The Electoral Process

Washington, D.C.: November 21, 2000 Once again Election Day has come and gone and the American people have exercised their opportunity to express their political views...we assume. In what has become a time-honored part of the process, politicians, pundits, village idiots, and schoolteachers will marvel at the wisdom of the framers of our Constitution, the men who created the system that allows the voice of the people to be heard. But this year, we are left to wonder how the system really works. The U.S. Constitution, the document that lays out the basic rules for our political structure, was written by a group of honkies who held widely divergent views and were therefore required to make many compromises. The resulting system (the House, Senate, presidency, electoral process, etc.) was based on a number of assumptions -- many that would turn out to be wrong -- about how the government would or should operate. Most people want to believe that the spirit of the law is being followed, but there have been many presidential elections where "the voice of the people" was dimly heard and sometimes it's not heard at all. Ron considered himself "the voice of the disenfranchised" -- his term for the current US populace -- during Election 2000. He is still arguing fervently that the media stifled the spreading of his celebrated views. "If you think I'm done with this, you are sorely mistaken," Ron said loudly during a screening of the movie "Almost Famous". After being shushed several times, he continued, "How do we find ourselves in a position where our president is selected by an electorate of one? Where is American democracy being followed!?!" The usher had to remove Ron from the theater after this last outburst. To follow Ron's thought process, how do we find ourselves in a position where our president is selected by one man? Back in 1787, each state's government sent representatives to Philadelphia to amend the current law, the Articles of Confederation. Finding it impossible to do this effectively, the delegates took it upon themselves to write a basic law from scratch. These men came from a variety of places and backgrounds and held a wide range of political views. However, they shared a strong dislike for political parties and felt that the government should be fashioned so that no individual, or small group of individuals, would dominate it. The first draft of the Constitution provided that the president be selected by Congress, but concerns about the balance of power led the framers to search for another answer. Among the possibilities were selection by the state governors, state legislatures, or by special commission. They even briefly considered having him elected by the people. This suggestion was rejected partly because the states lacked the uniformity to decide who was eligible to vote but mostly it was because the framers considered the people incapable of making the decision. Eventually the framers would devise the complicated Electoral College, the system that we now labor under. We vote for electors who, in turn, vote for the president. The number of electors that a state has is equal to its total representation in Congress -- representatives plus senators. In modern times these electors have promised to vote for a particular candidate but there is nothing to force them to honor that promise. Every now and then, one doesn't. Moreover, there is no guarantee that we, as citizens, can vote for the electors since the Constitution states that they may be selected in any manner a state desires. The original intent was that electors would exercise free and independent judgment and each would vote for two people, at least one of whom was not from their state. If one person got the vote of more than half of the electors, he would be president and the second runner up would be vice president. If no one got a majority the House of Representatives would select the president from among the five top vote getters. The framers expected that there would be many people who would receive votes and the number five was chosen to ensure that at least some candidates would be from the smaller states. To further protect the small states, the election in the House would be by states -- each state would get one vote. It is probably true that the framers expected that almost all presidential elections would be decided by the House. In practice, this has only happened twice. The framers also thought that this process would discourage the formation of political parties. In fact, parties formed before the Constitution was even ratified and, in early administrations, the president and vice president were from different parties. While much thought was given by the framers to the powers of the president, the vice president's role was not as well defined. The vice president was expected to preside over the Senate -- and vote in the case of ties -- and should the president be unable to perform his duties, step in and run the government. Meanwhile, the presidency has become the dominant post in American politics. Political parties have become extremely important in that only the candidates of recognized parties are routinely listed on state ballots and only those candidates can receive federal campaign funds. Every state chooses its presidential electors by popular vote, on a winner take all basis. That is, the candidate that gets the highest popular vote in a state gets all its electoral votes, a process that maximizes the importance of each individual state in the election. In fact, Benjamin Harrison (1888) was elected even though his opponent received more popular votes. Through all of this, the vice presidency has not changed very much until fairly recently. Even in this year's primaries, John McCain said that he would never accept the candidacy for vice president because "the only duties are to inquire after the health of the president every morning and to attend the funerals of third-world dictators." While this may be true, the office has become an important stepping stone. As is the common situation this year, the sitting vice president has come to have an almost unbreakable lock on his party's nomination when the president is termed out. By modern party convention practice, the vice president is selected by one man, the president. Thus, the biggest reason that Al Gore is running is that Bill Clinton chose him to be his running mate back in 1992. You can bet your last dollar that, whoever wins this year will run for re-election in 2004, and that his vice president will be the party candidate in 2008. "That stinks!" brooded Ron outside the theater, having missed the ending of the movie. "I worked my ass off to found my own party and to strive for glory. These pansy-assed big party boys just fall in step and waltz into office. I hope they choke on it." From 1804 -- when it was arranged so that the president and vice president would be of the same political party -- until 1960, only one sitting vice president became his party's presidential nominee (Martin Van Buren, in 1836). Since then, it has become common. Since 1960, there have been only five elections where the incumbent president did not, or could not, run. In all five of them his sitting vice president became the presidential candidate: Richard Nixon, in 1960; Hubert Humphry, in 1968; Walter Mondale, in 1984; George Bush, in 1988; Al Gore, in 2000. One of the reasons for this was the introduction of the presidential primary, whereby the electorate is permitted to vote directly for delegates pledged to one candidate or another. This works well enough for selecting the top of the ticket but no one runs for vice president. The winning presidential candidate is then free to contemplate his navel, consult with any oracles he chooses, and then name anyone he wants to be vice president. The convention always blesses that choice. After the election, the new vice president has nothing much to do (assuming that few third-world dictators die) except spend four, or even eight, years cementing his ties to the party machinery (usually by raising money) and promoting his name before the public. Thus, when primary time rolls around, his position is usually so strong that no one else bothers to contest the race. (Remember how surprised everyone was when Bill Bradley challenged Al Gore?) On the other hand, there were several Republican candidates who took themselves seriously enough so that this time there was something of a choice in that party. At the Ronatarain Party, there was no question about who the vice presidential candidate would be: Brad. "It was an obvious choice for Ron and for America," said political analyst "Gorgeous" George Jimenez. "I thought Ron stepped outside of the political norm to actually choose an ideal #2 to promote his ideals and policies from within the framework of a Ronatarian presidency. Plus, Brad is a good-looking guy...like me." Aside from the fact that this selection process is essentially undemocratic (the vice president is chosen by one man) it also is not very effective. Notice that of the four decided races where the vice president was a shoo-in for the top spot, he has won the general election only once (George Bush). This notwithstanding, the realities of today's electoral politics will ensure that the practice will continue. So if you are one of the many people who think that Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman are better candidates than George W. Bush and Al Gore, be of good heart. You will have a chance to vote for at least one of them for president in the future.

Posted by Webmaster at November 21, 2000 10:25 PM

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