League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, MD, Inc. ----- Fact Sheet -- December 2003

Other supporters of the Electoral College say that this system has worked well for over 200 years by recognizing regional interests and eliminating the domination of populous regions. The winning slate must demonstrate not only sufficient popular support but also sufficient distribution of support to govern. In 2000, while Gore/Lieberman had the majority of popular vote, they only had 20 states plus DC supporting them; the Bush/Cheney ticket counted 30 supporting states.

Some argue that the system enhances the status of minority groups, since winning the votes of small minorities might make the difference in the final "winner-take-all" tally. These so-called minority votes may be ethnic, labor union, environmental groups and the like. The party needs to work harder to attract the votes of minority groups to add to the numerical votes of the party faithful in order to gain the electoral votes of the state.

Reform of the Electoral College and the voting system for President has been proposed nearly every year, but no change has yet made it out of Congress, nor is it likely to in the present or foreseeable future because of the added influence it gives small states and large cities, which usually means their votes carry the state. The League is conducting this update mindful that, while our concern for a direct popular vote has probably not changed, the odds of eliminating the Electoral College at the national level are minimal. Other factors that merit attention have come to influence the presidential selection process in recent years. If the League's concern is to encourage the best candidates and promote the highest participation by informed voters, we need to understand the impact of the process on those values.

The Nominating Process

The evolution of the presidential selection process has reflected the evolution of our government, from Congress, to the parties, and - in the latter half of the 20th century – to the people. Change was prompted by scandal and shifts in power. Factions gave way to Congressional caucuses by 1800, which broke down in 1824, with division between the congressional caucus and state legislators. By the mid-1840s, the national nominating convention was established, allowing for broader-based party programs and the reconciliation of personal and regional rivalries. The convention system remained strong for over a century, even though the parties themselves changed. The Progressive Movement (1870s to 1920s) took a serious toll on party strength in its effort to replace corrupt politics with professional administration. Primaries were instituted, although most were advisory in nature. Some states repealed them between the world wars, but interest grew again in the post-war era as candidates used primaries to demonstrate their electability and, more recently, as they brought money and attention to the states.

A new age of reform followed the 1968 election amid the turmoil that accompanied the Democratic convention that year. There were a series of commissions in the Democratic Party to open the process to party members at the expense of its leadership. Over time, the party backed away from its anti-leadership approach and began providing a place for members of Congress and other important party leaders in the delegations. The Republicans never quite moved that far in the first place, but there is a tendency for the parties to reflect each other's organization.

The American presidential nomination contest is a highly complex system, including a multitude of distinct rules and procedures, nearly all of which have generated some measure of controversy and a lengthy academic literature describing their alleged effects. The final decision about which candidate becomes a party's presidential nominee is still made by the national conventions, which are usually held in mid- to late summer of the election year. Though the convention decision has become increasingly pro forma, much like the voting in the Electoral College, the ultimate goal of the candidates -- the centerpiece of all their planning -- is still to win a majority of the delegates to their party's national convention.

The national parties each promulgate general guidelines that specify how states are to select their national convention delegates and what sorts of things they must and must not do. As a general matter, national Democratic party rules regulate the delegate selection process in considerable detail; the Republicans tend to give more discretion to states. The national rules in both major parties allow states to select their delegates in one of two ways: by primary or by a caucus-convention system. Primaries are elections, generally held under the auspices of state government, which are used to select or bind the national convention delegates. Caucuses are a multi-stage process, usually beginning with mass meetings held in each precinct or voting district, which select delegates to district and state conventions, which in turn select the national convention delegates. In recent years, the delegate selection process in both parties has clearly been dominated by primaries. In 2000, for example, 37 states held Democratic primaries, 42 states held Republican primaries.

Presidential primaries and caucuses both tend to be open to essentially any Democrat or Republican who wants to participate. Some states require participants to be a registered member of that party (a closed primary), but no further demonstration of past or future support for the party is required. Besides choosing between caucuses and primaries, each state has considerable latitude in deciding when to select its delegates. In 2004, Republican rules require states to hold their primary or caucus between the first Monday in February and the third Tuesday in June; Democratic rules permit primaries and caucuses to be held between the first Tuesday in February and the second Tuesday in June, but provide specific exemptions for Iowa and New Hampshire. Within those "windows," the states themselves decide when to select their delegates.

Criticisms

The contemporary presidential nomination process has been criticized from a variety of perspectives. To many observers, perhaps the greatest single shortcoming of the "reformed" system is that it has taken the nomination decision away from organized, institutional parties and entrusted it to ordinary voters who participate in primaries and caucuses. When compared to the system that preceded it, the current system gives substantially less weight to the views of party leaders and elected officials. Beginning in 1984, the Democrats made some attempt to rectify this problem by granting automatic delegate status to senators, governors, members of the House of Representatives and national committee members, but the number of "super delegates" is probably not large enough to alter the system's fundamental dynamics.

Another major criticism of the new process is simply that it is too long and too expensive. In the nomination races of the 1950s and 1960s, even the most ambitious presidential aspirants did not announce their candidacies until the beginning of the election year or the last few months of the year preceding the election. Today, major presidential candidates routinely launch their campaigns in the winter or early spring of the year before the election -- more than a year before the national conventions, and at least a year and a half before the general election. For sitting senators and representatives, such a long period of active campaigning almost inevitably requires presidential candidates to neglect their governmental responsibilities. It also, of course, increases the cost of running for President.

A third major criticism of the presidential nomination process concerns the outsized role that it gives to two small and not very representative states, Iowa and New Hampshire. Because these states hold the first caucus and first primary, respectively, they see far more of the candidates than any other states, receive substantially more press coverage and have far more influence on the final outcome. By contrast, California, which traditionally held its primary in the first week in June, generally found that the nomination races were effectively over by the time that state selected its delegates.

Given all the advantages that accrue to early voting states, over the last two decades the delegate selection calendar has become increasingly front-loaded. Where primaries and caucuses were once spread out rather evenly over the delegate selection season, most primaries and caucuses now take place within a few weeks after the delegate selection season formally begins, with the result that the nomination races are effectively settled by early or mid-March.

Front-loading has a number of undesirable effects on the way we select our presidential candidates. First and most important, it greatly compresses the time that voters have to learn about the major candidates. Most voters do not start to pay attention to the nomination races until the delegate selection process begins. When the system was less front-loaded, this meant that the voters had three or four months to watch the candidates and learn more about their policies and personal abilities before reaching a final decision. Today, as the decision gets made more rapidly, the system has become less flexible, less deliberative and less rational.

The increasing number of early in the year contests also undermines both the extent and the quality of voter participation. Although many states have moved their selection dates to the head of the line, a large number of states select their delegates at a time when everything of significance has already been decided. In 2000, for example, 25 states held their primaries after both Bill Bradley and John McCain had officially withdrawn. The result, not surprisingly, is that voter turnout in the presidential primaries declines quite substantially in the later stages of the race.

Proposed Remedies

Although a number of remedies have been proposed, it is not clear that any would solve all of the problems just discussed; many would probably carry significant negative consequences of their own. While it is impossible to do justice to all of the many proposals that have been made for changing the nomination rules, it is worth looking at the difficulties and complexities of two of the most talked-about proposals: a national primary and a system of regional primaries.

Ever since the Progressive Era, many of those who were dissatisfied with the presidential selection system have wanted to scrap the current system, with its complicated pattern of 50 distinct primaries and caucuses, and replace it with a single national primary. A national primary has two principal virtues: it is simple and straightforward and it would treat all states equally. In particular, it would guarantee that no state had the kind of outsized, disproportionate role now played by Iowa and New Hampshire, and that no state would hold its primary after the effective nomination decision had already been made. In return for those benefits, however, a national primary has a number of severe problems that make it a highly questionable option.

Above all, a national primary would give an enormous advantage to early front-runners and candidates who were already well known and well financed. One advantage of having the current process start in small states like Iowa and New Hampshire is that it gives long-shots, outsiders and insurgents a good venue in which to make the case for their candidacies. A full-scale campaign in both states can be mounted for a fraction of what it would cost to compete in a national primary. And, precisely because the total electorate in both states is so small, face-to-face, "retail" politics counts for a lot more than it would in a country with 200 million eligible voters. If the fierce scramble for campaign money is one of the less attractive features of the current system, it would only grow worse under a national primary.

Depending on how it is structured, a national primary might also lead to the nomination of a candidate who is supported by a small, highly committed minority, but is considered unacceptable by a large segment of that candidate's own party. If there are six or ten declared presidential candidates seeking a given party's nomination -- which almost always occurs today except when an incumbent President is running for a second term -- a candidate could win a national primary with as little as 25 or 30 percent of the vote. This might lead one or both parties to nominate someone considered totally inappropriate to a majority of people identifying with that party.

To avoid such a problem, most recent national primary proposals have included a provision requiring the winner to receive some minimum percentage of the total vote (usually, 40 or 50 percent). If no candidate exceeds that threshold, there would be a runoff election between the top two finishers. However, a runoff provision does not guarantee that at least one of the finalists will be minimally acceptable to most party voters. Nor is it clear that Americans would welcome the possibility of holding three national elections (two national primaries and then a general election) within the space of three months.

Though they differ in their details, regional primary proposals generally call for some central agency -- usually either the national parties or the federal government -- to divide the states into a number of regions, each of which would hold a set of primary elections on a single date. In 1999, for example, the National Association of Secretaries of State put forward a plan that created four such regions -- East, South, Midwest and West. On the first Tuesday of each month between March and June, one of these regions would go to the polls, with the order rotating every four years. Perhaps the principal advantage of a regional primary system, according to its supporters, is that it would make campaigning easier and more efficient by cutting down on travel time and allowing candidates to advertise in media markets that cut across state lines. Regional primaries also hold out the hope of forcing candidates to confront the particular, often unique problems that confront each region.

There are also, however, a number of important disadvantages to regional primaries. Depending on how many regions are established, regional primaries might also give a huge advantage to early front-runners and those candidates with ample war chests. If the states are divided into just four regions, for example, every candidate would be forced to compete in 12 different states at the same time. Even with all the purported efficiencies of regional campaigning, long-shots and insurgents would almost certainly find it difficult to run a competitive race under such circumstances.

In addition, regional primaries would confer a significant advantage on any candidate who happened to be particularly strong in whatever region went first. Region is a very important variable in explaining primary outcomes: in almost every recent presidential nomination contest, at least one candidate has run significantly better in one region than in the others. Given the importance of momentum, this might mean that major-party nomination decisions would hinge on the essentially random factor of which region went first. In 1992, for example, Bill Clinton's candidacy would likely have been doomed if the southern states had voted last: for the first five weeks of that year's delegate selection season, Clinton didn't win a single primary or caucus outside the South.

For those who are concerned about front-loading or the length and expense of the process, a better alternative might be to accept the basic framework that has now been in place for more than three decades, and look for incremental reforms that might alleviate some of its more pressing shortcomings. For example, both parties already have rules that place broad limits on the time frame during which primaries and caucus can be held. Separately, or together, the parties might want to consider limiting the number of states that can vote prior to some specific date, or pushing back the entire delegate selection calendar so that it begins in March rather than January or February.

Many of the most criticized features of the current system are attributable, in whole or in part, to the difficulties that candidates frequently have raising the huge amount of money necessary to run a nationwide nomination campaign. Increasing the contribution limits, or the federal matching fund ratio, might make the results of Iowa and New Hampshire less consequential by allowing losing candidates to stay in the race longer, and might give more successful candidates a better opportunity to expand their campaign to other states.

Finally, while the number of automatic delegate seats given to party and elected officials currently account for only one-sixth of all the delegates at the Democratic National Convention (and none of the Republican delegates), they do seem to have had the positive effect of giving the party leadership a somewhat greater voice in the presidential nomination process.

Incremental reforms, such as those described above, will not resolve all of the shortcomings of the current nominating process. Comprehensive reform proposals are sometimes more attractive, in particular, since they seem so much more "rational" and orderly than the current process. However, it is unlikely that any of these comprehensive reforms would actually make the system better, and, in substantial respects, may make the system worse.

The Role of the Media and the Internet in Selecting the President

Print Media

Even though more than two-thirds of Americans get their news from television, the national print media (including the weekly news magazines) have enormous influence on presidential elections. Traditionally, television has taken its cue from the newspapers, relying on its news judgment as to what was important. Although that remains somewhat true, there is a greater divergence in local news, which tends to follow the dictum "If it bleeds, it leads," rather than the front page of the daily paper. One hold newspapers still have is that they partner with others (networks and polling organizations) to publish weekly polls that determine the expectations of the horse race. In truth, the news is always about how a candidate does against what he or she was expected to do. If the results do not fit the expectation - or even if they do - the measure becomes a structural component in what the media report every week. It is usually cheaper for a newspaper to allocate reporters to do research than it is for television news, although that is much more the case at the local level. Since newspapers and magazines cannot compete with breaking news, it is not surprising that of the two, print is more likely to do the issue stories and background research on the candidates.

Another function newspapers have undertaken is analyses of campaign ads, checking for accuracy and falsehood. It is quite possible that this relatively recent development has limited bald-faced lies in campaign literature and media ads, but it has not had much impact on lessening the role of negative campaign ads. They are likely to remain, as long as they work.

A relatively recent effort to improve the quality of media reporting has been the advent of what is generally called "civic journalism," often a combined effort of a newspaper and television station within a media market to provide background information about the issues. According to a recent study by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, at least a fifth of daily newspapers (322 out of 1,500) engaged in some form of civic journalism between 1994 and 2001. According to the study, 75% of the projects were undertaken by regional newspapers with circulations of under 250,000; 45% with circulations of 100,000 or less; and 45% were published in major metropolitan newspapers. Their goal was to explain the issues rather than focus on the horse race, and the Pew study by Lewis A. Friedland and Sandy Nichols suggests that more than half of the projects provided evidence that they succeeded. It is an evolving format and one that receives high marks beyond the initial purpose of educating its market. Sometimes these stories are picked up by other media, and they often begin an interactive process that engages voters directly, either through the Internet or in focus groups and other formats for discussion.

Whatever form of journalism newspapers use, the early attention usually comes from the print media. The journalists who follow candidates in the lonely first stages of a campaign are apt to set the tone and define that candidate and his or her organization for the television cameras that come later.

Television

When television news began, it was a public service -- a condition in the contract by which a local television station received its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The obligation to provide a public service was eliminated in 1984 as part of the deregulation of the industry by the FCC. While that turned out to be a significant factor in the decline of coverage of government (local government particularly) it was not the only factor accounting for the decline in hard news stories on television.

When it comes to television, there are several factors that predominate in the declining quality of free media coverage of the presidential election, but the most important is that news shows became profitable. Today, a typical two-hour news period on a local station will be divided evenly between news stories and ads and promotions. No other kind of show would tolerate so much advertising. What began as someone reading the news evolved into cameras going out to cover stories – placing an emphasis on the visual, to satellite feeds from anywhere. Disasters are the most photogenic so our daily intake of news will include natural and man-made disasters from almost anywhere in the world. Crime is ever popular, along with car chases, now followed by station helicopters, and human interest (usually animal interest, e.g., water-skiing squirrels, wandering bears, etc.), health, consumer information and business news. There is not much left over for government or political news.

Concerned about their impact on the presidential process, the networks agreed to a voluntary commitment to provide five minutes a night of “candidate-centered” discourse in the 30-day periods preceding the primary and general elections in 2000. Unfortunately, they failed to live up to it, averaging instead about one minute a night according to the Annenberg study by Erika Falk and Sean Aday. "Candidate-centered" is defined by the researchers as giving the candidate the opportunity to speak instead of being interpreted by the reporters, but no matter how the subject is measured, the bottom line is less coverage.

The emergence of 24-hour cable news helped, but the broadcast media (which reache a far greater audience) decreased their hard news coverage of candidates enormously. What used to be 42-second sound bite is now down to under 10 seconds. The coverage they provide tends to reflect the horse race (who is ahead in the polls) and campaign strategies rather than analysis of programs being offered by the candidate. The best way for a campaign to get its message out is to buy ads (hence the increasing expense), and more and more ads tend to be negative in nature, adding to cynicism of the electoral process. How does a free society impose restraints on insults of its public figures when negative ads work?

There have been proposals over the years to control excesses in negative ads by:

-Requiring the candidate to appear in the ad,
-Identification at the end of the ad of who is paying for it,
-Lower rates - or free air time - to campaigns,
-Longer segments (half an hour or an hour) given over to the candidates to say and do what they want.

Clearly, proposals for change are constrained by the First Amendment and by the rights of networks and local stations to earn a profit. It is the latter area of profit that is the most promising for reform because the license to use the public airwaves is given freely by the FCC and actually owned by the people. Televised debates help as voters try to assess the candidates, looking not only for their positions on issues but also a sense of their character. Even the very limited convention coverage helps voters get a sense of who the candidates are and what the parties want to be. But as the convention has become less newsworthy, it also gets less coverage.

The Internet

Although each election cycle reveals new techniques and greater usage by everyone - candidate and voter alike - it may be that the greatest impact of the Internet on politics will be in relation to issues and issue mobilization rather than candidates in general, or the presidential candidate in particular. The worldwide mobilization of activists opposing the war in Iraq was impressive for its speed and breadth, but it was hardly the first such usage. Major protests have been seen in the past several years including the Million Mom March to protest guns and the large demonstrations opposing IMF and World Bank practices. While not a grassroots organization in the traditional sense, the implications for organization at the local level by groups such as MoveOn.com are impressive. How that translates to candidates remains to be seen.

We have seen the usefulness in the Internet in raising support for "protesting" candidates (e.g. Senator John McCain in 2000, Governor Howard Dean for the 2004 election): people who are seen to be running against the party regulars or front runners. Former California Governor Jerry Brown garnered support more than a decade ago when he campaigned for President using every opportunity to give out his toll-free telephone number for contributions. It is a natural progression since then because, even though the candidate may appeal to only a minority within the party or the electorate within the nation, the numbers can be sufficiently significant when it comes to political activism for raising money or walking precincts. The impact is likely to be greatest during the primaries, especially if there is a large field likely to split the relative small number of voters who actually turn out for a primary, and the even smaller number who turn out for caucuses.

In a survey in 1999 by "Campaigns and Elections," the most important uses of the Internet for campaigns were, in order of importance:

-Information about the candidacy (the candidate and the state of the campaign)
-Information about policy
-Political information and campaign news
-Communicating with supporters and endorsers
-Providing information to voters about how and where to vote
-Recruiting volunteers
-Providing information and news about the community
-Seeking voter opinions on issues
-Raising money
-Attacking the opposition

A later survey by Michael Cornfield and Lee Ranie following the 2002 elections added the use of e-mail as a major vehicle for communication. The interest in issues may have been related to the difference in America between 2000 and 2002, an interest that is not apt to decline given the on-going war against terrorism. Newer innovations for candidates in closely contested races also used the Internet to conduct political research and communicate with the press, adding their news releases and lists of endorsements on their Web pages.

Clearly, much of what campaign organizations do that used to involve masses of volunteers gathering to stuff envelopes or walk door-to-door, and later relied upon professional services to get out the mail, can be and are now done online. Perhaps the greatest impact of the Internet, then, is not so much in changing tasks for campaign organizations but rather in the speed and breadth of their capacity to organize.

The Internet has become a valuable source of information about candidates for those who access it. Rather surprisingly, it has also proved an effective way to raise funds if candidates include a "contribute" button on their Web page. Many people – who never gave before – do. Resources such as LWV's DNet and SmartVoter provide critical information about voting and candidate positions, but there is a great deal we do not yet know about its impact overall. Is there a significant bias in its accessibility? How does disinformation get addressed? We do not know how it will affect the message candidates send to voters, nor voters to candidates.

Conclusion

Democracy is a fragile thing. There is no absolute best way; the most we can do is follow the rules on which we agree. Reforms will come in response to emerging problems. Reforms work. They do change the process, but response to a change in one area is almost unforeseeable in another. If these reforms send us reeling from one unintended consequence to another, it is our obligation to try to understand what happened and why, and consider what ought to happen next.

We saw the increase in the professionalism of campaign consultants, but we did not foresee the impact of tracking polls and negative campaign ads. There are times when the rules seem to interfere with democratic values: the 2000 election was such a case, but we accepted the legitimacy of the process in the end. Given the political divisions in the nation today, it is likely we will continue to see the rules running perilously close to the sense of legitimacy we need to sustain our political system. Our goal is to get a better grasp on what is changing, how it affects the participants in the presidential election: the candidates, the parties and the voters. Is the process really too long and too expensive? What is the impact of the new technologies? Are there ways to encourage more responsible media coverage?

Sources for this Fact Sheet

All of the articles listed below and the complete list of references for them can be accessed at: www.lwv.org. You must enter the Members Only site and then click on Position Update. If you do not know how to enter the Members Only site, please call the LWVMC office.

Selection of the President - League Position Update, by Xandra Kayden, April 21, 2003
This article was written for the June/July 2003 edition of the National Voter.

The Presidential Nomination Process - in Search of Reform, by William G. Mayer, August 18, 2003
This article was written for the Sept./Oct. 2003 edition of the National Voter.

The following Background Papers were written by the LWVUS Position UpdateTask Force
The Electoral College, July 21, 2003
The Role of the Media in Selecting the President, July 3, 2003
Technology and Presidential Selection -- Part 1, July 3, 2003
Technology and Presidential Selection -- Part 3, July 25, 2003

An additional resource for this unit is

After the People Vote: a Guide to the Electoral College, edited by Walter Berns. (AEI Studies, 542) Washington: 1992.

This fact sheet was compiled by Nancy Soreng from LWVUS materials . Units will be presented by members of the LWVMC Board and the Making Democracy Work Committee, which includes the following members: Barbara Sanders, Chair, Carolyn Almen , Elaine Apter, Zaida Arguedas, Linna Barnes, Sylvia Brown Olivetti, Marlene Cohn, Maew Craver, Carolyn Darrow, Miriam Dessureau, Jan Dring, Marian Fox, Liz Helgerson, Ann Jackson , Linda Kravitz, Grace Orlansky, Emily Pugsley, Anne Marie Stanley, Aleen Starkweather, Barbara Steckel, Connie Tonat, Joan Trafton, Jean Walker and Ralph Watkins.