The results of the presidential election are in and you probably noticed that no one much cared about your vote.
No, I'm not talking about whether you think President's Bush's re-election is a great disaster or a great triumph. The issue is that neither the national Democrats nor the national Republicans gave a hoot how we in Washington voted.
This let's-neglect-Washington attitude results from combining the mechanics of the Electoral College with our state's mild, but reliable, preference for Democratic presidential candidates.
Why do we get ignored in the race for president? What keeps us from changing the system so that we get our fair share of attention? Is there a way to move forward?
Back to civics class for a moment. Washington has 11 of the 538 votes in the Electoral College. Under the winner-take-all system, the candidate winning the popular vote in the state takes all 11 electoral votes, even if the margin is razor thin.
In November's election, Ohio was hotly contested -- lots of campaign visits and lots of campaign spending -- precisely because the popular vote was predicted to be close enough that either candidate could take Ohio and all its electoral votes.
In contrast, everyone knew well in advance that Washington would go Democratic this year. Just as we did in 2000. Just as we did in 1996. In fact, 2004 was the fifth time in a row that Washington went Democratic in the presidential race. And here's a forecast: Washington will go Democratic again in 2008 and the national parties will pay no attention to us again in 2008.
Under the winner-take-all Electoral College system, swing states are pretty much all that count in the presidential election.
We regularly pick Republicans for statewide office. And the Democratic margin of victory from Washington varies a lot according to who the candidates are, from 2 percent for Dukakis to 12 percent for Clinton. But so long as the Democrat presidential candidate is pretty sure to come out ahead in the state, neither national party is going to spend money or time trying to change the margin of victory.
Getting rid of the Electoral College would have two big advantages. First, we would avoid ending up with a president who lost the popular vote, as occurred in 2000. Second, every vote would count, not just those in swing states.
Getting rid of the Electoral College has one big disadvantage. It's not going to happen. This change requires an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that's not in the cards.
On the other hand, it is within our power here in Washington to make our votes count by dropping the winner-take-all rule. Winner-take-all is a state-determined, not federal, rule. If we like, we can change Washington law to allocate our electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote.
Maine and Nebraska have gone part way down this road. They assign one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. It would be better for us to go all the way to a statewide popular vote, since this reduces the legislative incentive to gerrymander congressional districts.
The stumbling block? Practical politics. The Washington State Democrats would have to be nuts to go for the idea. The current system more or less guarantees the Democrats 11 electoral votes for the foreseeable future. Why trade that advantage for splitting 6-to-5, 7-to-4, or 8-to-3?
The same issue arose in Colorado this past election, with the shoe being on the Republican foot. Colorado voters turned down a proportional split initiative. Not coincidentally, Colorado voted for President Bush, just as Colorado has gone Republican in 9 of the last 10 elections.
There is a way to walk around this stumbling block. We pass a proportional electoral vote reform with an extra provision that the bill goes only into effect when most -- or all -- other states have passed the same law. In this way, the Washington loss to the Democrats is balanced by gains in some Republican state. That's only fair.
Maybe next election the nation could be waiting on the returns not just from Florida and Ohio, but from Washington, too.
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Dick Startz is Castor Professor of Economics and Davis Distinguished Scholar at the University of Washington. He can be reached at econcol@u.washington.edu.
This column appeared in the following publications:
Everett Herald, Nov. 28, 2004
Tacoma News-Tribune, Dec. 6, 2004