The Electoral College
- Amy Compare
- Oct 31, 2020
- 5 min read
Despite living in the United States for 26 years, being eligible to vote for 8, and having now voted in 3 presidential elections, I still wasn't sure how the electoral college worked or why it was a thing. So I looked it up, and this is what I learned.
What is it?/How does it work?
Rather than being chosen by a popular vote, like Senators or State Representatives, the President is elected by electors who are appointed by each state. From the constitution: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.” When you cast a vote for a presidential candidate, you are actually casting a vote for a slate of electors, generally chosen by the candidate’s political party, who have pledged to a particular candidate. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, and a majority of 270 electoral votes is required to be elected presidents. As the quote from the constitution mentioned, each state receives one elector for each member in the House of Representatives and one for each Senator. The District of Columbia receives 3 electors. The law requires electors to vote for the candidate to whom they pledged, but how enforceable this is unclear - I saw somewhere once that an elector who voted against their pledge was fined a few thousand dollars. In the 2016 election, there were seven faithless electors who defected from the choice of their state’s popular vote. However, a federal court ruled that states cannot penalize faithless electors.
After the general election in November, a meeting of electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election and casts their votes for President/Vice President. Each state’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of congress on January 6th.
The electoral college system was created at the start of the country to balance two goals: democratic legitimacy (electors are popularly elected or at least elected by the people’s representatives) and the judgement of the political elite. Using a system with electors also helped preserve the voting power of Southern states, as slave were counted as ⅗ of person for the purposes of appointing state representatives but could not vote themselves, which skewed the ratio of number of electors that Southern states had to the number of people represented who could actually vote. The founding father rejected a popular vote for president because they did not trust voters to make a wise choice.
What are some problems with it?/Reasons to get rid of it
The electoral college preserves the political power of small states whose 2 extra electors (from the Senate count) carry more weight with a smaller population which overrepresents small and medium-sized states at the expense of larger states. However, the “winner-take-all” laws erase all voters in a state who did not vote for the top candidate. Even James Madison was wary of the “winner-take-all” rule, and even called for a constitutional amendment to bar it.
Having a president who is elected by the electoral college but not the popular vote undermines electoral legitimacy and does not make the public feel confident about the integrity of the voting process. Faithless voters could render the popular vote void in some states. Using a system of electors also increases the odes of corrupt decisions and insider dealings.
Overall, a majority of Americans want to remove the Electoral College, but there is currently a partisan divide in this perspective - Republicans favor keeping the system, and Democrats oppose it.
Reasons to keep it?
There are some reasons to keep it. The electoral college requires candidates to broaden their national electoral appeal - it gives candidates an incentive to try to win as many states as possible with the winner-take-all rule in effect (although this seems to contradict information about certain states being primarily blue or red and not really flip-flopping - I suppose this year it seems like there are states who have historically voted one way or another who are close to flipping). Without this incentive, candidates may choose more extreme policy positions to appeal to their base rather than the country as a whole and win over moderate and independent . It could increase polarization. Elimination of the electoral college would eliminate incentives to reach across the country and build a larger coalition.
If elected by a popular vote, national recount would also involve a logistical nightmare of recounting individual votes rather than electoral college votes (a much smaller number).
Ways to Modify It
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The electoral college operates on a “winner-take-all” basis, in which the majority vote in a state takes all the electoral votes. This means that a presidential candidate has no reason to pay attention to the concerns of voters in states where they are not guaranteed to win a majority of votes (and therefore receive no electoral votes). However, the “winner-take-all” rule is a state law, not a federal one, and to combat this, some states are joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This compact will go into effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes, at which time every voter will acquire a direct vote for a group of at least 270 presidential electors supporting their choice for president. So basically, states who commit to this compact agree to to commit electors to vote for candidate who won the nationwide popular vote, and not the popular vote within their state. Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia have adopted this compact. However, it would require 74 additional electoral votes to take effect. Some challenges to this include: 1) how voters might react if state electors collectively vote against the popular vote of their state 2) no binding legal repercussions if state elector decides to defect from national popular vote and 3) the compact is certain to face constitutional challenges if it gains enough electoral votes to into effect.
Proportional Representation with the Electoral College System
Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” In their systems, individual electors are appointed based on the popular vote for each congressional district plus two electors based on the overall winner of the state-wide popular vote. It is rare for a state to split electors, but Nebraska did so in 2008 and Maine did so in 2012.
A Constitutional Amendment to Remove the Electoral College
To really change the system of the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment which requires at least ⅔ affirmation from both the House and Senate. Congress did almost remove the Electoral Congress in 1934, but missed the threshold by two votes.
Summary
I’ve never really been a subscriber to the notion that we need to do things just because that is the way we’ve always done it, and I don’t think the idea that the electoral college system shouldn’t be changed because the founding fathers set it up is a particularly strong argument for it.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems like one of the best ways to represent the people’s voice in the Electoral College system without the potential extreme polarization of a popular vote would be a “proportional representation” of electors like Nebraska and Maine. It seems like a good way to maintain a system that makes the logistics of an election at such a big scale easier, while also representing individual voters more.
I know a lot more about the Electoral College now, and I want to look into the topic of changing the 2-party system next.
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