Paul Goldman writes a weekly column on politics for the Washington Post. His lead role in opening-up top elective office for minorities is discussed in former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder's newly released book, Son of Virginia.



Mark J. Rozell is acting dean of the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University.

Illegal immigrants—along with other noncitizens without the right to vote—may pick the 2016 presidential winner. Thanks to the unique math undergirding the Electoral College, the mere presence of 11-12 million illegal immigrants and other noncitizens here legally may enable them to swing the election from Republicans to Democrats.

The right to vote is intended to be a singular privilege of citizenship. But the 1787 Constitutional Convention rejected allowing the people to directly elect their President. The delegates chose instead our Electoral College system, under which 538 electoral votes distributed amongst the states determine the presidential victor. The Electoral College awards one elector for each U.S. Senator, thus 100 of the total, and D.C. gets three electors pursuant to the 23rd Amendment. Those electoral numbers are unaffected by the size of the noncitizen population. The same cannot be said for the remaining 435, more than 80 percent of the total, which represent the members elected to the House.


The distribution of these 435 seats is not static: they are reapportioned every ten years to reflect the population changes found in the census. That reallocation math is based on the relative “whole number of persons in each state,” as the formulation in the 14th Amendment has it. When this language was inserted into the U.S. Constitution, the concept of an “illegal immigrant,” as the term is defined today, had no meaning. Thus the census counts illegal immigrants and other noncitizens equally with citizens. Since the census is used to determine the number of House seats apportioned to each state, those states with large populations of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens gain extra seats in the House at the expense of states with fewer such “whole number of persons.”

This math gives strongly Democratic states an unfair edge in the Electoral College. Using citizen-only population statistics, American University scholar Leonard Steinhorn projects California would lose five House seats and therefore five electoral votes. New York and Washington would lose one seat, and thus one electoral vote apiece. These three states, which have voted overwhelming for Democrats over the latest six presidential elections, would lose seven electoral votes altogether. The GOP’s path to victory, by contrast, depends on states that would lose a mere three electoral votes in total. Republican stronghold Texas would lose two House seats and therefore two electoral votes. Florida, which Republicans must win to reclaim the presidency, loses one seat and thus one electoral vote.

But that leaves the electoral math only half done. The 10 House seats taken away from these states would then need to be reallocated to states with relatively small numbers of noncitizens. The following ten states, the bulk of which lean Republican, would likely gain one House seat and thus one additional electoral vote: Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.



Iowa has gone Democratic six out of the last seven times. Michigan and Pennsylvania have both gone comfortably Democratic in every election since 1992. But five states—Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma—all went by double-digit margins to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. And Romney carried North Carolina by two percent while losing nationally by nearly four percent, a large difference. Likewise, despite solidly beating 2008 GOP nominee John McCain by seven percent nationally, President Obama eked out a bare 0.3 percent win in the Tar Heel State. The current Ohio polls also look promising for the right GOP nominee, and no Republican has ever won the Presidency without carrying the Buckeye State. There is no plausible statistical path for the Republican Party’s nominee to win an electoral majority without these states.

Accordingly, for analytic purposes, three of the states that would gain electoral votes are Democratic. The remaining seven are fairly put in the GOP column. Combining the two halves of the citizen-only population reapportionment, states likely in the Democratic column suffer a net loss of four electoral votes. Conversely the must-win Republican leaning states total a net gain of four electoral votes. These are the four electoral votes statistically cast by noncitizens.

U.S. elections have been decided by far narrower margins. One electoral vote decided the 1876 presidential election. A swing of three electoral votes in 2000 would have elected Al Gore. A glitch in the Electoral College system enabled Aaron Burr to come within one vote of winning the presidency over Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Though they can’t cast an actual ballot, we effectively allow noncitizens to have an indirect, and possibly decisive, say in choosing the President.

***

Three years ago, President Obama became the first Democrat in 76 years to win a second term with a repeat majority vote. Yet Romney still won two-dozen states with a total of 206 electoral votes. Based on current polling and historical trends, a credible GOP ticket right now must be considered likely to carry all the 24 Romney states and their 206 electoral votes. The key to Republican hopes to win 270 electoral votes next year therefore revolves around the three biggest swing states: Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

Yet a credible future GOP nominee has reason to be hopeful. Obama carried Florida last time by only 0.9 percent. Hillary Clinton suffers from an upside down image among Sunshine State voters, 37 percent having a favorable opinion but 57 percent holding a negative one in a recent poll. She is in a statistical tie with highly unpopular GOP hopeful Donald Trump and loses by 11 percent to former Governor Jeb Bush. Florida statistically should be the easiest of these key swing states for the GOP to win.



President Obama carried Ohio by nearly 3 percent in 2012, slightly less than he did four years earlier. Clinton is seen as negatively here as in Florida. The Democratic front-runner is a sure loser against GOP Presidential hopeful John Kasich, the popular Ohio Governor and in a statistical tie against any credible Republican opponent.

Obama won Virginia in 2012 by nearly 4 percent—his biggest margin among these three crucial swing states. The Virginia GOP is on the decline, without any Republican in statewide office or the U.S. Senate for the first time in 45 years. Yet in the latest polling, Mrs. Clinton would have trouble besting any credible Republican nominee due to her negative image.

Florida (29), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13) collectively have 60 electoral votes. Adding these Obama states to the Romney 24 gives the next GOP presidential standard-bearer 266 electoral votes, four short of the magic 270. But had the House of Representatives been apportioned by citizen-only figures, the GOP nominee would get 270 electoral votes by carrying these 27 states. There would be no need to win an additional Democratic leaning state.

But under the current system, they must. Which one of the 23 remaining might it be? President Obama carried D.C. and 16 states by double-digit margins. Four other states were carried by comfortable percentages and demographically appear very likely in the Democratic column without a major shift from the near quarter-century statistical norm. The GOP’s best hopes would seem to be Colorado (9 electoral votes), Iowa (6), and New Hampshire (4).

The Centennial State, once a reliable Rocky Mountain Republican bastion, seems to have flipped due to a growing Hispanic population. Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers have been particularly bad there recently, but they may well recover before Election Day. Compared to once dependably Republican Nevada, Colorado seems the easier Rocky Mountain state for the Republicans to flip next time, but it is far from a sure bet.

Iowa’s Democratic leanings continue to baffle farm state Republicans. But starting 1988, the GOP presidential nominee has lost the Corn State every time since except for President Bush’s 0.7 percent win in 2004. Against a credible Democratic nominee, history puts the GOP candidate in the underdog position.

This leaves New Hampshire, once an erstwhile reliable GOP State. George H.W. Bush won the Granite State by 26 percent in 1988. But since then, Democrats have won every time but once: a slim 1 percent win by GOP nominee George W. Bush in 2000. The 2016 GOP nominee will again need to beat the statistical tide.

The Electoral College math suggests two plausible paths for a narrow GOP win next year. The Republican nominee wins every Romney state, all three key swing states, and either Colorado, Iowa or New Hampshire. In the alternative, the historical numbers give the GOP standard-bearer 272 electoral votes by (1) carrying all the Romney states, (2) winning Florida and Ohio, (3) losing Virginia but (4) pulling off a Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire trifecta. This last scenario is very unlikely.

***

This is why counting illegal immigrants and noncitizens significantly reduces the chances of the GOP winning the presidency. Given Obama’s winning margins last time in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, a GOP path to winning 27 states is credible at this point in the presidential cycle. But due to the Electoral College math, this only gives Republicans 266 electoral votes, not 270.

We understand counting illegal immigrants and noncitizens in the census. Accurate population counts are essential to sound decision-making. Census numbers are used to allocate governmental resources. But we fail to find any persuasive reason to allow the presence of illegal immigrants, unlawfully in the country, or noncitizens generally, to play such a potentially crucial role in picking a President. Choosing a nation’s leader should be a privilege reserved for her citizens.

There are, however, no quick fixes to this situation. There seems little chance the states will ratify a constitutional amendment dumping the Electoral College in favor of voters directly electing the President. Amending the 14th Amendment to change the “whole persons” formulation for apportioning House of Representative seats is equally unlikely.

If the United States elected its chief executive as it is done in Mexico—direct election by those citizens eligible to vote—then the inclusion of noncitizens in the census wouldn’t result in any impact on the presidential winner. In Mexico, a U.S. non-citizen illegally or legally in the country isn’t counted in the presidential election math. Any other result would create an uproar among Mexican citizens. And rightly so. If counting illegal immigrants and noncitizens in the Electoral College decides the presidency next year here in America, there would rightly be an uproar on this side of the border as well.

