by ABRAHAM UNGER, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Government & Politics
Wagner College
Americans don’t elect their president directly through a popular vote. When voters go into the voting booth on Nov. 6, they will elect a slate of electors from their respective states pledged to a particular candidate. These electors representing the fifty states, plus three from the District of Columbia, form a body known as the Electoral College. It is the Electoral College that actually decides who will become president.
The Founding Fathers wanted to protect against unbridled popular will. Alexander Hamilton explained that “the general mass” would not “possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.” (Hamilton, Federalist #68, 1788) This is the underlying concern of republicanism (small “r”) rather than direct democracy, of which the framers of the constitution were afraid, fearing it could lead to “tumult and disorder.”(Ibid.) Hence, the Electoral College facilitates consideration of the popular will, with oversight attached.
Here’s how the Electoral College works: The Constitution (Article II, Section I) establishes that “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.” This formula was a constitutional compromise between the larger and smaller states, since it included both senators (100, with two from each state, regardless of state size) and congressmen (435, divided among the states in proportion to their populations). Add 3 from the District of Columbia, and that accounts for all 538 electors. A presidential candidate needs the votes of 270 electors to become president.
How does that happen? In 48 states, the candidate who wins the most popular votes, even by just one vote, wins all the state’s electoral votes. (In Maine and Nebraska, the system is based on congressional district victories.) State electors gather in December in their state capitals to cast their votes. While state electors do overwhelmingly reflect the popular will in formally electing the president, there have been rare cases of “faithless electors” who cast their written ballot for an alternative candidate and broke their pledge to vote for a particular candidate. Electors vote by secret ballot.
The distribution of Electoral College votes can change due to population changes recorded in the national census taken every 10 years. As of the 2008 presidential election, the clear pattern was a decline in population (and votes) in the north-central and eastern states, and gains in the western and southern states.
Historically, members of congress have introduced over 700 proposals to reform or completely abolish the Electoral College. One obstacle has simply been the procedural difficulties inherent in amending the Constitution. However, there are deeper issues at work than mere technicalities, which could be handled and have been implemented before.
The 2000 presidential election illustrates the essential problem many have with the Electoral College system. Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, won the nationwide popular vote, but because he lost in Florida by 537 votes, he ended up with only 267 Electoral College delegates, not the 270 delegates needed to win. After numerous court battles and recounts, Republican candidate George W. Bush was certified as the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes and thus became president.
Did that result truly represent the will of the people? To many, this just seems wrong — but it underscores the fact that presidential elections are a federal process, not a national one.
Even so, the three basic arguments underlying the Electoral College procedure are strong and have continued to win the day. First, small states still have more weight in the vote because of their equal number of two senators each, which embodies federalism and would disappear if we elected our president solely by popular vote. Second, this system compels candidates to reach out and campaign even in remote areas, rather than just larger markets. Third, this system at least avoids a nationwide recount; in the 2000 election, the recount at issue was only in the state of Florida.
In the end, your opinion about the Electoral College depends on your vision for democracy. Do you agree with Hamilton and the Founding Fathers, or do you think the popular will is a risk worth taking?
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