Minion Molly's Mailbag, Part the First.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader really enjoys the private correspondence he is able to have with some minions. Oftentimes these minions ask wonderfully pointed questions, or request that your Maximum Leader opine on something or another. Many writing minions have their own blogs. But sometimes your Maximum Leader is lucky enough to strike up a conversation with a non-blog-owning minion.

This brings your Maximum Leader to his divine minion Molly. The divine minion Molly has requested that your Maximum Leader opine on a number of issues. Alas, many of them require some thoughtful reflection. Time for thoughtful reflection has been short as your Maximum Leader has been spending most of his free time watching baseball on TV.

Now, your Maximum Leader doesn't want to disappoint Molly, or keep her waiting much longer for at least one response. Molly, you see, is a gun-toting Texas Democrat. And being a Democrat in Texas, especially after that whole redistricting thing, means that you can become cranky very quickly. Your Maximum Leader, while very secure in the fortress that is the Villainschloss, doesn't want to disappoint and make cranky a gun-toting Texan. So, here is the first part of what will be a multipart series of your Maximum Leader opining for Molly.

The divine minion Molly writes your Maximum Leader:

I'd like to know your opinion on the Electoral College. I'm sorry Alexander Hamilton, but I can read and write and I don't need someone to vote for me. At least let's update it. I think I'm going to start a petition.

Well, honestly, your Maximum Leader doesn't think too often about the Electoral College. In fact he generally only thinks about it every 4 years.

First your Maximum Leader must stick up for Alexander Hamilton. Your Maximum Leader doesn't believe that Hamilton thought people were illiterate and needed their betters to vote for president on their behalf. Hamilton and the other Framers thought that the yeomen farmers (frontier smallholders if you will) may not have enough exposure to the news of men of stature who should be elected president. While this may have been true in 1787, it wasn't true by 1800. As you can learn from reading Democracy in America, Americans read newspapers and other broadsheets voraciously and were probably better informed in 1804 than they are in 2004.

But while we are talking about the Framers it is important to understand their concerns that led to the creation of the Electoral College. The Framers were not big believers in democracy. They were big believers in democratic republics. It was important not to have rule by the mob, but rule by elected represenatives. In this spirit the Electoral College makes perfect sense. Think about it. The nation was a collection of autonomous states. (This is in 1787 remember.) The people elected the House of Representatives. The states elected the Senate. And it made sense for some sort of blend of the two to elect the president.

Overall, your Maximum Leader believes the system has worked better than the Framers planned. Many of the Framers thought that elections would regularly go to the House of Represenatives because no person would win in the Electoral College. (Your Maximum Leader seems to remember some Framers assuming that the president would be elected from the membership of the House every year.)

That said, given what has happened in our recent past, reform might be in order. And it seems as though Molly has already given thought to this course with her petition.

And speaking of reform of the Electoral College, the people of Kilgore's home state have already started work on changing how their electors are distributed. In Colorado, Proposition (Amendment) 36, if approved, would distribute Electors to candidates in proportion to the percentage of the popular vote the candidate won. (If you care to click the link, it is a PDF. Amendment 36 begins on page 13 of 59.)

While your Maximum Leader has never given much thought to proportional distribution of Electoral votes, he does not favour Colorado's ballot measure. He wouldn't support it, if he were eligible to vote in Colorado, because it would take effect in this election. That is generally a bad idea. Run elections according to a set of rules that everyone knows in advance. Change them in 2008 if you want, but change them this year. No.

Your Maximum Leader doesn't mind the idea of Electoral College reform. But it isn't something for which he is going to agitate. He is not in favour of amending the US Constitution. (Which is, as we all know, very hard to do.) (Luckily.)

According to current law and practice, states determine how their own Electors are allocated. All practice the "winner-take-all" format. Your Maximum Leader supposes that the advantage to proportional allocation of Electors is that it puts every state in play. Living in Virginia, as your Maximum Leader does, he doesn't get much attention from either candidate. Virginia (contrary to the Kerry internal polling) is almost certainly going to remain Republican.

Excursus: Your Maximum Leader only says "almost certainly" because, like sports, no one really knows how it will turn out until the election is held.

Your Maximum Leader would like to get a little more attention to his beloved Commonwealth from the major party candidates. Proportional allocation of Virginia's Electoral votes may accomplish that.

Proportional allocation of Electors has some downsides though. There are two major downsides.

The first major downside as your Maximum Leader sees it is the elimination of the single greatest benefit the Electoral College has shown over its history; mandate generation.

Yes, dear minions. Mandate generation. Let us look at President Reagan in 1984. An election considered a complete total landslide by almost any reckoning. Reagan got 58% of the popular vote and 525 Electoral votes. Proportional electoral allocation would have had Reagan get 312 Electoral votes. Still enough to win, but not the 525 to 13 trouncing he gave to Walter Mondale.

How about Reagan in 1980? Reagan got 51% of the popular vote and 489 Electoral votes. Proportional allocation would give Reagan 274 Electoral votes. An Electoral squeeker.

The second major downside would be close elections would be sent to the House of Representatives (as the Framers envisioned).

Let us not forget our good friend and drinking buddy William Jefferson Clinton. President Clinton received 43% of the popular vote in 1992. But he received 370 Electoral votes. (G.H.W. Bush got 37% and 168 respectively.) In 1996, President Clinton received 49 % of the popular vote; but won 379 Electoral votes. (Bob Dole got 40% and 159 respectively.)

Let us look at the Clinton victories. Had proportional electoral allocation been in effect nationally in 1992, Clinton would not have received the 270 Electoral votes needed to win. He would have gotten 231. The outcome of the election would have been decided by the House of Representatives, and Clinton would have been elected. Since the House was Democratically controlled.

But in 1996, Clinton would have gotten only 264 electoral votes. If the election goes to the House again Clinton doesn't pull it out. Why? Because the Republicans take over the House in the 1996 elections. And the first thing the new Republican Congress has to do is certify the results of the Electoral College vote. They would certify that no candidate got 270 votes, and then decide for themselves. And your Maximum Leader is not so naive to believe that party affiliation wasn't going to influence a vote...

So, on the whole you Maximum Leader doesn't see the need for much change of the system. It works well, generally. What would really help us, in your Maximum Leader's opinion, is a change in the way we vote. What is wrong with the way we used here in Virginia for many years... You take a division.

What is take a division you ask? Well, all the eligible voters go to the Courthouse and they go into a room. Once in the room, the judge asks all voters for Candidate X to move to one side, and everyone for Candidate Y to move to the other side. Then you take a head-count. Clean, efficient, and everyone's intent is known. (None of this pregnant chad stuff.)

Note to Minions: Your Maximum Leader doesn't feel the need to keep this "secret ballot" stuff in the MWO. Remember that.

Carry on.