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Add to FavoritesThe Electoral College was created by the framers of the US Constitution to provide for the election to the office of President of the United States. Since then, every President has been elected by the College rather than by direct popular vote.
As one might expect, this has resulted in some elections where the candidate who won the popular vote has not become President. To date, this has occurred four times:
The first instance was in 1824 when John Quincy Adams won the presidency over Andrew Jackson after the contentious election failed to produce a clear winner and the issue was decided in the House of Representatives.
The second instance occurred in 1876 - arguably one of the most disputed elections in US history - where Rutherford B. Hayes won over Samuel J. Tilden.
The third occurrence was the election of 1888 where Benjamin Harrison narrowly defeated Grover Cleveland despite the latter winning the majority of the popular vote.
The last instance as of 2009 was the election of 2000. Here once again, the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the election. George W. Bush was elected after the controversy over awarding Florida's electoral votes was resolved in favor of Bush. In this case Al Gore had won the popular vote by a margin of over a half million votes.
How does this happen? Simply put, the focus on a few so-called "battleground" or swing states can win the election for a candidate. As Article II of the Constitution spells out, the number of electoral votes each state is entitled to corresponds to the number of senators and representatives for that state.
Currently there are 538 electors in the Electoral College of which 270 are required in order to win. These electors are representatives appointed to cast votes for the candidate winning the state. How the electors are chosen is left up to the individual states and several systems are used.
This system is an all or nothing proposition and the actual popular vote is not a factor in the election as voters are in reality casting votes for appointing electors to the College, who in turn cast their votes for the candidate their party supports.
There is no provision for insuring that an elector will in fact vote for the candidate they're suppose to vote for, although 24 states have laws in place to punish so-called "faithless" electors. And although no election to date has been affected by faithless electors, the potential is there.
In addition, as mentioned above, the presidential campaigns - particularly of recent years - have tended to focus on a few swing states. Given the modern "winner take all" system (where the candidate with the most votes wins all of the electoral votes for a given state), it is mathematically possible to win a presidential election by winning only eleven states; California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, New Jersey and North Carolina (which would win a total of 271 electoral votes given the present distribution of electors).
Other combinations are possible of course, but it can be seen here that a president can potentially be elected by only a quarter of the nation's population - ignoring the remaining three-quarters.
Another issue with the current Electoral College and one directly linked to the focus on swing states is apathy in voter turnout and participation. Voters in non-swing states simply have no incentive for voting given the wide-spread perception that his/her vote "doesn't count". Nor do candidates normally expend any additional effort to visit or attempt to solicit support from non-swing states.
A related issue is the potential for disqualification of certain voters. As Article II of the Constitution leaves the method of selecting electors up to the individual states, those states in turn are essentially protected by the Electoral College from political fallout from disqualifying certain voters as the number of electoral votes is the same regardless of how many voters actually vote.
Arguably, this issue was more important in the past, when large voting segments of the population (for example women or African-Americans), were denied the right to vote. But even today, a change to a direct election would encourage efforts to get more voters to participate as every vote would count toward the election of a president.
Given the above problems with the Electoral College as it currently exists, what can be done? The most obvious option is to eliminate the College in favor of a direct popular vote.
This could be accomplished by a Constitutional Amendment, several of which have been introduced in Congress. However, to date, little progress has been noted despite widespread support for a switch to a popular vote system.
An alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This would entail an agreement among the states to award their electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes, thus bypassing, rather than replacing, the Electoral College.
The states participating in the Compact would continue to award their electoral votes in their existing manner until enough states join the Compact to constitute a majority in the Electoral College (270 votes). At that point, the electoral votes of the member states would be cast for the winner of the national (all 50 states and the District of Columbia) popular vote.
Because the member states represent the 270 vote majority required to win the Electoral College, the candidate winning the most popular votes would automatically win the election.
By taking advantage of the Constitutional provision allowing states the ability to appoint electors as they see fit, this proposal has the advantage of retaining the Electoral College (albeit essentially bypassed) that the proposed Constitutional Amendments lack, and does not require changing the Constitution.
To date, five states; Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington have joined the Compact, with five others; California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont, having bills to join pending. In all, proposals to adopt the Compact have been introduced in a total of 43 states.
If adopted, the Compact would be an elegant solution to the inherent problems of the Electoral College as outlined above.
Swing states as an election imperative would disappear, as the overall popular vote for the whole country would be the important factor - encouraging candidates to campaign nationwide. Voter apathy would be largely eliminated as individual voters would be assured that their vote would count; as it currently does for local, state, and congressional elections.
States would be held accountable for disqualifications for otherwise viable voters as the nationwide popular vote would determine a victor in a presidential election rather than state electoral votes being awarded regardless of the number of voters actually voting.
In summation, by retaining the electors to cast votes for candidates based on the winner of the popular vote for the entire country rather than on a state by state basis, the Compact would both preserve the Electoral College as well as ensure that the will of the people as a whole would determine who would occupy the most important government office in the United States.
Learn more about this author, Ray Peters.
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No
Revision of the System
In a representative democracy, the people should define the government; the government should not define its people. The current system of the Electoral College is problematic because it is does not always reflect the true will of the people. Several politically-aware Americans believe that the United States should elect its representatives on a popularity-based system. Conversely, there are others that believe the current system is fine and should remain in place as the United States' voting procedure. Both sides present to the argument a plethora of evidence and backing, but not many Americans feel strongly about the topic. This could be because the concept of the Electoral College proves too complex and the whole issue appears intimidating to those ignorant of the system's workings. When forming an opinion about an issue, it is important that one fully understands not only the argument itself, but what is being argued about.
The Electoral College was added to the United States constitution to settle a dispute about the means by which our presidents would be elected. Some of the founding fathers felt that our Presidents should be elected by Congress while others wanted our representatives to be elected by popular vote. As a compromise, the system of the Electoral College was created. In accordance to the system, the people vote for the electors in their state or district and those electors in turn make the final vote to determine the president. The number of electors that a state elects is equal to the number of that state's House Representatives and Senators. For example, Indiana has eleven electors; nine for the number of House districts in the state and two for the number of Senators each state is given. These electors are nominated by their parties. Electors are generally selected for being a dedicated and trustworthy member of their party. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize their adamant loyalty to the party. When Americans vote in the popular election, their votes determine which parties electors will vote in the final presidential election.
Almost all states adhere to a "winner takes all" rule to establish how many electors from each party that their state will send to the final vote. This rule states that whichever party has a majority of votes will be the total "winner" of that state. Referring back to the example of Indiana having eleven electors, assume that six of the eleven districts are awarded to Republicans and five are awarded to Democrats. Rather than sending six Republican electors and five Democrat electors, the state awards all its votes to the majority (Republicans) and sends eleven Republican electors. This "winner takes all" method is what creates most of the Electoral College's opposition. In fact, those who believe that the Electoral College should be abolished do so because the "winner takes all" method can cause inconsistencies between the popular vote and the final results of the election. There is a distinct possibility that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in an election will not actually be given the title of President. This exact problem occurred in 1888 in the presidential race between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland won the popular election with an excess of 110,476 votes. Nonetheless, Benjamin Harrison was elected president by the Electoral College. This is because while Harrison did not have much influence over a large number of cities, the few regions that did support him were so populated that he received enough electors to gain a majority. Thusly, Harrison became president of the United States, despite what most citizens had voted for. The same problem recurred in the 2000 presidential election between Republican George Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Al Gore received 50,996,582 votes, effectively giving him the victory in the popular vote. However, George Bush received five more electoral votes than Gore which gave him a majority in the Electoral College and officially entitled Bush to the presidency.
The inconsistency between the popular vote and the electoral vote is not the only flaw inherent to the Electoral College. Another menace to American voters is the betrayal of their electors; something that is known as "faithless electors." A majority of the states, including Indiana, do not legally bind their electors to the candidates that they are pledged to. In layman's terms, this means that even though a nominated elector claims that he will vote for his party, he is free to change his mind and cast his vote for the opposition if he feels so inclined. This situation occurs at times; however, the results of an election have never been altered by the actions of a faithless elector. These occurrences are rare. Like the other problems associated with the Electoral College, the consequences of faithless electors are few and far between.
Of course, nothing man-made is perfect, thus an election based purely on popularity creates within itself its own set of weaknesses. Those that support the Electoral College recognize this truth and find that while both systems are inevitably flawed, the Electoral College method is still superior. The Electoral College promotes the significance of smaller states to the overall results of the election. Candidates are forced to expand their campaign past the borders of heavily populated cities and rally support from smaller states such as Wyoming and Vermont. By doing so, the Electoral College insures that all Americans get a say in the government.
Another benefit of the Electoral College is that it maintains a two-party system of government. Only the two major parties (Republican and Democrat) can muster enough influence to win a majority of the electoral votes, and thus smaller third parties are completely impotent. To rally more support, the third party is assimilated into one of the two larger parties and is forced to compromise some of its more radical ideals. This promotes stability in the government and eliminates drastic changes in terms of political policy. By sacrificing the ability of citizens to vote directly for its representatives, the Electoral College creates a more stable and fair means of governing.
While differing in opinions, both sides of the argument only want what they feel is most appropriate for a democracy. Each system intends to make our system of government fair to all of its citizens. A handful of solutions have been created in response to this issue. One solution presented to reform the system was to eliminate the "winner takes all" system of allocating electors in each state. This method works by allocating one vote to each district and using the remaining two as a bonus for the statewide popular vote winner. This method of assigning electors is a better representation of each state's political composition. This method of reform preserves the importance of the state as well as creates a more democratic means of electing our presidents.
The Electoral College is a long-standing process and any major reforms to the system will require massive amounts of both time and effort. Both sides of the issue present strong evidence and both the opposition and the supporters of the Electoral College have the greater good in mind. The Electoral College may have its weak points, but that does not mean it should be dismissed completely. It is, however, necessary that we seriously consider some reforms to the system. This issue revolves around concepts that the founding fathers wrestled around with endlessly when constructing the constitution and that most Americans do not fully understand.
Learn more about this author, A.J. Harmon.
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