A lot of people are upset with how much money is involved in our presidential contests. A national vote rather than electoral vote system would require a lot more money to win.
I don't worry about that. Money is how speech is broadcast. How else do we let candidates duke it out for our hearts and minds without the ability to give us their message or refute the other side's message? But a number of concerned people do worry about money.
Right now, the money is going into a small number of swing states. Most states are pretty stable one way or the other so there is no point in spending money in those states whose electoral votes are predictable.
Can you imagine how much money would have to be spent if you got actual votes in each state counted toward a national total rather than getting winner take all in nearly all the states as we have now?
And that's aside from the encouragement for voter fraud that would be created. After all, is there really incentive for voter fraud in California when it is surely going to go Democratic? If you simply got the votes for California, you'd have incentive to cheat that just isn't there right now.
Really, I don't trust all the attempts to regulate money in politics for our own good. The outcome is so important that money will flow to the process one way or the other. By adding regulation upon regulation, you simply insure that only those who can lawyer up to figure out how to legally spend can spend. The little fish are the ones caught in the regulatory net.
If you are really concerned about money in politics, shrink the role of the federal government to reduce the incentive to spend money on winning in politics.
Heck, if we reduce the stakes of winning control of Washington, D.C., maybe we'll even get some civility in our politics.
Oh, and while I'm defending the electoral college, can you imagine the chaos that Hurricane Sandy would cause if we had a national vote system? Nobody doubts that President Obama will get all of New Jersey's and New York's electoral votes regardless of how many votes are cast. Sandy does not affect our race under our current system.
About Me
- Brian J. Dunn
- I live and write in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan AB and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. Former American history instructor and retired nonpartisan research analyst. I write on Blogger and Substack. Various military and private journals have published my occasional articles on military subjects. See "My Published Works" on the TDR web version or under the mobile version drop-down menu for citations and links.
