Making Everyone’s Vote Count

by Stuart Shapiro

By now it is typical for people to wish the campaign were over and complain about all the ads and robocalls.  But if you live in states such as Texas, New York, Oklahoma, or Vermont, you’ve barely experienced the presidential campaign.  In fact, you’d be excused if you thought President Obama and Governor Romney were running for President of Ohio.  Rep. Steve Israel has a plan to correct this:

The head of the House Democratic campaign arm this week proposed a constitutional amendment that would give the winner of the popular vote in the presidential race an additional 29 electoral votes.

Now, this is not a particularly elegant solution (why 29 votes?) and I prefer this one, but at least it brings us closer to a true democracy.  Maybe if (unlikely though it may be) President Obama loses the popular vote but wins the electoral one, we can start to move toward bipartisan support for weakening or doing away with the electoral college.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.