be left unprotected.