The Limits of Corruption

[billroper]

Mark Evanier links to this article by Timothy Noah that argues for the abolition of the Electoral College. This brought back to mind one argument against abolishing the Electoral College that I've not seen made elsewhere, so I'll make it now.

The Electoral College limits the impact of localized vote fraud.

Once you have illegally manufactured enough votes to win a state, there is currently no great advantage in manufacturing more votes. It runs up the popular vote total -- which is nice -- but it doesn't have any further impact on the election. It also provides a disincentive to illegally manufacture votes for a candidate in a state that he would win anyway like, say, Illinois.

But if you eliminate the Electoral College, then every illegal vote counts.

And I live next door to the city of Chicago.

Or as Joe Kennedy reputedly told his son, John, "I'm not buying one damn vote more than necessary -- I'm not paying for a landslide!"

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I would argue that the EC is more likely to magnify the impact of local vote fraud (or other improper practices) than to diminish it. If the race is close in a large state, cheating by a few thousand votes can swing a big chunk of electoral votes. In Florida in 2000, 50,000 heavily Democratic voters were intentionally disenfranchised, which was the only thing that made the election close enough that the rest of the madness that ensued was possible. When Bush was given the state, it gave him the whole election. But 50,000 votes wouldn't have changed the national results. For local vote fraud to have any significant chance of affecting the national count you have to be able to influence hundreds of thousands or millions of votes, which should be a lot harder to do without being noticed.