How elections are really handled is something that most voters aren't aware of. As Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, and Washington's Governor race in 2004 have shown, it is far more than 'count all the votes, and you're done'. At the Federal level, the President and Vice President are elected by electors assigned by the several States. At the state level, each vote is subject to certification and various provisions for recounting votes.
It is telling that the nations the US is attempting to build in Afghanistan and Iraq both lack an 'electoral college' equivalent. The electoral college was a compromise in much the same way that we have different selection methods for the Senate and the House. These new nations have the benefit of having over two hundred years of building democracy to draw on, and an electoral college was not included.
The main problem with reforming things on the Federal level is that doing so requires rethinking some fundamental principles behind the Constitution. Such rethinking will require amendments that change significant parts of the fundamental document of our nation. Some of the compromises that were negotiated when our constitution was created aren't the same issues they once were. One of the big issues was slavery and how to handle it when it came to representation, and that's an issue that's now mood. Another issue is much more complex and that's one of 'States rights'. It is the 'States Rights' issue that is at the core of a lot of the antiquities in our system of government.
Everyone knows by now that the States elect the President and Vice President. The electors that do so are selected by the States themselves by whichever method the State chooses. Once upon a time, the electors were chosen by the State Legislature and not by the voters in the state. Electors don't even have to vote the way they're told, though cases where they did not do so are pretty rare.
Another thing that confounds foreign observers in our elections is the fact that in most cases it is the County that is responsible for handling election procedures. The Counties then report to the state's Department of State (or whichever branch of the Executive handles elections) results of the tally. This is counter to conventional wisdom for handling elections which holds that an independent third party be responsible for handling this. The Governor of California recommended just that yesterday, as I heard on C-Span. Getting elections into the hands of a trusted third party instead of the elected officials whose job depends on it is seen as a very good way to get trusted elections. The weight of years keeps us from doing this, but that isn't always the best of reasons for maintaining an old system.
Changes can be made at the local level to increase trust in elections. These changes don't require changes to the Constitution. Though, being local in nature it is difficult for the Federal government to get very involved in them. Getting elections into the hands of a trusted third party that the local government grants money to hold elections is one big step. A second step is a concerted effort by that third party to better unify the definition of a valid voter across as many jurisdictions as possible.
One of the problems that has plagued every single excruciatingly close vote in the last four years has been the question of, 'what constitutes a valid vote.' The Washington Gov. race hinged on that very definition, and may yet have more drama to come if the current loser in that race presses more court-cases. Florida in 2000 hinged on that issue.
The Washington race is a good example of this problem. "Provisional" ballots were handled differently in different counties, per the local county's canvassing board. Each board interpreted State law differently, and that led to different treatment of ballots. A ballot in one county that was marked provisionally good in one county could be marked provisionally invalid in another and not get counted. If the election is close enough, and Washington's was, such judgment calls on the part of the various boards can swing an election on that alone. In Washington's case King County, a democratic stronghold that also has 1/3rd of the population of the state, had a relatively permissive view on what counts as a valid vote, and this view overturned the initial count of ballots after two recounts. Understandably, the loser in this race is calling for more unified definitions of 'valid ballot', where the winner is happy with the system as it is.
In this case a State canvassing board would have helped take some of the uncertainty out of the race. With a single definition and single
functional definition of what constitutes a valid vote, it could have lent clarity to the race and not dinged voter confidence like the Washington race did. Perhaps an acceptable answer to who won would have been had after only a single recount. Who knows.
At the National level, reforming the Electoral College will require major fights. Right now it disproportionately advantages dinky states like Idaho and South Dakota. There are more dinky-states than big states, and by enough of a margin that the three-fourths of states required to pass an amendment is not likely to get passed. Self-interest, and all that. So the electoral college is not likely to go away without a
serious scandal to propel it through.
Another way to improve confidence in the vote is to adopt some form of instant runoff voting. But that's a topic for another entry.
