Maryland and the Electoral College
It’s hardly news at this point that, as it works today, the Electoral College undermines American democracy. It does so in three fundamental ways: First, it betrays the principle of majority rule, threatening every four years to deliver the White House to the popular-vote loser. Second, it reduces the general election contest to a matter of what happens in Ohio, Florida, and a handful of other swing states, leaving most Americans (who live in forsaken “red” and “blue” states) on the sidelines. This in turn depresses turnout and helps give us one of the worst rates of voter participation on earth. Third, because of its proven pliability, the Electoral College invites partisan operatives, legislators, secretaries of state and even Supreme Court justices to engage in constant strategic mischief and manipulation at the state level.
We Maryland Democrats were not acting in a partisan spirit. The National Popular Vote plan will not necessarily help (or hurt) us. In small-d democratic fashion, it simply benefits that party whose presidential candidate best appeals to the majority of Americans in an election—that could be us or them. Several colleagues pointed out to me that, had John Kerry won another 60,000 votes in Ohio, he would have prevailed in the Electoral College but still lost the national popular vote by more than 3 million votes. My answer then was: So be it. The object here is not to get a Democrat elected president. It’s to get the person with the most votes elected. Is democracy itself now a partisan idea?
It is time for the American people to elect the president directly and democratically. Let us give every American incentive to vote in an election in which every vote counts. Let us (finally) agree to stop playing strategic games and let the chips fall where they may with a national popular vote.
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