Time to Reform the Electoral College?
Policy.com
July 27, 2000
By Ellen Sung
In the 1992 presidential race, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton accomplished what at the time seemed impossible: winning the state of California -- then a Republican stronghold -- over President George Bush. Clinton courted California like no other national office-seeker had before and was able to use his win there to sew up the election.
In 1996, Clinton was a popular incumbent but nonetheless heaped attention on California again and campaigned there almost 30 times Again, he won the state.
The reason for all this attention? If a candidate wins a slim majority in California and grabs its 54 electoral votes, he or she is one-fifth of the way to the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency. Thus while California is the nation's most populous state, accounting for 11 percent of the U.S. population, its electoral votes are an even greater prize -- 20 percent of the necessary votes.
Rather than voting in a direct popular election, U.S. citizens in each state technically choose between slates of electors that represent each party. Taken together, the winning electors form the Electoral College. There are 538 electors, with each state getting one elector for each representative and senator it has (there are three more electors for the District of Columbia). The electors meet after the November popular election to cast their votes and officially elect the president.
The framers of the Constitution preferred the electoral system to a direct popular election because in the 18th century, travel was difficult and there were no national party organizations. They feared that many regional candidates would divide the vote.
Requiring a candidate to win a majority in the Electoral College was a way of obtaining a national consensus. The only constitutional change to the system since then is the Twelfth Amendment, which requires each elector to cast two votes, one for president and one for vice president.
But 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.
The Electoral College also tends to overrepresent voters in rural states. In 1988, the seven least populous jurisdictions (including the District of Columbia) had 21 electoral votes, the same as Florida. But Florida's population was three times the combined population of those seven jurisdictions.
Critics also argue that because the Constitution allows electors to use their discretion, there is a possibility of a "faithless" elector not casting his vote for the people's choice but for his own preference. However, this has only happened seven times and never had a real effect on the outcome of an election. Electors now are usually pledged to support a party's candidate.
Another key criticism is that each state's electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. This makes it extremely difficult for third-party or independent candidates to win any votes in the Electoral College. In fact, by concentrating support in certain states, a candidate can take the presidency without winning more popular votes than his opponent. In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote by several percentage points but still won the Electoral College vote over Samuel Tilden of New York.
In fact, as the state's representatives are apportioned according to the 1990 census, a candidate only needs to win 11 of the most heavily populated of the 50 states in order to take the presidency -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina and either Georgia or Virginia.
"I consider the so-called Electoral College a brilliant 18th-century device that cleverly solved a cluster of 18th-century problems," Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar told the House Judiciary Committee in a hearing on Electoral College reform in 1997. "As we approach the 21st century, we confront a different cluster of problems, and our constitutional machinery of presidential selection does not look so brilliant."
There have been repeated attempts to reform or even scrap the Electoral College system. Most recently in 1997, Congress debated a constitutional amendment to replace it with a system of direct popular election.
But defenders of the Electoral College, such as Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, say direct election may be as problematic as using an electoral go-between.
"The idea of getting rid of the Electoral College ... would be profoundly dangerous, particularly in the present way that we conduct our campaigns," says Gans. "Essentially what this would mean is that the totality of our campaigns would be a television advertising, tarmac kind of campaign. You would be handing the American presidential campaign to whatever media adviser could outslick the other."
Another major concern, says Gans, is shifting from the principle of federalism. "Different states in different regions have important interests to which the candidate should be subjected and to which the candidates should be required to speak." Gans argues that the Electoral College should not be abandoned, but the winner-take-all approach should be reformed to allow minority candidates to be represented, and the "faithless" elector should be outlawed.
| Reform, Replace the Electoral College — Con Perspectives |
Why A Third Party Presidential Candidate Can't Get Elected
February 2, 2000 -- Devvy Kidd, writing for the Devvy Foundation, contends that a third-party president will never be elected so long as the electoral college system remains in existence.
Testimony of Professor Akhil Amar on Electoral College Reform
September 4, 1997 -- Akhil Amar, Southmayd Chair of Constitutional Law at Yale Law School, testifies before the House Judiciary Committee that the electoral college is an innovative solution to many problems that faced the Founding Fathers. But, Amar argues, the electoral college system is ill-suited to modern America.
Proposals for Electoral College Reform
September 4, 1997 -- Becky Cain, President of the League of Women Voters, testifies before the House Judiciary Committee that since 1970 the LWV has supported abolishing the electoral college in favor of a direct vote for the president and vice president.
| The System Works — Pro Perspectives |
Testimony of Walter Berns on Electoral College Reform
September 4, 1997 -- In his testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Walter Berns of the American Enterprise Institute defends the current electoral college system, saying that rather than being "dangerous" or "undemocratic" as some critics charge, the system produces "clear and immediately known" winners.
Testimony of Curtis Gans
September 4, 1997 -- Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate argues in his testimony to the House Committee on the Judiciary that while arguments against the Electoral College and for direct elections seem sound on the surface, they are in fact flawed. The case for the Electoral College is more complex, he says, and more compelling.
Testimony of Judith A. Best
September 4, 1997 -- Arguing for the current Electoral College system of presidential elections, Judith Best says to the House Committee on the Judiciary, "No election system is perfect, but the current system has borne the test of time. It has never rejected the winner of a popular vote majority." She calls critics' principle of democratic legitimacy inadequate because it is "apolitical and anti-federal."
