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Add to FavoritesThere are a number of Americans, who strongly dislike our national process for electing the president. There are some that say their vote does not count, we are not a democracy because of the Electoral College or that their voice does not matter. This could not be further from the truth. One of the chief problems is that most people honestly do not understand the process or why it was created.
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is composed of those who are currently in elected office within the United States Congress. This means that every member of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives gets a vote in the Electoral College. Why was the system created this way? The United States government was constructed, with a series of checks and balances with the purpose of keeping one branch of the government from becoming overpowering. The Electoral College is one of the examples of checks and balances but on the level of state government.
The Senate
Each state has equal representation within the United States Senate. Every state is given two seats in the Senate regardless of the states size or population. The Senate gives an equal voice in representative government. The concern of the Founding Fathers was that each state have an equal opportunity in the newly formed government.
The House of Representatives
As a direct balance to the Senate being based solely on the existence of a state, the Founding Fathers created the House of Representatives. The House side of Congress is based on the population of individual states. Thus, the larger the population of an individual state, the more representatives that state would gain.
Congressional Districts
Each state is divided into two distinct types of congressional systems. The Senate allows two offices per state and each Senator is elected through the vote of the entire state. The House of Representatives is based on the population of the state and each state is then divided into congressional districts based on population levels. Each district is set to be the same or close to the same numbers of population. This is why there are multiple congressional districts in relatively small areas on the map. The larger the population the more it covers a congressional district. These districts are re-drawn about every ten years following the computation of the United States census. For example, Ohio holds 18 congressional districts and has two Senators. This computes into 20 votes in the Electoral College.
The Election ProcessWhen the Presidential election takes place, the candidates run based on the number of Electoral College votes they can win. Each state holds the Presidential election and is a winner take-all system. The candidate who gets the most votes within a state wins that states votes in the Electoral College. Every vote counts in every state but the checks and balances comes into play here by the use of the Electoral College. So, no state can overpower the rights and the voice of any other state. For example, the state of California has a much larger population than the state of Alaska. The Electoral College allows each state to have a fair voice in the election process. The process of the Electoral College is both equal and fair.
Learn more about this author, David Dewitt.
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Yes
The electoral college, in the form it exists today, is a potentially dangerous shift of power to the highly populated states. It threatens to elect a president lacking of public support and prevents third party candidates from being elected.
Our founding fathers set up the electoral college because they did not trust the populous to make a wise choice when electing the president. Remember that the "common man" of that day was generally uneducated and possibly illiterate. The concept was to set up a panel of wise men would actually choose the president and the vice-president. The role of the voters was to choose which wise men from their state would be their elector on the panel.
By federal law, an elector is free to vote for any candidate regardless of the actual vote in their state, but in recent history no elector has voted contrary to the popular vote in their state. The electoral college has evolved into a system under which each state has a two slates of electors, each supporting a major party candidate. Under current state laws and practices, the unit rule applies. This means all the winner's electors go to the electoral college, and the matter of wise men using judgment becomes a mute point. In effect, the human electors play no real role in the election. The electoral college votes are as good as cast the moment it has been determined that a candidate has carried a state.
In the early days, electors were expected to use their judgment, but even when they voted in accordance with the popular vote of their state there was little risk of one or two states having too much clout. The populations of the states were more or less balanced. Now we have large differences in populations. Thus a candidate can win by carrying the six largest states plus any other state without regard to the overall popular vote.
A single voter in a small state has no influence unless the electoral votes are close to evenly split. On the other hand, a single voter in a high population state can shift enough electoral votes to cancel out the votes of a handful of small states. A candidate who carries New York or California may not have to worry about the results of Nevada, New Mexico and North Dakota.
Considering the furor that occurred when Florida's contested election provided the margin for victory in a race with a popular vote that was essentially a dead heat, what can we expect to happen if a candidate with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote wins in the electoral college? Would the losing party take the loss gracefully, or could it spark insurrection?
In all other elections, we hold to the mandate of one man, one vote, and the courts uphold that strictly. The electoral college as it presently operates must be eliminated or drastically restructured. If we choose to retain the electoral college, we must award electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote. Two possibilities are: (1) Award electoral votes proportional to the fraction of the popular vote received. (2) Award electoral votes on the basis of victories in the congressional districts with two votes awarded to the candidate who wins the state.
Preserve the integrity of our presidential elections. Overhaul or scrap the electoral college now.
Learn more about this author, Reynold Conger.
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