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The Antiquated Electoral College

The results of the November 2000 presidential election clearly pointed out what many have
said for years, "The Electoral College needs to be changed or abolished." George W. Bush was elected President by the Electoral College even though he did not have a majority of the votes of the people of the United States.

The Electoral College is a rather complex system of choosing the president of the United States. The persons writing the Constitution labored many hours over this process. As in the choice of senators and representatives, the small states wanted to be fairly represented so that the larger states would not have an unfair advantage. The final compromise was the Electoral College in which each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives each state has. This body meets in December following the general election in November and casts the votes for the president. This is called an indirect election. The framers of the Constitution did not think the people were informed enough to participate in the direct election of the president.

One of the more unfair aspects with the Electoral College is the "winner-take-all" feature. When the public goes to the polls to vote they actually cast their vote for a political party. When the votes are tallied, the party with a majority of the votes in that state is awarded all the electoral votes for that state. Thus if one party wins 51% of the votes and has 10 electoral votes, all 10 votes are allocated to that party's candidate. The candidate of the other party receives none although 49% of the people may have voted for him.

For as many years as I can remember, immediately following a presidential election, there has been a hue and cry against the Electoral College. There is a lot of discussion in the media then it dies away for another four years. Most of the talk centers on the abolition of the Electoral College and putting in its place a direct-popular vote method. An amendment to the Constitution would be necessary to do this. It is unrealistic to think such an amendment would pass, because of the fear on the part of the small states of losing representation. It would need their approval to pass. Such amendments have been proposed but soon whither away from lack of support.

There is a way that the system could be changed without a constitutional amendment. The Constitution states that the choice of the electors is determined by the states. Thus, states could change from the winner-take-all method currently in place, to the allocating of electoral votes. In this way if a party's candidate received 60% of the popular vote, 60% of the electors would be allocated to that candidate and the remaining 40% to the other candidate(s) in proportion. This, at least, would be a more fair way than the current system.

Those proponents of maintaining the system as it is say it has worked well for us for 200 years so why change it. True there has not been a true crisis under the system, but the year 2000 election was a fiasco partly because of it. Also the smaller states are right to not want to be dominated by the larger states.

I strongly believe that the Electoral College is antiquated and should be abolished. Short of abolition, a major reform is due. We are not living in the same age as the Founding Fathers of our country. The voting public is informed and quite capable of making a choice as to who should be their leader. Let them do it.

Learn more about this author, Annalou Mack.
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