Citizens protest outside the State Capitol in Sacramento, California as Electors cast their ballots for US President inside.

It may seem illogical, but it's for real: In the United States the president is not directly elected by the voters, but instead by the Electoral College, an undemocratic, anachronistic institution that should have been abolished generations ago.

In 2001, George W. Bush became president, despite the fact that most voters preferred his opponent, Vice President Al Gore. In the November 7, 2000 election Mr. Gore received 198,000 more votes than Mr. Bush.

This sort of insanity, whereby the loser can actually win, must end.

The Electoral College is a political dinosaur put in place during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to benefit the southern states. Southern leaders, worried that direct elections would benefit the more populated North more than the South, proposed the Electoral College to ensure political competitiveness. The institution was part of the same deal that included counting slaves as three-fifths of a human being.

The institution was also intended as an aristocratic safety net. Always fearful of populist sentiments, the nation's founders created the Electoral College to serve as a last ditch defense for the country's elite. In case the elite didn't like the people's choice for governor, it could use the electors to pick another candidate. It was wise, the Constitution's authors thought, to keep a little distance between the government and the governed.

Now in the 21st century, we should no longer be held hostage by 17th century institutions. Abolishment of the Electoral College, a legacy of slavery and elite bias, is long overdue.

A Constitutional Amendment should be introduced that would get rid of the Electoral College and establish direct, popular election the president. The amendment should also include a "majority rule" requirement that says the winning candidate must receive 50 percent plus one of the vote or else face a runoff. That requirement will give more political space to minor parties and help neutralize the "spoiler" factor.

Related Articles

12/16	Pressure mounts for electoral reform   [BBC] -- Washington is filled with talk about the deep divisions brought about by the election, but if there is an issue that Republicans, Democrats, and most Americans for that matter agree upon, it is that something must be done to improve the electoral system.
11/26	Electoral College -- An Obsolete Concept?   [San Francisco Chronicle] -- In the midst of the most hotly-contested presidential election in modern history, we are rightly reconsidering some of our nation's political quirks -- including hanging chads, antiquated balloting machines, and yes, the Electoral College. Lest we forget, our founding fathers never meant the Electoral College to be democratic. It is, in fact, the last remnant of slavery in the U.S. Constitution.
11/14	Who Are The Electoral College?   [BBC News] -- Texas Governor and Republican candidate George W Bush won by a thin margin in the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to Democrat Vice President Al Gore by more than 200,000 votes.
11/9	The Electoral College, Unfair From Day One   [New York Times] -- As we await results from the Florida recount, two things should be clear. First, if George W. Bush, having apparently lost the popular vote, does indeed win at least 270 electoral votes when the Electoral College meets, he is the lawful winner, who played by the Constitution's rules and won.
11/9	The Case Against the Electoral College   [Hartford Courant] -- The nation holds its breath as it awaits the results of the ballot recount in Florida. It's as simple as this: the winner of Florida's popular vote wins the presidency.
11/7	Electoral College System Understood By Few   [CNN] -- If you think you are going to cast a vote for one of the presidential candidates, think again -- and look again at the small print on the ballot of that state.
11/3	The Electoral College -- How Winner of the Popular Vote Could Lose After All   [New York Times] -- The votes cast on November 7 will not really be for Vice President Al Gore or Gov. George W. Bush. They will be votes for state electors pledged to vote for Mr. Gore or Mr. Bush in the balloting that really counts, held on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
11/2	Electoral College Outlives Usefulness   [USA Today] -- The Electoral College may once again be the subject of well-deserved scorn.
10/26	Fix System Before We Elect 'Loser President'   [Daily Herald] -- "The biggest reason [the Electoral College] was set up was to protect slavery," Amar says, noting that for 32 of our first 36 years as a nation, the Electoral College elected "a slave-owning Virginian" to be president.
10/1	The Perils of the Electoral College   [Roll Call] -- With the 18th-century Electoral College, each of the 50 states' presidential races are conducted as individual contests. Since the rules are Winner Take All and heavily tilted toward the largest states, it means that a presidential candidate only needs to win more votes than anyone else in each of the 11 largest states to win enough electoral votes to capture the prize.

Related Information

Frequently Asked Questions on the Electoral College

Prepared by The Office of the Federal Register (from the National Archives and Records Administration website)

Time to Reform the Electoral College?

Over the years, drawbacks to the Electoral College system have become apparent. Critics say one of its most obvious faults is that a president can be elected without winning a majority of the popular vote. In fact, a president with a minority of the popular vote has won the Electoral College vote 15 times in U.S. history, most recently in 1992 and 1996, when Clinton won only 43 percent and 49 percent of the popular vote respectively.

Center for Voting and Democracy

The Center for Voting and Democracy researches how voting systems affect participation, representation and governance. They advocate proportional representation systems for legislative elections, instant runoff voting for executive and judicial elections and public interest redistricting.

The Electoral College

From the Federal Electoral Commission's website. Covers the following topics: how the electoral college works; the distribution of electoral college votes amongst the states; a brief history of the electoral college along with pro's and con's and a selected bibliography.

Bibliography: Electoral College and Electoral College Reform

From the Book "How to Research Elections," by Fenton S. Martin and Robert U. Goehlert