How McCain Could Win With 22% of the Popular Vote

That's no typo.

Palo Alto-based systems analyst John Felleman, a student of electoral college quirks, has created a statistical scenario wherein a candidate is rejected by 78% of voters and still gains the Oval Office (see table 1, below).

"Granted, the vote distributions are a bit far-fetched," Felleman says. "But even more believable scenarios show how you can win the presidency by exploiting the electoral college."

Felleman shows (in table 2) how, with just 47% of the popular vote, John McCain could very well collect 271 electoral votes and win next Tuesday (victory requires a minimum of 270). Felleman has used current polling numbers with three plausible variables:

1) 30% of undecided voters vote McCain.
2) 3% of voters stating allegiance to Obama actually choose McCain in the voting booth.
3) McCain manages to outperform polls by 1% to 5% in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Such an outcome would hardly be unprecedented. Remember Richard Nixon's demolition of Hubert Humphrey in 1968, 301 electoral votes to 191? In that election Nixon received 511,944 more popular votes than Humphrey, a margin of victory of less than one percent.

And then there was 2000, where (in the event you're new to Earth) the winning candidate received 543,816 less popular votes than the loser.

Felleman explains how the electoral college enables this: "A Wyoming voter has four times the influence that a California voter does on the outcome of the election. And voters in twelve states have a vote with at least twice the influence of a Texas, Florida or California voter." (See table 3)

1969's proposed Bay-Celler Amendment required the winning team to garner at least 40% of the popular vote. The measure died at the hands of small-state conservatives--Democrats as well as Republicans--who felt it would truncate their states' influence.

Had the founding fathers been equipped with PDAs with algorithmic calculation features to account for trends in modern population density and political dynamics, perhaps the Constitution would have offered a more balanced solution.

There's no time like the present to reflect on a system that allows a candidate to gain office regardless of the popular will.

The Huffington Post is officially open to proposed alternatives.

Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson

Comments

[progressnerd]

Yet another reason to support the National Popular Vote Initiative : http://www.nationalpopularvote.com

[dudervision]

OK, here's a question I've been pondering. Let's say McCain somehow wins this thing next Tuesday. Then, a week or so afterword, it is discovered that his cancer has metastasized and moved into his brain. It becomes apparent that McCain will not be qualified to take the oath of office so what happens??? Does Palin get sworn in as she is the next in line? Can the electoral college take a new vote? If they did switch to Obama what would be the reaction???

OK...this is crazy talk but it's not impossible­...

[rwt1138]

Yes. Palin gets sworn in if they win the election. However, if this were to occur before the election, the RNC would have to pick a new candidate. Technically, they wouldn't be required to keep her but from the way they are talking, it would be all but certain she'd get the top slot. Once she becomes the vice president elect, she is officially John McCain's backup.

I just hope you aren't a Republican early voter to whom this just occurred.

[BlueTide]

No this is not correct. Palin only gets sworn in if McCain after the electors voted in December. If not, then the electors would vote for a new candidate. They could vote for Palin, but that would not be required. Some states would require that the electors voted for McCain, however.

If the electors did choose Palin as president, then the senate would choose the VP among the top two electoral vote getters in the presidential race. If McCain had one in a blow out (won't happen) then its possible that the two top vote getters would be Palin and McCain. We'd have a constitutional crisis. If Obama got second place in the electoral college, then Obama would become the next VP.

[BlueTide]

ANSWER TO QUESTION

If the president-elect dies after the electoral college votes in December, then the VP elect is sworn into office. However, if the president-elect dies before the electoral college votes, then the electoral college would most likely vote for another candidate. The electoral college could get together and agree to vote for the VP elect, but they would not be required to do so. Some states by law bind its electors to vote for the candidate that wins their state, but many states have no such requirement.

If the VP elect is elected president because the president elect died before the electoral college voted, then the Senate would choose the next VP among the two top electoral college vote getters in the presidential election. But there would be a big problem if the two top vote getters were the dead candidate and the VP elect.

Now the idea of a president elect dying before the electoral vote is cast is not unreasonable. Although he did not win the election of 1872, Horace Greeley died on November 29, 1872. Most of his electoral votes were split among other candidates.

[research]

It is long past time to replace the electoral college. This can be done by an amendment to the constitution.

I would like to see the top several vote getting representatives to represent the whole state.

As it is now, the 51% majorigty gets 100% of the congressfolks, so the 49% get 0 representation. Winner takes all.

This gives our government a "Bipolar" character.

The government will represent the people better if congress percentages match the party percentages. This would allow third parties to actually get representatives, and thus grow.

Let's vote for Obama first.

[AZVoter85014]

The trouble in abolishing the electoral college is that uyou'd end with innumerable legal challenges to the voting in all 50 states. For instance, even if Califonia votes 70% for Obama, and hiccup in the voting in, say, Orange County, would lead to a legal challenge, since those Republican votes would be just as imporant aRepublican votes in Texas. At least with the present system there can be only a handful of challenges in virtually 50-50 states.

The bottom line is everytime there has been a clear-cut (more than a 3-5% margin in the popuar vote) winner, that candidate is the electoral college winner.

[partisanpolitico]

I hate that my vote is 4 times less 'potent' shall we say than one from Wyoming?? WTF?? ambien for me tonight.

[Culturemaven]

Ambien day and night until November 4th. I just don't know how I'm going to stand the next few days...

[Doofus]

There may be other, better, reasons not to move to Wyoming.
Like, you could end up living next to retired VP Dick Cheney.

[rmabelis]

Actually there is historical precedence for this. In 1860 the Republican candidate for President won a majority of the electoral vote even though he only received 40% of the popular vote. In 2 states he wasn't even on the ballot. In several others he received only a few votes. When Lincoln won the election anyway the residents of 9 states were so upset they voted ordinances of secession and left the union.

Now to be sure there other factors at work here. The states in question were all run by slave owners and Lincoln was an abolitionist. The states at the time the constitution was written considered the union more of a federation and less of a unitary country. This is shown by the fact those nine states considered leaving the union a realistic possibility. And one reason why the electoral college is anachronistic is because we are far more of a united country than we were when the constitution was written.

We must also remember the founding fathers didn't think all that much of democracy. They didn't even believe in political parties. The constitution had to be amended to provide for separate voters for president and vice-president because political parties had come into existence. The people, thought of as "the mob", weren't considered capable of picking a good president. Instead they would be made to vote for "elitist" electors who would make a proper choice. So yes it is time to think of alternatives to the electoral college.

[Doofus]

Not totally unlike what happened with Clinton vs Bush vs Ross Perot in 1992.
It obviously has happened a few times that the President gets elected with less
than a majority of the popular vote. And then sometimes the Supreme Court gets
to make the call. Probably better to do it that way then going to war over it.

[ConcernedCanadain]

While I know the following scenario will never occur, it is theoretically possible and more importantly, completely constitutional.

A candidate could be elected President of the United States by receiving as few as eleven(11) votes.

A candidate wins each of the 11 largest states by a count of 1-0. The 11 states are Ca(55), Tx(34), NY(31), Fl(27), IL(21), Pa(21), OH(20), Mi(17), NJ(15), NC(15) and Ga(15). The electoral votes for these states adds up to 271.

11 votes equals POTUS.

[Doofus]

Hey, Canada, particularly in the largest states, electoral votes are proportional to
population, so if the eleven largest states have more than half the electoral votes,
that's because they have more than half the population, so your hypothetical vote
would correspond to the popular vote, which is just what 'everyone' wants.

The screwy part, though, is that TX+GA+NC+FL+OH almost never vote the same
way as CA+NY+IL+PA+MI+NJ.

[holyhandgrenaid]

no, it wouldn't amount to half the popular vote for one thing, only the first 435 EV's have anything to do with population, the last 100 are senate votes. Also, states with 3 EV's have more votes that population should correspond (that being the point of the article).

Your scenario assume that a candidate wins 100% in those 11 states to boot.
Disregarding the near impossibility of that coalition without a colossal landslide nationwide, hypothetically if each of those states was won by a margin of only 50.1% to 49.9%, then you would end up with popular vote numbers that are abysmally low, despite a legal win

[LeftRight]

The problem is that each one of those states goes winner take all. So a person who simply gets 20% of those who vote, and his closest opponent gets 19% of those who vote...... You could EASILY have someone win those 11 states and be elected POTUS while only gaining one percent of the popular vote!

[Shieldmaiden]

This scenario is not gonna happen. McCain can still win, but I don't see him turning any blue states red. If Obama wins Florida (and that's looking more and more likely) McCain may be finished. Just vote early, and try to encourage any undecided people you know to vote Obama.

[starboymikey]

Okay, well technically McCain could get one vote in 49 states ... from the only individual in each of these states that bothered to vote. Obama could draw the votes of all 20 million or so people who went to the polls in California. He would thus win the popular vote by 20,000,000+ to 49, yet lose the election in one of the greatest electoral landslides of all time ... this despite winning well over 99.99% of the popular vote.

Stupid scenario? Of course. But the one presented here in which McCain wins despite getting just 22% of the popular vote makes only slightly more sense. It simply doesn't happen that way in real world American elections.

Sure, we've learned first-hand how the electoral collage can trump the will of the majority of Americans. And we know that it can (and probably will) happen again sooner or later. But we don't need such extreme examples to "get it." The 2000 election was more than real enough, thank you.

[demfriend]

And now McCain says they are tied with Obama with teh polls in Fl that show them really close are more accurate than the ones showing a huge lead. It is making me want to hide or take sleeping pills and wake up next week after the race! How much more do we have to listen to McCain and not wonder if once again we will lose when we have backed the real winner? It scares me more to think of McCain Palin in office than the fear of a terrorist attack. We can never recover from an out of control duo after what we have had with Bush/Cheney. The six month Biden talked about with the threat to come after the election will mean the nukes will be out with McCain. For sure if Palin has the red button to push.

[hardesty]

Okay, I just back from lunch and I feel sick. I'm hoping this is a "doomsday" scenario. I can't sleep as it is, now what am I supposed to do?

[Doofus]

It's a RIDICULOUS scenario. If there were 10 states, 1000 voters
in each, you'd have to win five states, and that would require
just a little more than 2500 (out of 10,000) votes (5 times 500).

If this were a real 'advantage', Obama could employ it just as well
as McCain. It's just NONSENSE put out by people who ought to know better.

[gallimaufry03]

Well, I'm an atheist but for the next few days I'm gonna be a devout christian and pray like hell.

[SaraPulis]

Why not campaign instead? There are strong logical reasons to believe that campaigning works.

[Brian187]

This must be the basis for the McCain camp internals showing that they still have a shot. Sorry, but America is not going to let this happen again.

[Islanders6466]

I agree brian187 - Lets not let this happen...B­ut it's not the popular vote, or, electoral college that is scaring me...It's what the Repubs/GOP are doing right now - Suppressing votes, and intimidating people from voting..in other words stealing votes, and unless this is stopped, all this talk is a mute point...

VOTE EVERYONE - Obama '08

[zendem1]

Let's stop thinking about how Grampa can win, and instead think about how Obama can.

[DosaHut]

noooo!

[COLOMBIA]

YOUR ANALYSIS IS SPOOKY AND SCARY