Electoral College

IV

Debate Over the Electoral College

The most common criticism of the electoral college, and in particular the winner-take-all system, is that it makes possible “the wrong winner”—that is, a candidate who did not win the popular election. These critics say the winner-take-all system is largely responsible for the possibility that a candidate can be elected president even though he or she polls fewer popular votes than the opponent. If a candidate receives a minority of the popular vote nationally but carries a sufficient number of states to ensure a majority of the electoral votes, the candidate is elected. As a result the will of the majority can be frustrated through the normal operation of the electoral college.

Basic democratic principles, the critics argue, suggest that the people ought to be able to decide directly who should govern them. They point to the dispute caused by the election of 1876 and also to the elections of 1888 and 2000. In the 1888 election Democrat Grover Cleveland, the defeated candidate, polled about 100,000 more popular votes than Republican Benjamin Harrison. In the states that Cleveland carried, however, he received only 168 electoral votes to Harrison’s 233. Harrison won key states having large numbers of electoral votes by narrow margins and lost states having fewer electoral votes by large margins. In the highly disputed 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore, the losing candidate, won more than 500,000 more popular votes than Republican George W. Bush, but Bush won the presidency by capturing 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266.

Further, the critics argue that the electoral college is outmoded because the government of the United States has changed fundamentally since the nation was founded. Early in U.S. history it was intended that the government would take the form of a republic, in which the people give elected representatives and officials the power to govern for them. However, the critics suggest, the U.S. government has, over the course of more than 200 years, gradually become a democracy in which elected officials are expected to reflect the views of their constituents and to subordinate their own views. Consequently, they argue, thwarting the direct will of the people through the intervention of intermediaries—such as presidential electors—is no longer appropriate.

Defenders of the electoral college respond that these disadvantages are outweighed by benefits, which are often unappreciated. A “wrong winner” emerges only rarely, the defenders point out. More often, the electoral college tends to magnify the results of a popular victory, which thus lends legitimacy to the election results and helps provide the winner with a mandate for legislative or executive initiatives. For example, in 1912 Woodrow Wilson received only a 41 percent plurality of the popular vote but won 81 percent of the electoral vote.

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Moreover, the defenders argue that abolishing the electoral college would likely have unforeseeable consequences that could alter every element of the political system. No one can predict, they suggest, how abolition of the electoral college would affect state political parties, campaign finance, the power of minorities, the strength of the presidency versus Congress, the strength of the federal government versus state governments, or the vitality of the two-party system. This is why John F. Kennedy, as a senator, opposed abolishing the electoral college. “It is not only the unit vote for the presidency we are talking about,” he said, “but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider the others.”

V

Proposals for Reform

Proposals for reform of the electoral college began in the earliest days of the republic. Indeed, it is the part of the Constitution most often subject to proposals for modification. Aside from abolition of the electoral college and the substitution of direct election by the people, the most common proposals retain the system of electoral votes but alter its operation. One suggestion, for example, would automatically assign a proportionate number of a state’s electoral votes to a candidate based upon that candidate’s popular vote total in that state. This suggestion would make less likely a “wrong winner,” but it would retain electors and does not seem to have any greater advantage over direct election.

Yet another proposal, the so-called national bonus plan, would add a fixed number of electoral votes to the existing electoral college total of the candidate with the greatest number of votes nationwide. This plan would further reduce the possibility of a wrong winner. However, in a three-way race this plan could distort the election outcome by adding to the electoral vote total of a candidate who received a popular plurality while remaining the second or third choice of most voters.

None of these or other proposed reforms has ever come close to being adopted, for two reasons. First, small states receive an advantage by having the electoral college. The vote of a voter in Alaska or Montana counts for more than the vote of a voter in California or New York. Although Alaska and Montana each have only three electoral votes, three is still more than they would be allotted if electoral votes were apportioned solely on the basis of population. Most legislators in states with small populations then would be unlikely to support the abolition of the electoral college. Abolishing the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment. For such an amendment to be ratified, three-fourths of the states would have to approve. But 20 of the 50 states have six or fewer electoral votes and would be unlikely to support such an amendment, effectively blocking it since 38 states are needed for ratification.

Second, abolition would trade known problems for risks that are not known. Until a reform proposal comes along that does not clearly imperil “the whole solar system of governmental power,” it is likely that Americans will continue to live with the shortcomings of the electoral college rather than risk something worse. “There are objections,” Madison wrote, “against every mode that has been, or perhaps can be proposed.” It is, perhaps more than anything, the comparative merit of the electoral college that has accounted for its survival for more than 200 years.

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