Map of United States Showing Red and Blue States

Here's a not-so-bold prediction: Florida will be close again. So when this finally is over, and all of Florida's electoral votes go to either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, nearly half of the state's voters will feel as if their vote isn't a part of the final tally that decides who is president.

But at least you still have reason to believe your vote might matter. Imagine being a Republican in California, or a Democrat in Wyoming.

As we again prepare to follow the red-and-blue maps, it seems like a good time to revisit the "faulty part of the Constitution."

Those aren't my words.

They are the words of James Madison, the same James Madison who played such a significant role in writing the words in this nation's bedrock document that he is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution."

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I tend to think of our bi-color election maps as something dreamed up by the Founding Fathers. Sure, modern technology has taken the maps to new levels, with fancy election night graphics. But the idea of a state being distilled to one color every four years is as old as this country, right?

At some point in school I probably learned otherwise. It either didn't sink in or I forgot.

When the framers gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to create the Constitution, they did come up with a system for picking a president that involved each state having electors. But they didn't create a winner-take-all system in states.

In fact, when states started to move in that direction in the 1820s, the Founding Fathers were horrified. Madison even backed a constitutional amendment to prohibit it.

He feared that tossing aside nearly half of the votes in a state would have damaging repercussions for the country.

It would make politics even more divisive. You might even say — although Madison didn't put it quite like this — it would lead to red states and blue states, instead of the United States.

And 200 years later, here we are.

Four years ago

When I think back to Election Day four years ago, I remember standing in line outside my polling place. No masks or social distancing necessary back then. So we were bunched up fairly tightly. And without trying to eavesdrop, as we gradually shuffled forward, I overheard the conversation of two men in front of me.

They seemed resigned to the idea that their votes wouldn't count. And by that I don't mean they literally feared their votes wouldn't get counted.

The polls pointed to Hillary Clinton winning Florida. And if that happened, votes for Donald Trump wouldn't mean a thing in the tally that matters. All of Florida's 29 Electoral College votes would go to Clinton.

One of the men said it was time to get rid of the Electoral College, lamenting that with populous states like California and New York reliably going blue, the Democrats had a built-in advantage.

It's easy to forget that this was a common narrative in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

The Wall Street Journal wrote of a "changed electoral-college landscape that in many ways favors Democrats."

Just days before the election, Fox News was reporting that some polls showed the national polls tightening to the point where it was a virtual draw in the overall vote — but, as one of these stories said, it didn't look good for Trump.

"In the end, the popular vote isn't what matters -- it's the Electoral College," pollster Frank Luntz told Fox. "And the Electoral College map is very difficult for Donald Trump, even though in every other indicator it's moving in the right direction for him."

There were columns like the one Steve Flowers, a former Republican legislator in Alabama, wrote for newspapers in that state. It appeared the morning after the election, prefaced by the fact that he wrote it beforehand and expected "very few surprises." Trump would easily carry Alabama, but would have a hard time winning the presidency — because, he said, of the Electoral College.

"The Electoral College System of selecting our president favors a Democrat winning the White House," he wrote.

He called it an "archaic and undemocratic system" — and said it leads to candidates devoting all their attention to a handful of battleground states, ignoring a state like Alabama.

"If you want your vote to count in a presidential race, move down to Florida," he said. "You can probably look at Florida and whoever carried Florida Tuesday won the White House."

He was, of course, right about that.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. But Donald Trump won Florida by a 1.2 percent margin, helping him to a 304-227 Electoral College victory and the presidency — the second time in the last five elections that the winning candidate didn't have the most votes (George W. Bush in 2000).

So I'm guessing that the next morning the voters I was behind in line at the polls had a different view of the Electoral College, a view that likely holds true four years later.

As things stand at this moment, Democrats are more likely to embrace any effort to change the Electoral College, Republicans more likely to resist it. In both cases, I have no doubt that winning math is a large part of the equation. Or that the roles could reverse.

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If Texas continues to tilt more and more blue — to the point where its 38 electoral votes go Democratic in a presidential election — it will be very hard for Republicans to have an Electoral College path to victory in the future.

While it's all great fodder for political analysts — and might be fun if it merely were a board game or election night graphic — it's a lousy way to pick the leader of our country.

Again, this isn't just the opinion of some newspaper columnist in 2020.

200 years ago

In 1823, newspapers included remarks about the presidential election system from George Hay, a Virginian who later became a federal judge. Hay sent some of the newspapers to James Madison. The Father of the Constitution wrote back a letter that can be found in the National Archives — not that you have to go to Washington to read it.

I spent part of last week reading what Madison wrote 200 years ago and watching YouTube videos of an Indiana senator from 50 years ago. The internet, for all of its pitfalls, is a remarkable thing.

Madison starts his letter to Hay by saying that by the time they settled on a system for picking a president, they knew it wasn't perfect. But they were tired and wanted to go home.

OK, I'm paraphrasing, but here's what he said: "As the final arrangement of it took place in the latter stage of the Session, it was not exempt from a degree of the hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience in all such Bodies, tho' the degree was much less than usually prevails in them."

Madison had argued for a national vote in Philadelphia, but a compromise — with slavery as a significant part of the equation — led to the Electoral College and, in 1809, the election of Madison as our fourth president.

In his letter to Hay, he went on to write that the framers never envisioned the winner-take-all stakes for states. He said: "I will sketch for your consideration a substitute which has occurred to myself for the faulty part of the Constitution."

His idea didn't eliminate the Electoral College. It involved districts within states. It never happened.

But 50 years ago — in the fall of 1970 — we came remarkably close to a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a straightforward popular vote. The effort was led by Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh. It had the support of 80 percent of Americans, including President Richard Nixon.

It needed a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, then three-fourth of the states to ratify it. The House passed it overwhelmingly. And while enough states appeared ready to ratify it, when it was filibustered by three Southern segregationist senators, intent on limiting the influence of minority voters in their states, it died on the floor of the Senate.

So here we are.

We like to talk about all the echoes of the past in 2020 — the pandemic of 100 years ago, the civil rights and turmoil of 50 years ago.

Whoever wins Tuesday (or whenever it's officially decided), it's about time for some echoes of 1970 and an effort to change the Electoral College.

All but two states, Nebraska and Maine, still use the winner-take-all system.

This system is, some were arguing at this time four years ago, archaic and undemocratic. It certainly doesn't ensure that candidates pay attention to smaller states. As that former Alabama representative wrote, if you want your vote to matter, move to Florida. Of course, as we know all too well, living here involves being bombarded with ads and campaign visits. So I'm not sure we're the winners in this system.

I just know that we're not a red state or a blue state and that maybe James Madison was right. Turning us into one every four years isn't good for the United States.

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Source: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/mark-woods/2020/10/31/map-red-states-and-blue-states-isnt-good-united-states/6072816002/

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