The way we go about electing a President may seem to be confusing. That’s because it is confusing. First, each party has to pick a nominee. That means either a primary or a caucus in each state, where they decide which candidate their delegates will support at the convention. There’s a magic number (which is pretty much 50% + 1) that a candidate wants to reach, thus securing the nomination.
But with the Democrats, there’s another factor to figure in. They have “super delegates” who are basically any current or former elected officials from the party (senators, representatives, presidents, vice presidents, governors, etc.) They should, in theory, vote as their constituents do, but that and five dollars will get you a half-caf mocha latté at Starbuck’s. They get to vote as they damned well please, and don’t have to make up their minds until called upon to do so. They could easily sway the nomination away from the popular vote, which is why they’re under such scrutiny these days.
Once the nominee has been chosen and officially announced at the convention, they select a running mate and it goes on again, this time to the general election. But the President is not chosen by how many votes each candidate wins, but how many electoral votes. Each state has a share of electoral votes equivalent to its representation in Congress (number of representatives + number of senators) and the candidate who wins in that state gets all of its electoral votes. They total up all the electoral votes and the loser makes a concession speech. Then it’s all over until Inauguration Day.
Isn’t There A Better Way?
The first thing that makes all of this such a mess is that each state sets its own rules. Some have primaries, some have caucuses. Some are closed to only registered party members, some are open to all voters. Some award all their delegates to the winner, some split them according to the percentage of the popular vote. And they fall all over the calendar.
I think we should simplify this. First of all, a bipartisan commission needs to set the rules. Primaries or caucuses? Closed or open? Winner take all or split the delegates? Just settle on one and be done with it.
Now pick a day, say, a Tuesday in April or May, since the process likes Tuesdays so much. Then have a real “Super Tuesday,” where every state has its primary on the same day. The winner of these primaries (which should be closed) gets the nomination. If no clear winner is decided, the top two candidates go on to a runoff in the states where neither frontrunner won.
With this system, the conventions can be done away with. They’re mostly just grandstanding and hot air anyway.
The Electoral College is never going to go away, despite how some people whine that it should be scrapped. But I think how the vote is taken should be regulated. The act should leave a paper trail, a physical ballot that can be counted (or re-counted). We can’t leave the job to technology that can be tampered with.
Minnesota Issues
One of the biggest problems with elections in Minnesota is that you don’t need a majority to win; you just need the greatest number of votes. In a three-way race (which it usually is) a victor can emerge with as little as 40 percent of the vote, provided he got more votes than any of the others. This is how Tim Pawlenty got elected. This is how Al Franken got elected. This is how Jesse Ventura got elected.
In Louisiana, where I come from, if no candidate gets a majority of the vote — 50% + 1 — then the top two candidates proceed to a run-off election where the winner is decided. That’s a much better way to do it. There’s talk of something called “instant run-off” voting being kicked around in debates here. The way it works is you vote for a first and second choice candidates. If nobody gets a majority, they drop all but the top two candidates and count second choice votes. I suppose you could throw in third and fourth choice votes and keep this going ad nauseum. I don’t think I like this idea. It’s too complicated for the average voter and I don’t trust a mathematical equation to select our elected officials. No, I think we should have true run-off voting, like they do in Louisiana.
- The 2012 Presidential Election
- President Barack Obama
- My US Senators
- Minnesota Governor
- The Tea Party
- The Electoral Process
- My Perfect Voting System
