Bob Schieffer of CBS, an elder stalwart of American politics, declared before the election that Obama surely would not win by a landslide. I would say 332 electoral votes to 206 electoral votes is a veritable landslide unto itself, even if it doesn’t reflect the popular vote. And of course, it doesn’t.
At one point Scott Pelly, also of CBS, made a special effort to point out that although Obama had clearly won the electoral vote, Romney was then actually still leading the popular vote. Finally, Obama did win a majority of the popular vote, but by a paper thin margin.
We’ve heard the reasons why the electoral college was instituted to begin with. It made sense in a world where there was no electricity, no electronic communications, and when the fastest transportation had to stop to drink water and eat hay.
It no longer makes sense. Even if the conundrum snafu, where one wins the electoral vote and the other wins the popular vote, hasn’t actually occurred, the system still should be changed.
It seems to me the burden of campaigning should be in all fifty states. In many states, if he had campaigned, Romney might have picked up the difference in the popular vote and actually won. It would change strategy and policy to reflect appeal to all voters without bias to the swing states.
Voters in states that are not battleground states seem more likely to become apathetic and disenfranchised with the political system. And after all, shouldn’t that two billion dollars spent on the presidential campaign be spread a little more evenly to the media and other vendors who work for and provide services to the campaigns in the non-battleground states?
People would be more informed and more involved in the political process if candidates had to be sure to court the full electorate in every state without discounting some to the sidelines as being already committed. As an individual, I don’t like the fact that my independent vote isn’t represented by a delegate when all delegates of a single state vote as a block.
Congress should review the process and instigate needed changes to make one person with one vote, and every vote counts, a reality.
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© 2012 – Jim Casey
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