The Electoral College: the perfect solution or an outdated ideal?
The electoral college originated out of compromise between the founding fathers: presidential election by Congress and presidential election by popular vote. “The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered several methods of electing the President, including selection by Congress, by the governors of the states, by the state legislatures, by a special group of Members of Congress chosen by lot, and by direct popular election.” The popular vote can give more power to larger states, while the electoral college works to give power to the smaller states.
Qualifications for the office are broad: the only persons prohibited from serving as electors are Senators, Representatives, and persons “holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States.” The total number of electors each state gets are adjusted following each decennial census in a process called reapportionment. 270 electoral votes of 538 is required for the election of the president and vice president. Most states have a winner-takes-all selection system for the electors. This means that whichever candidate gets the majority vote (at 51%), all of the electors for that state (proportional by size of state) will be representative of the majority vote. The issue with this system is that the vote can be 51–49 but the electors will represent as though it was 100–0 and therefore threatens presidential representation. Maine and Nebraska have some sort of representational electoral system.
The electoral college is a remnant of America’s history with slavery. The South feared losing votes to the North and wanted their slaves to be counted, thus resulting in the 3/5 Compromise, where slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person. Slaves could not influence the popular vote but their population allowed white Southerners more strength in the electoral college by allowing them to have more electoral votes for their enslaved populations.
There have been 5 instances in American history where the popular vote did not produce the president. These instances call into question the purpose and effectiveness of the electoral college.
The 1824 election of President John Quincy Adams showed Jackson as winning the popular vote, but not a single candidate raised the amount of electoral votes necessary to win, so the election was put to the House of Representatives.
The 1876 election of President Rutherford B. Hayes was the most contested election in history where candidate Tilden won the majority (not just plurality of the vote) and also won the electoral college. But because of 20 undeclared votes, a compromise was struck where Hayes won the election on the condition he would end Reconstruction in the south.
The 1888 election of Benjamin Harrison showed incumbent President Cleveland winning the popular vote by over 90,000 votes, but lost the electoral college, partially due to intercession by political machine bosses (like Tammany Hall).
In 2000, Al Gore received almost 550,000 more popular votes than President George W. Bush. Bush won the electoral college, however, by 271 votes to Gore’s 266. A recount for Florida ultimately ended in the Supreme Court (Bush v. Gore).
The candidates for the 2016 election were both unfavored by the general populace. Hillary Clinton was estimated to receive 70–90% of the popular vote. She won the popular vote by 2.1%. President Donald Trump received 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227.
Particularly because of the recent 2000 and 2016 elections, new calls to get rid of the electoral college have arisen. With the failure of the popular vote, critics of the electoral college claim that the US cannot truly be a democracy.
If the college is abolished, coverage of elections would change. With the college, states get categorized as “battlegrounds” or “monoliths”, with monoliths (states whose vote is not close) are practically ignored the entire election season while candidates focus on battleground states (states whose votes could change). On the other hand, it is feared that if the popular vote becomes the key election determinant, rural areas will be ignored and votes won’t call because there are less people spread out through more land.
The electoral college doesn’t fully allow for third-party success, because they are seen as “spoilers” rather than “players”. Since third-party candidates are highly unlikely to win, votes that go to them are seen as throw-aways for the two major parties.
The electoral college helps prevent an endless cycle of recount lawsuits.
A new way of electing the president has arisen, called the National Popular Vote. In this, states pledge to give whoever wins the popular vote their electoral vote so that the electoral college more accurately represents those states’ popular vote. 10 Democratic states (California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont) have made this pledge. Enforcement of this is weak though, because it is not a Constitutional requirement but is merely a compact.
