How the worm has turned. After the 2000 presidential cliffhanger, in which Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the election, Democrats led the charge in demanding the abolition of the Electoral College.
Now that President Obama has been re-elected, Republicans are trying to change the formula by which the states allocate these votes.
Both are bad ideas.
Republicans are focused on purple states where they control both the governorship and the legislature — but where voters still went for Obama in November.
Partly that’s because Democrats still dominate the large cities in these states. So instead of the winner-take-all formula, the GOP hopes to add electoral votes to the Republican column by apportioning their electors by congressional district.
That the Republicans are pushing this formula — endorsed last week by GOP National Chairman Reince Priebus — only in states that went for Obama suggests just how cynical a move it is.
Now, the Constitution gives the states the right to allocate their electoral votes any way they choose. And Republicans no doubt are aware of a new Gallup Poll showing strong support across both ideological and demographic lines for doing away with the Electoral College altogether.
But just because the states are allowed to change their allocation doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
Among the virtues of the Electoral College is that it encourages presidential candidates to wage a national campaign instead of focusing only on large states.
It also makes it harder for candidates to ignore groups that tend to favor one party if these groups remain crucial to victory in major states.
Most important, the Electoral College is the best means of preserving a strong two-party system, which is the foundation of America’s political stability.
Abolish the Electoral College — or rig it into irrelevance — and the unintended consequence will be to splinter the major parties into all manner of independent movements and an endless series of runoff elections (or worse).
For 225 years, the Electoral College has served America well.
We’d be better served by a GOP that concentrated on winning elections than on trying to rig them.