Edward Foley

[Presidential Elections and Majority Rule] by [[Edward B. Foley]]
During the recent election, I felt compelled to do some detailed reading about our Electoral College system, which I've been increasingly dissatisfied with. In looking for a book, I found that it is very difficult to find a book on the electoral college that is not blatantly partisan. This seemed like a best option, and I think it was. Foley keeps his biases largely to himself and seems to rely on the historical record and the show more Constitution.

The crux of his book is explaining the Jeffersonian electoral college which was amended to the Constitution in 1803 through the 12th amendment and relied on the idea of electing a President with a compound majority of majorities. In simple terms, because the founders had a two party system and had no indication that more than two parties would be involved, they relied on each state to produce a candidate that had majority support and to give it's electoral votes to that majority candidate. In that way, the national winner of the presidential election should have a majority of voters in each state and therefore a compound majority of majorities.

He then goes through every Presidential election, showing the times that this compound majority of majorities has failed. The instances when it has failed have been when there has been a third party candidate that garnered votes making the winner actually a plurality vote winner instead of a majority. There are six times this has happened where it has obviously changed who would have won the majority vote if a third party candidate was not involved. It has been an increasing problem since the 1990s. In addition to those six elections, there have been several more times where a president has won without a majority of majorities but it is unclear if the candidate would have won anyway, even if the third party candidate was eliminated.

Foley does not advocate for removing third party candidates, but instead believes that each state should commit to producing a majority winner who receives its electoral votes. This could be achieved in many ways - the most obvious being an instant runoff. Each state is constitutionally allowed to assign its electoral votes in whatever method it wants, so this doesn't shouldn't face any prohibitive legal/constitutional issues. It also, historically, would benefit both parties as both have faced the opposite party winning with only a plurality of the vote, so it doesn't need to be a partisan issue. Runoff votes actually also give third party candidates a more powerful voice than our current system, but then ensure that in the final count, a winner will have a majority vote from the people of the state.

I personally have been a fan of the national movement of a compact of states agreeing to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Reading this book has give me pause, or at least food for thought. Foley points out that this system has no assurance that the votes will go to a majority preferred candidate. In fact, the winner of the national popular vote is often a plurality vote winner and this could mean a person with 30-some % of the vote could end up winning the Presidency. Consider this from either perspective: for me, I imagine if Trump had his legions of support and the Democrat party had a split vote one year - say a moderate national candidate and then a Bernie Sanders-style candidate who pulled a vote with 35% of the vote and 20% of the vote and Trump won with 45% of the vote. But if we had a run off system, most of those voters who voted for Bernie actually preferred the moderate Democrat to Trump. We would end up with a President who the majority did NOT prefer under our current system. But if each state insisted on awarding electoral votes to a majority candidate, this would not happen.

Amending the Constitution to get a Presidential election based on a national vote requiring a majority winner is basically a pipe dream. There is no shot of it happening any time in the near future, but a state movement to require electoral votes go to a majority winner is not a long shot. It would benefit both parties and work with our current Constitutional requirements - in fact it would match the founders' intent more closely than what is happening now.

This book gave me so much to think about. I don't know that it really presents the ultimate answer and I would like to read some alternate views, but I highly recommend it as one piece of the puzzle to thinking about how we can make our Electoral College system work in the way it was intended - to produce a President who wins with a compound majority of majorities.

Original publication date: 2020
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 256 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: kindle purchase
Why I read this: interested in the topic show less

This is a really interesting book. It talks about the importance of stories and how we use them to construct meaning in our lives, and how that plays into ritual and how we use ritual to create meaning in our lives (even rituals like how we open Yule gifts or decorate the Yule tree together). The stories we tell about ourselves are co-created with the people around us, and we can change them and make them more authentic.

One example given in the book: a person might be telling themselves a show more story that they had an idyllic childhood and if only they could get back to something that represents that childhood idyll, they’d be happy. But in reality their self-destructive behaviour drives others away, and the attainment of the childhood idyll is unrealistic (e.g. it relies on winning the lottery).

The book is written by two Christians, so Pagan readers will need to do a bit of translating in their heads, but it’s worth the effort, and most of the time you can get by with just replacing “God” with “the gods” and skim-reading the Jesus bits.

I picked it up because I thought the title was great, and decided to buy it because it has an endorsement from Ronald Grimes on the back (a ritual theorist whom I admire). I also flicked through it and saw that it was well written and had good examples of challenging life situations that could happen to people.

The book goes through how to create new rituals for situations like divorce, adoption, and untimely death, turning off a ventilator or life support, and dealing with traumatic events like wars. The section on being inclusive was good, though it was silent about including disabled people and LGBTQ2SIA people. The section on reconciliation was excellent and should be read by anyone who wants the kind of reconciliation that involves sweeping things under the rug, which is of course not reconciliation at all.

It talks about incorporating the stories of people’s lives into ritual, but it doesn’t really go into detail about how to do that. Where it shines is in talking about how to ritualize not only the significant events of life, but also ordinary time (the times between high days and holidays, and between rites of passage).

What I appreciated about the book is that it counsels against facile answers for things. Instead it argues for allowing divinity to break through into trauma and pain. show less

This book took me a while to get through, but it was such a fascinating read! I really enjoy reading books exploring the political issues that the US has dealt with from inception to now. There are a lot of people out there who want to see the past through rose coloured glasses, and pretend that everything was perfect back in the good old days and now it's just a partisan mess.

Books like this just prove that, no... It's always been a partisan mess.

But seriously, the US has had growing pains show more regarding the specifics of vote counting law since the very beginning. The first place to even have a dispute was Pennsylvania of all places.

Some good things to wikipedia if you don't want to pick up the book: The Buckshot War of Pennsylvania 1838, Bashford vs Barstow, Hayes v Tilden which was the presidential election that really went crazysauce, New Yorks Stolen Senate of 1891, and Ballot Box 13 involving Lyndon Johnson and some of the most flagrant voter fraud on the record.

There is an entire Bush v Gore chapter, as well as an aftermath chapter. Lots of good information that I didn't know about the specifics of the court cases involved. It's scary how easily that entire situation could have turned into a constitutional crisis had Gore not conceded.

Overall, this was a great read if you have an interest in election law, specifically how ballots have been counted and the cases revolving around that specific area of law.

Copy courtesy of Oxford University Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. show less

Storytelling and ritual making are not merely something that humans do -- they are essential for making us whole. Combined, they enable us to make our world both habitable and hospitable, and they are the ways that faith communities frame our journeys in God. This book shows us how to return ritual to its rightful place at the core of human and Christian experience. Ministers across the range of denominations and pastoral specializations will find here an indispensable resource, both show more practical and prophetic. show less