Without Electoral College, Campaigns Would Shift

2017 Apr Public Forum Topic Area: Election ReformResolved: The United States ought to replace the Electoral College with a direct national popular vote.

For the April Public Forum topic students can research the history, politics, and incentives created by the Electoral College system. The U.S. was founded as a republic and the Electoral College helped small states maintain influence. Without an Electoral College, few Presidential candidates would bother making multiple trips to Iowa and New Hampshire each election cycle.

But maybe that would be a good thing. Should Iowa farmers and New Hampshire coffee shops have such an outsized role in each Presidential election? Consider the tens of millions of Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas who had no voice or impact in the recent election.

Presidential candidates and their campaign managers knew California and Texas mattered only for raising campaign funds, so focused their time and money on swing states instead. In what sense do Texas and California voters give their consent to Presidential elections if their votes won’t matter in the winner-take-all Electoral College system?

Supporters of the Electoral College could advocate reform so state electors could be split to reflect the popular vote. “Faithful Electors: If Every State Split Electoral College Votes, No One Would Be President-Elect,” (Medium, Nov. 11, 2016) discusses the challenges of a system of “faithful” electors voting as their state’s citizens vote. Looking at the November votes

Based on an analysis of the latest tallies as of the morning of November 10th, a state-by-state popular vote split of Electoral College votes would result in a lot of redistribution of votes. As a result, no candidate would have the required majority of Electoral College votes needed to become the next president. … 

This is a big part of the reason why anything beyond two party system is guaranteed to fail in the Electoral College system. More candidates would earn Electoral votes, but none of them would meet the threshold to become president. We would need to switch to instant-runoff voting (or similar) in order for candidates to achieve a majority of support.

A problem with judging the direct election of the President alternate, or a split Electoral College system, by the last election is that if the rules were different the campaigns would have been different.

The Presidential campaign teams focused their money, time, and ground game on winning key states to win the Electoral College. They didn’t focus on the popular vote, so spent less time with campaign stops and rallies in Texas, California and New York. Nearly 67 million people live in California and Texas, or nearly 1/5 of total US population. With New York/New Jersey population of 29 million added, nearly 100 million live in these four states, approaching 1/3 of US population.

“Here’s How Campaigns Would Work If We Abolished the Electoral College,” (Time, November 17, 2016), discusses how direct election would shift the system:

But strategists who have worked on presidential campaigns say that would change the way elections run dramatically, possibly exacerbating some of the complaints Americans have about their current system.
They say that under a national popular vote, they would push their candidates to spend more time in TV interviews; hold more rallies in big cities like New York, Houston and Los Angeles; raise vastly more money for nationwide advertising, direct mail and voter outreach; and focus more on their party base than swing voters.

With direct popular vote Presidential campaigns would like focus their efforts in big population centers in New York/New Jersey, California, Texas, Florida, and other big states. But that’s where the people are. The U.S. Census report lists ten largest US cities.

The Pew Research Center post “Trump’s victory another example of how Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones,” (December 20, 2016), notes:

…Donald Trump won 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 227… That result was despite the fact that Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more popular votes than Trump in November’s election,…
This mismatch between the electoral and popular votes came about because Trump won several large states (such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) by very narrow margins, gaining all their electoral votes in the process, even as Clinton claimed other large states (such as California, Illinois and New York) by much wider margins. Trump’s share of the popular vote, in fact, was the seventh-smallest winning percentage since 1828, when presidential campaigns began to resemble those of today.

An additional rationale for the Electoral College was to check populist enthusiasm that the Founders feld majorities were susceptible to.

“The Electoral College Was Meant to Stop Men Like Trump From Being President,” (The Atlantic, November 21, 2016) explains:

Most of the men who founded the United States feared unfettered majority rule. James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that systems of government based upon “pure democracy … have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” John Adams wrote in 1814 that, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.”

It’s easy to forget (or never learn) the more important role the states had before the Progressive Era, World Wars, and New Deal:

The Constitution says nothing about the people as a whole electing the president. It says in Article II that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” Those electors then vote for president and vice-president. They can be selected “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Which is to say, any way the state legislature wants. In 14 states in the early 19th century, state legislatures chose their electors directly. The people did not vote at all.

Many online posts and articles can be found defending the Electoral College system as well as advocating replacing it with direct popular elections. However, Public Choice economists tend to focus on a different problem, one of rational voter ignorance.

Jason Brennan in “Trump Won Because Voters Are Ignorant, Literally,” (Foreign Policy, November 10, 2016) outlines the role of incentives in keeping voters uninformed:

Trump owes his victory to the uninformed. But it’s not just Trump. Political scientists have been studying what voters know and how they think for well over 65 years. The results are frightening. Voters generally know who the president is but not much else. They don’t know which party controls Congress, what Congress has done recently, whether the economy is getting better or worse (or by how much).

Public choice economists note that people are more likely to research new cars or smartphone because their “votes” matter in the quality and functions of the cars and smartphones they end up with.

Not so with politics. How all of us vote, collectively, matters a great deal. But how any one of us votes does not. Imagine a college professor told her class of 210 million students, “Three months from now, we’ll have a final exam. You won’t get your own personal grade. Instead, I’ll average all of your grades together, and everyone will receive the same grade.” No one would bother to study, and the average grade would be an F.

The New Yorker reviews Jason Brennan’s Against Democracy (November 7, 2016) begins:

Roughly a third of American voters think that the Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability to each according to his need” appears in the Constitution. About as many are incapable of naming even one of the three branches of the United States government. Fewer than a quarter know who their senators are, and only half are aware that their state has two of them.

Amazon link to Against Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2016), with free “Look Inside”.

Brennan, in this LearnLiberty.org video “How to Vote Well,” discusses problems like cognitive bias, that add to the challenge of rational voting with a system of direct election of President. YouTube video:

Needed: More Startups, not States

Much has changed in the Middle East over the last twenty years. Israel’s economy has shifted to more open and less socialist, and average income is much higher. The Israeli government still controls much of the economy and subsidizes money-losing firms, but a vibrant tech sector is home for hundreds of innovative start-up firms.

Christopher Schroeder’s Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East gives a glimpse of what to expect as venture capital supports dozens, hundreds, then thousands of Middle East entrepreneurs from the Palestinian territories to Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE, Egypt and other countries in turmoil in between.

Imagine the Middle East with millions carrying hand-held computers. That’s not some distant utopian tech future but today in the Middle East. For the over 75 million people in Turkey, nearly 90% have cell phones. Other ME countries are shown below, and you can see the problem for Egypt. Cell phones network friends and relatives, speed business communication, and also allow access to news and information from the outside world.

The stories from Startup Rising paint an optimistic future for most of the Middle East. Israel already enjoys a dynamic tech sector, and now capital and expertise are surging through other Arab countries.

You can learn more about Startup Rising “looking inside” the book on Amazon. Plus online videos with Christopher Schroeder, the author, tell his story. Here is a Google for Entrepreneurs video from December, 2013. About five minutes in, this Economist article is mentioned with its focus on “Startup Spring” in the Middle East. Excerpt from The Economist:

The story sounds like a common one from Silicon Valley or Silicon Roundabout, London’s start-up district. But Ms Taher tells it in a café in Amman. She is just one of several hundred entrepreneurs, many of them women (see article), who have started online firms in Jordan’s capital in recent years, making it one of the Middle East’s leading start-up hubs. Even more surprising, such clusters (“ecosystems” in the lingo) have been popping up all over a region that is better known for armed conflict and political strife. Whether in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Riyadh or even Gaza City, small technology firms are multiplying, creating a sort of “start-up spring”. (Link to source.)

Here is a review of Schroeder’s book from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Excerpt:

In 2001, when Save the Children wanted to launch a version of Junior Achievement in Jordan, they asked Salti to be country director of what they called “INJAZ Jordan,” or Jordan Achievement. Holding her freshly minted MBA from Northwestern, Salti accepted, eager to return home and make an impact. She later would found a regional INJAZ office to spread the model across fourteen countries in the Middle East. 

INJAZ was one of the earliest “private public partnerships,” as they are commonly called today. Salti and her mother started with a USAID grant that matched contributions from local businesses, and chose schools in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. Their goal was to hold additional classes at the end of each day to not only supplement education, but also to focus on job-related skills and to push kids to think about entrepreneurship and develop their own ideas. Their first volunteers were friends and family, and they soon began to recruit local business leaders and their staffs to mentor and train local youth in after-school programs.

Junior Achievement in Jordan also teaches entrepreneurship to young people. Junior Achievement Middle East and North Africa on their JA website.

Segment from a Milken Institute panel with Christopher Schroeder.

Instead of--or in addition to--advocating a two-state Israel/Palestine, U.S. policy could encourage technology entrepreneurs across the Middle East. The U.S. could promote reduced barriers to funding new enterprises and development and marketing their products. 

Better policies would encourage employment and boost technology firms. Reforming broken or outdated U.S. policies helps promote prosperity in the Palestinian territories and across the Middle East.

Here is recent success story: “Palestinians attempt to create their own start-up nation,” (Financial Times, May 1, 2016):

   Less than five years later, Yamsafer is one of the region’s largest hotel booking sites, according to its founder. It recently closed a $3.5m funding round in one of the biggest venture capital deals the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories have seen.

    Yamsafer employs 70 people in Ramallah, a place where too many young university graduates are chasing too few jobs. “The people we hire are more hungry than people you would have hired in Dubai, Jordan or elsewhere,”

From China to Palestine: Charters & SEZs Preferred to States

Nation building and nation-states can be more trouble than they’re worth. For the Middle East, non-state paths to prosperity include Special Economic Zones (SEZs), charter cities, soft-partition, federalism, enclaves and more. Institutional reform matters for peace and economic development than political and election reform.

The March NSDA Public Forum topic is:

“Resolved: The United States should no longer pressure Israel to work toward a two-state solution.”

Consider the most economically-free place in the world--Hong Kong--is not a state and was long a colonial charter city before handed over (or back) to the People's Republic of China in 1997.

How might U.S. policy encourage and support more Hong Kong-like economic freedom across mainland China, as well as across the Middle East and North Africa? And can the institutional and economic reforms that transformed China's SEZs like Shenzhen from poor fishing villages into flourishing modern cities also work in the Palestinian territories?

The Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World: 2016 Annual Report: 2016 (September 16, 2016), is relevant for both the China policy topic and for the Israel/Palestine two-state topic. The reports top-rated countries:

Hong Kong and Singapore, once again, occupy the top two positions. The other nations in the top 10 are New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Georgia, Ireland, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia and the United Kingdom, tied for 10th.

Small and independent formerly British colonial territories Hong Kong, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates (“Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah and Umm al-Qaiwain”), plus New Zealand, Canada, Australia make up the top ten. Also in the top ten is Switzerland, an association of mostly-independent and diverse cantons. (However, not all former British colonies are wealthy or economically free, and the success of many today should not be taken as a defense of British colonialism.)

What lessons do these success stories hold for Israel, Palestine, and the U.S.? Here is an Economic Freedom Basics page with this video:

The people of Hong Kong were poor in the 1950s, as were people living in Palestine. Through the 1950s, millions of impoverished refugees arrived in Hong Kong, escaping from communist China.

Across the Middle East as in Asia, World War II disrupted and impoverished millions. Hundreds of thousands fled or were expelled from Palestine in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Then hundreds of thousands in long-established Jewish communities in Arab countries fled or were expelled.

Over the decades since 1950, Hong Kong residents have prospered, as have residents of Israel, but the economy of the Palestinian territories and its residents have not prospered.

Hong Kong’s charter with England protected international trade and investment, and taxes stayed low. Economic freedom and a great port enabled Hong Kong to grow rapidly prosperous. Could similar charter cities and economic freedom policies have enabled Palestinians and others in the Middle East to similarly prosper?

Turmoil and violence in Syria today turns on the Alawite minority’s long political and military control. Syrian could have been a much more prosperous place had the Alawites been able to keep their enclave independent from Syria. “Syria’s Ruling Alawite Sect” (New York Times, June 14, 2011). The article was written before the Syrian conflict erupted from Arab Spring protests, and as part of explaining Alawite history mentions:

During the French Mandate, there was even a short-lived Alawite “state” based in and around Latakia, created in 1922. As William L. Cleveland explained in his “History of the Modern Middle East,” the Alawite state was “administratively separate from Syria until 1942.”

Enclaves, charter cities, and other administrated territories have a long history across Europe as well. Just check out a map of Europe in 15th Century.

Political decentralization invites conflicts, but also open political competition where families and businesses can relocate to better governed territories. For an introduction to political decentralization, the Hanseatic League, and the potential of charter cities, see “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty,” (The Atlantic, July/August, 2010)…

Shenzhen, a sleepy fishing village across the bay from Hong Kong gained Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status from Deng Xiaopeng economic reforms in 1979, this 2009 report compares to similar "Instant City" success in the Arab world:  

"...Shenzhen exploded from a tiny fishing village on the Hong Kong border and Dubai rose from the dessert in the Middle East, it would be hard to fathom that a New York Times architectural critic would mention them in the same breath as Paris and New York. Both Shenzhen and Dubai have risen at a dramatic pace, and become known as an "instant city," albeit with very different histories and different scales, forms, and functions, respectively." (source: "INSTANT CITY" COMING OF AGE: CHINA’S SHENZHEN SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE IN THIRTY YEARS (pdf) (Trinity College, 2009)

For more on Shenzhen, see Wired's video: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware (Part 1) | Future Cities.

See also, "Can the Dubai Model Inspire Arabs?" (National Review, January 4, 2016)

Earlier version of this post continues here on NCPA Debate Central.