The Electoral College. Love it or Leave it?

​Every four years we are reminded that the President and Vice-President of the United States are not democratically elected. They are elected by a group of 538 electors of the Electoral College. This November 3rd (or sooner if you vote by mail) when you cast your vote for President and Vice-President, you will actually be telling your State which candidate you want the State’s electors to vote for. What is the Electoral College? Does it still work as originally conceived, and what are the alternatives? 

​Electoral College: It is a body of 538 electors which is selected every four years from each State and Washington D.C., for the express purpose of electing the President and Vice-President of the United States.  Every State gets one elector for each member of congress. California for example, has 2 Senators and 53 Representatives in the House of Representatives, and therefore has a total of 55 electors. Washington D.C. has a total of 3 electors.

​As spelled out in the Constitution, each State chooses its own electors. The selection process differs by political party and by State. The National Association of Secretaries of State has compiled a list of the laws governing the selection of Presidential Electors for each State.   (https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2020-10/summary-electoral-college-laws-100220.pdf).  In all States, except Maine and Nebraska, the Presidential candidate with the most popular votes in that State, receives all of the State’s electors. In Maine and Nebraska, the electors are awarded to the popular vote winner of each congressional district, plus two electors are awarded to the winner of the State’s popular vote. In order to be elected President, the candidate must receive the majority of the electors, 270 or more.

​Important Dates:

• November 3, 2020: Election day. Once certified, the winning candidate’s State political party selects (if not previously done) the individuals who will be the electors.
• December 14, 2020: The electors meet in their respective States and vote for President and Vice-President on separate ballots.
• December 23, 2020: The electoral votes (the Certificates of Vote) must be received by the President of the Senate and the Archivist of the Office of the Federal Register.
• January 6, 2021: The new Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes. The President of the Senate announces the results of the Electoral College vote.
• January 20, 2021: Inauguration day. 

​Why We Have the Electoral College:  Article 2, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution established that electors selected from each State, and not a direct vote of the people, would elect the President and Vice-President. The Constitution established the number of electors each State was entitled to, but left it up to the individual States how to select their electors. Originally the candidate with the second highest number of electoral votes would become the Vice-President. This was changed in 1804 with the 12th Amendment, which directed electors to cast separate votes for the President and Vice-President.  

The drafters of the Constitution didn’t want a direct vote for President for several reasons. They needed to appease the less populated States, particularly those in the South who feared that a direct vote would disadvantage them.  The drafters were also fearful that a direct election by all voters could be corrupted by foreign and other unscrupulous interests. It was also feared that the citizenry would not be well informed in order to make such an important selection to the highest office in the land. According to Alexander Hamilton, “A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.” (https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-61-70).

​Reasons to Change the Electoral College: According to a recent Pew Research poll, a majority of U.S. adults favor replacing the Electoral College with a simple popular vote system for electing the President. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/13/a-majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-replacing-electoral-college-with-a-nationwide-popular-vote/). Below is a list of the main reasons to replace the current system:

• The Process is Not Democratic: In the history of the United States, five Presidents have lost the popular vote but won the Presidency. They were John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888), George W. Bush (2000), and Donald Trump (2016).  George W. Bush and Donald Trump are Republicans, so it is no surprise that the Republicans are less inclined to change the current system than are Democrats.

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• It Doesn’t Protect Against Unfit Candidates: This was one of the primary purposes for having the Electoral College in the first place, but it no longer works. When the Constitution was written there were no political parties, and electors chose the candidate most fit and capable to hold the highest office in the land. Today, electors’ votes are controlled by the States’ parties and the States’ election laws. They do not have the option to vote for whomever they please. In most instances the electors must vote for the candidate with the most popular votes in their State, otherwise they are considered to be a “faithless elector”. This summer the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a State may require presidential electors to support the winner of the popular vote and punish or replace those who don’t. (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules-state-faithless-elector-laws-constitutional). If the individual electors have no say in assessing the suitability of a Presidential candidate, who does, the party? Not according to recent history.
• Winner-Take-All Laws: Forty-eight States award all electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in their State. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the Constitution. This leads to candidates ignoring States where they have little chance of winning. As a result, campaigns concentrate their events and expenditures in just a handful of swing States, such as Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. This flies in the face of the argument that the Electoral College protects and gives voice to voters in the smallest States. Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, and Montana receive very little attention during Presidential campaigns. This should be no surprise since these seven States have a combined total of only 21 electoral votes.

​Reasons to Keep the Electoral College:

• The Constitution: To change or eliminate the Electoral College system would require an amendment to the Constitution. The hurdles are so high, and the country is so politically polarized, that this is not going to happen anytime soon. Since the Republicans have benefited from the system twice in the past twenty years, they are not about to change it.
• Bestows Legitimacy to the Winner: Under the current system, the candidate with the majority of electoral votes (270 or more), wins the election. Under a popular vote system, the candidate with the most votes wins the election, even if they receive less than 50% of the votes cast.  In the election of 1992, Bill Clinton received only 43% of the popular votes because of the strong showing by third-party candidate Ross Perot. But Bill Clinton received the majority of electoral votes, giving legitimacy to his Presidency. In our current winner-take-all system, it is very difficult for third party candidates to receive electoral votes. In a popular vote system, several strong third-party candidates could pull a significant number of votes away from the Democrat and Republican candidates. Would a simple plurality of the votes instill legitimacy on the new President? What if the plurality was only 30%? Would we need some kind of “rank choice” voting, or a runoff election to get a winner above a certain threshold? These are important questions to consider before doing away with the Electoral College. But giving more voice to third-party candidates, and breaking up the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans would not necessarily be a bad thing.

​​The National Popular Vote:  Fixing the current system through a Constitutional amendment is a non-starter in the present political climate. Is there a non-Constitutional change that could achieve the same outcome as eliminating the Electoral College? The answer is yes, and a movement is already underway to do just that. The “National Popular Vote” is an organization established, not to eliminate the Electoral College, but to effectively neutralize it. The premise is rather simple. If enough States agree to pledge all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, that candidate will win the Presidency, effectively side-stepping the Electoral College. When enacted by enough States with a combined electoral vote count of 270 or higher, the National Popular Vote interstate compact will be established and go into effect. Since 2006, the National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by fifteen States and Washington D.C., representing 196 electoral votes.  (https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/). This system would be more democratic in ensuring that every voter, in every State, has a direct vote in electing the President and Vice-President of the United States.   

With the 2020 Presidential election just three weeks away, I can’t think of a better time to review just how we elect our President, and to consider all the ramifications surrounding the process. The Electoral College has some pluses and minuses, but does it serve the best interests of the American people? I certainly don’t think that it functions as originally intended. The concentration of power in a few Northern States is no longer a problem. The selection of qualified Presidential Electors to weed out unsuitable candidates is an antiquated notion. In the age of the internet and mass media, we no longer have to rely upon direct contact with a candidate to hear their message. A national popular vote system would be more democratic and give voice to a more diverse group of candidates. The Democrat and Republican parties have not served this nation well over the past several decades. I seriously think that it’s time for some fresh ideas and fresh faces to confront the challenges ahead.    

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Armchair American