Tuesday 30 August 2016

Alexander Hamilton & The First Contested Election

Hamilton Letter
It was clear that the compromise rules governing the Electoral College could not even stand up to the first contested election in 1800.  The original writing had the candidate with the most Electoral College ballots becoming president; the second place candidate would be vice-president.  Those at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention had not even conceived of there being political parties.

In 1800, there was a tie between Jefferson and Burr; and even had there not been, two candidates from different parties would have been president and vice-president.  The deadlock in the House in 1800 was broken on the 36th ballot, but only after Federalist Party leader Alexander Hamilton made known his preference for Jefferson, in words that ring eerily salient today: “In a choice of Evils let them take the least – Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr.”

EXCERPT of the letter:   "Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly Government – Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement – and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands – No compact, that he should make with any other passion in his own breast except his Ambition, could be relied upon by himself – How then should we be able to rely upon any agreement with him? Mr. Jefferson, I suspect will not dare much; Mr. Burr will dare every thing in the sanguine hope of effecting every thing."
[Letter to Harrison Gray Otis, a Massachusetts Congressman, from Alexander Hamilton]

Responding to the problems from those first elections, the Congress proposed the Twelfth Amendment in 1803—prescribing that electors cast separate ballots for president and vice president, and replacing the system outlined in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3. By June 1804, the states had ratified the amendment in time for the 1804 election.  Keep in mind, however, that should there ever be a tie, or if no candidate receives the requisite majority of Electoral Votes, the vote will go to the House and Senate, who will vote separately on president and vice-president.

Initially, the Electoral College provisions conceived a set of knowledgeable persons, gentlemanly statesman of the political class who would put nation above self-interest. We have only to look at the 1800 election, where it is clear those involved were motivated more by what would be better for their state and their party than with the concerns of the nation to see how hollow that conception was. I am not casting aspersions on those Representatives, the 1800 election was a political struggle, with the clamor and rancor we would recognize today between contending visions of what is best for the nation. But it was hardly statesman-like.

When people defend the Electoral College as a way of putting country over the self-interest of the popular will, they are hearkening to a pre-political time that never existed, or more cynically, they are defending and advocating the ability of a small group to impose their self-interest on the majority. For all the criticism political parties routinely get, they are the only way non-political people (the majority) can have influence. The enduring recession has exposed how easily moneyed interests can manipulate rules at the heart of the Constitution itself.

The novel, Faithless Elector, shines light on the weakness of the system as well as the opportunity for narrow, special interests to exploit that weakness and thwart the will of the majority. 

Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.

Thursday 25 August 2016

Faithless Electors

Nate Silver's blog FiveThirtyEight.com recently discussed the 1976 "contested convention," the subsequent presidential election and the split in the Republican Party then and its relevance to the divisions tearing apart the Republicans now.  The 2016 Republican Party convention was a contentious--if not contested--convention. In 1976, Reagan, they say, stole the show.  I've seen that final speech.  It was a good one.

Although Ford prevailed at the contested 1976 convention, Reagan would ultimately prevail at the next election, having electrified and galvanized his base.  He would leave a legacy whose worth we still debate.  Is there anyone who can motivate and thrill the electorate now? Anyone who can have cross-over appeal?

One of the products of that contested convention, was the switched Faithless Elector vote, one I cite in my new novel, Faithless Elector (p.47)


In 1976, Ford won a plurality in Washington State, but he only received 10 of Washington's (then) 11 Electoral votes.  Mike Padden, a Republican Elector, cast his vote for Ronald Reagan rather than his party's candidate, Gerald Ford.

There have been two Faithless Elector votes since then--in 2000, Barabara Lett-Simmons, abstained in protest for lack of District of Columbia representation, and in 2004, an unnamed Minnesota Elector inadvertently cast his/her vote for John Edwards, the vice-presidential candidate.

None of these faithless elector acts had a bearing on the outcome of the election.  It is worth noting, however, that such acts of conscience, protest and error are not anomalies but are part of the checkered history of the Electoral College.  The ones listed above are merely the most recent.

Polls this early in an election are all-but meaningless, and we all need the Electors to keep the faith.

Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”



Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.

Tuesday 23 August 2016

Verisimilitude and Rigged Elections: Fiction Has to Make Sense

“He who would keep a secret must first keep secret that he has a secret to keep.”
--Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister, BBC comedy

Novels—unlike presidential campaigns, apparently—need to have verisimilitude.  Fiction by its nature is not true, but for most fictional forms, the action and plot must be plausible, believable within a larger social-cultural context (“like truth”); and at the very least be plausible within the boundaries of its own genre.  In my new novel, the thriller, Faithless Elector, a group of conspirators try to alter the outcome of the upcoming presidential election by manipulating the Electoral College, and they sow the seeds of controversy by claiming the election was rigged in Illinois (p.6).  In the novel, the two main parties seem to be seeking to engineer the outcome in Illinois. 

Here in the real world, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has not only continued to disparage the validity of voting, but has increased his condemnation and dismissal of any result that does not send him to the White House as “rigged,” citing partisan Republican Party talking-points regarding fraudulent voting.
System Rigged ad, Trump for president-PA


At no point while writing Faithless Elector did I contemplate suggesting that the outcome could be engineered by fraudulent voting; that is, one voter impersonating another.  As one of the main characters in the novel puts it, anyone breaking the law in this way would “seek to minimize their profile”(p.13). Only a tiny number of people can know about it, because the more people who are participating, the greater the chances of a slip-up:  three people together can probably keep a secret; 10 people, maybe; 100 or 1,000 people cannot. 

When you get into the kinds of numbers you would need to engineer an outcome by fraudulent voting (per Sir Humphrey, above) you probably couldn’t even keep secret the fact you had such a secret organization.  To organize—and to do it quietly—enough fraudulent voters across the nation to tip a race in one direction or another would be impossible.  In the fictional world, if I had tried it, critics would have said the plot “lacked verisimilitude” (if they were kind).

Are fiction writers, then, held to a higher truth standard?  As another thriller writer, Tom Clancy, would have it:  “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." 


To read a free excerpt of Faithless Elector, click HERE


Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”


Follow James!  Twitter:  @jamesmccrone4 and on Facebook at Faithless Elector by James McCrone

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.

Monday 1 August 2016

Intrigue in the Electoral College


A friend recently asked me why the Electoral College system for electing the president is a good tradition or a sustaining democratic feature. I’m not sure I’m the best person to defend its continued use, but I can contribute what history and context I know, and talk about why it appealed to me as a subject for a novel.

My novel, the thriller, Faithless Elector, is a fast-paced, topical thriller. It is not didactic. It is, if the independent reviews are any guide, a fun (thrilling?) read. I was lead to write the story when I learned details about the Electoral College system and the possible actions of Faithless Electors. It seemed ripe for mischief and intrigue. As I contemplated the seeming contradictions and weaknesses of the Electoral College, I thought, “what if…?” and the novel was born, its outlines taking shape quickly.

For the details (and believe me, the devil is in them!) I had to become a student of the Electoral College and its history, and I have begun blogging about it. In the current era, there have been three Faithless Electors (1976, 2000 and 2004). While no Faithless Elector has ever changed the presumed outcome of an election, the possibility exists.

Added to the possibility of mischief involving Faithless Electors, there is the fact there have been four times in the nation’s history (1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000) when the popular vote winner did not win in the Electoral College voting, and thus did not win the presidency. On the face of it, this seems mad.

Moreover, the current winner-take-all system we know, whereby the candidate who receives a plurality (not necessarily a majority) of the votes for president in a given state receives ALL of the Electoral votes that state is allocated is not a Constitutional requirement, but the product of political parties writing their own rules state by state (Neb and Maine have proportional rules). That all the votes go to the candidate with that given state’s plurality disenfranchises those voters who did not support the winner.

Additionally, the proportionality of EC votes is skewed toward small states. For instance, California has 38,800,000 residents, and it has 55 electoral votes, or about 705,000 people per elector; and Wyoming, with 550,000 people, has three electoral votes, or about 183,000 people per elector. This means that a Wyoming resident has 3.8 times the voting power of a California resident. Sixty-five Wyomings could fit in California, meaning that if California were scaled in a proportional way it would contribute 195 votes to the electoral college. The winner-take-all (except ME and NE) further amplifies this scenario.

So, the Electoral College is anti-democratic. It disenfranchises voters directly and indirectly. Its rules are arcane and prone to mischief and manipulation.

Why do we have it?

The compromise that arose from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia did not survive the first contested elections of 1796 and 1800. In 1800, after a tie between Jefferson and Burr the deadlock in the House was broken on the 36th ballot, but only after Federalist Party leader Alexander Hamilton made known his preference for Jefferson, in words that ring eerily salient today: “In a choice of Evils let them take the least – Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr.”[more]

Responding to the problems from those first elections, the Congress proposed the Twelfth Amendment in 1803—prescribing that electors cast separate ballots for president and vice president, and to replace the system outlined in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3. By June 1804, the states had ratified the amendment in time for the 1804 election.


Initially, the Electoral College provisions conceived a set of knowledgeable persons, gentlemanly statesman of the political class who would put nation above self-interest. We have only to look at the 1800 election, where it is clear those involved were motivated more by what would be better for their state and their party than with the concerns of the nation to see how hollow that conception was. I am not casting aspersions on those Representatives, the 1800 election was a political struggle, with the clamor and rancor we would recognize today between contending visions of what is best for the nation. But it was hardly statesman-like.

When people defend the Electoral College as a way of putting country over the self-interest of the popular will, they are hearkening to a pre-political time that never existed, or more cynically, they are defending and advocating the ability of a small group to impose their self-interest on the majority. For all the criticism political parties routinely get, they are the only way non-political people (the majority) can have influence. The enduring recession has exposed how easily moneyed interests can manipulate rules at the heart of the Constitution itself.

The novel, Faithless Elector, shines light on the weakness of the system as well as the opportunity for narrow, special interests to exploit that weakness and thwart the will of the majority. It’s a compelling, thrilling ride. I wish you good reading!

Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.