USA Today
November 2, 2000
By John B. Anderson

George W. Bush and Al Gore have been criticizing each other for "fuzzy math." But how's this for fuzzy math: There is a real chance that the presidential candidate who wins the most votes this year will not win the election.

That's right -- that old whipping horse, the Electoral College, once again may be the subject of well-deserved scorn. The candidate with the most votes is elected in every other election for federal office and in nearly all elections of any consequence here and abroad. But instead of a simple national vote, the Constitution requires the presidency to be decided by 51 separate elections in each state and the District of Columbia -- all but Nebraska and Maine winner-take-all -- with electoral votes allocated based on the size of each state's congressional delegation.

The last popular-vote winner defeated by the college was Grover Cleveland in 1888. Since then, we have amended the Constitution to elect senators directly, to guarantee women's right to vote and to lower the voting age to 18. We have passed the Voting Rights Act to provide access to the ballot regardless of race or ethnicity. The Electoral College has escaped this move to greater democracy only because of institutional inertia.

Rejection of the indirect election of a president is overdue. Many Americans favor its abolition. If the winner of this year's popular vote is defeated due to the vagaries of narrow results in a handful of states, legislators will rush to file constitutional amendments to abolish the Electoral College. I suspect one will succeed.

Alternative proposals

Some senators propose awarding electoral votes in states in proportion to the candidates' share of the vote. Others support amendments to ensure that if no candidate wins an electoral-vote majority, voters would pick the winners in a second-round runoff election.

But direct election is the only viable solution. Any intellectual arguments in favor of the Electoral College collapse in the face of most people's visceral reaction against the presidency going to a candidate whom they understandably regard as having lost the contest.

Nevertheless, there are important questions to resolve in proposals for direct election. For example, many advocates call for a second round of voting between the top two finishers if no candidate receives 40% of the popular vote.

But 40% is too low for winning the highest office in the land. If anyone must command support, or at least acceptance, from a majority of the people, it is the president. After setting a majority threshold, however, we should not enshrine in the Constitution the flawed mechanism of a separate runoff election.

Although common in many nations and in many states and cities, runoffs are an awkward, inefficient process. If the top two finishers in the presidential contest faced off in a second, national round of voting, the costs would be exorbitant. Candidates would have to grub for tens of millions of dollars in extra cash to run a new campaign, and the cumulative additional costs to local election administrators would be vast. And voter turnout easily could drop in the decisive runoff.

Why not instant runoff?

Instead, the Constitution should permit other mechanisms, such as instant-runoff voting, a more efficient and inexpensive method used in several nations. Rather than select their favorite choice, voters should be allowed to indicate their runoff choices by rank-ordering the candidates: first, second, third and so on. Any candidate with a majority of first choices is the winner.

If there is no winner, the weakest candidates are eliminated, and a second round of counting takes place. Ballots count for each voter's top-ranked candidate still in the race -- the first choice, if not eliminated, but otherwise the first remaining runoff choice. Rounds continue until there is a majority winner. Ballot machines can handle this quickly and efficiently.

"Majority rule" is a basic tenet of democracy. The Electoral College and 40% winning thresholds both fail this test. Let's send a message to American voters that it is their votes, and their votes alone, that count when electing our leaders.

[John B. Anderson, president of the Center for Voting and Democracy, represented Illinois in the House and ran for president in 1980 as an independent.]