OCR Text |
Show Election System May Change For many years there has been agitation to change, through Constitutional amendment, our method of electing elect-ing Presidents, by abolishing the electoral college system as it is now constituted and replacing it with a system based on the popular vote. It now looks as if this proposal has an excellent chance of becoming law. If it does, it will revolutionize the established pattern of political campaigning. Under the existing'system, the candidate who gains a majority in a state gets the entire vote of the state in the electoral college. It doesn't make any difference how bare that majority may be. He might carry a state by but a single popular vote yet he would get the whole electoral vote, and that is the vote that counts. The constitutional amendment which is now pending provides that each candidate's electoral vote shall be proportionate pro-portionate to his popular vote. In other words, if a man received 51 per cent of a state's popular vote he would get that'percentage of the state's electoral votes instead of all of it. And if, on the other hand, he got 49 per cent, he would be given that part of the electoral vote instead of none. The influence this would have on campaign politics is obvious. For instance, the Republicans never spend much money or effort in the Solid South. They know that their chance of gaining a majority in any of those" states is but one short step removed from impossible. However, under the proposed new system, it would behoove the GOP to do its utmost in, say Tennessee no less than in Ohio. Every Republican vote, even though the total was still modest, would help their candidate toward the White House. By the same token, Democrats would no longer just go through the motions of campaigning in solidly Republican Republi-can states such as Vermont. They'd be out to get the largest larg-est proportion of the vote possible. President Truman has said he doubts if the proposed change can be effected in time to influence the 1952 campaign. cam-paign. But, as Jay Hayden points out in one of his columns, "All constitutional amendments recently adopted have run the gauntlet of state ratifications in less time than would be available to complete the enactment of the present pres-ent proposal before 1952. The amendment repealing pro- 1 !1 li! 1- 1 I .A A A I f 1 A 1 niDiuon oecame a law auuui xen momns ancr 11 was suo-mitted suo-mitted to the states. The amendment abolishing the "lame duck" session of Congress made the grade in 11 months. The amendment legalizing woman's suffrage was approved in 14 months. In any event, it promises to cause important and far-reaching far-reaching changes in the partisan political setup as it now exists. |