An Electoral College
primer By Keith Andrew Bettinger
As the US presidential election draws near, it
helps to reflect upon the peculiar institution called
the Electoral College in order to prepare for and
understand the possibility that the next president might
not reflect that popular political will of the
electorate. This system, which is provided for in
Article II of the constitution and was further refined
by the passage of the 12th Amendment, has guided the
selection of presidents and vice presidents since the
late 18th century and has only been modified once - in
1961, is one of the idiosyncrasies of the US political
system, a remnant of the inventiveness and insight of
the nation's founding fathers.
How it
works Each state in the United States is
apportioned a number of Electoral College electors equal
to its senators and representatives in Congress, with an
additional three electors for the District of Columbia
(Washington, the national capital). So, for example, the
state of Louisiana, which has six representatives (based
on population) and two senators (every state, regardless
of size, has two senators) would have eight electors.
Thus there are a total of 538 electors in the system. To
win the presidency a candidate is required to win a
simple majority of 270 electors.
Electors are
chosen within the states by the political parties. The
two major parties, the Republicans and Democrats, choose
electors at statewide conventions, or they are appointed
by party leadership within the state. Each state party
organization submits a slate of electors to the chief
election official of the state - in the example of
Louisiana, they would submit a slate of eight potential
electors. Most smaller parties simply appoint electors.
Being chosen by one's party as an elector is seen as an
honor and a reward for distinguished service to the
party.
Next Tuesday when US voters enter the
voting booth, they will not actually be voting for the
president directly. Rather they will vote for the
electors pledged to their candidate of choice. Although
this is a subtle difference, it is an important one. On
most ballots, voters will simply choose a box labeled
"Electors for John Kerry" or "Electors for George W
Bush", but in some cases the names of the electors are
placed on the ballots as well. In all cases, however,
the affiliation of the electors is clearly indicated.
When the votes are counted in each state, the
candidate with the plurality of votes (not necessarily a
majority) wins all of the electors from the state. Thus,
in this winner-take-all system, if the popular vote in
Louisiana went 55% for Bush, 42% for Kerry, and 3% for
Ralph Nader, Bush would win all eight Electoral votes
for the state. Nebraska and Maine are the only two
exceptions to this rule; there, state law dictates that
the winner of the popular vote for the entire state will
automatically receive two of the state's electors, while
the rest are determined according to the vote of
individual congressional districts. Thus it mirrors the
process for choosing senators and representatives for
Congress, and the Electoral vote in those states can be
divided between the candidates. In all cases, after the
popular votes are counted and the electors assigned to
the winner, the popular vote no longer matters. The
voters have in effect delegated authority to the
electors to cast a vote for one candidate or the other.
It is possible, as has happened three times in
the past (most recently in 2000), for a candidate to win
the election despite losing the popular vote. The
easiest way to imagine this would be if the losing
candidate were to win by very high popular margins in a
few high-population states, but lose in close races in
many lower-population states. In this scenario, the
winner would be the candidate who won the most electors,
rather than the winner of the popular vote.
On
the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,
the electors gather in their respective state capitals
to cast their votes. This is when the president of the
United States is officially chosen.
The finer
points If neither of the major-party candidates
receives 270 votes (if a third-party candidate were to
garner some states, for example), the election is
decided by the House of Representatives. Each of the 50
states casts one vote only, and a simple majority
chooses the president. This has happened twice, in 1801
with Thomas Jefferson and 1825 with John Quincy Adams.
Although the electors are "pledged" to a
particular candidate, there is nothing in the US
constitution mandating that they actually vote for that
candidate. Thus it is possible for electors to defect,
though this is not very common, as these "faithless"
electors would be ostracized by their parties. In the
last election there was one "faithless" elector, a
District of Columbia delegate who refused to cast her
ballot for the Al Gore/Joseph Lieberman ticket as a
protest against the non-state status of DC. It also
happened in the 1988 and 1976 elections, when one
elector from the Democratic and Republican parties
respectively altered their votes. In all three cases the
defection had no impact on the final results; defections
would have to happen on a wide scale to change the
results, and many states have adopted laws preventing
defection by electors.
This system is also
somewhat dynamic, as the relative power of states
changes according to their populations. Every 10 years a
census is taken in the United States, and the results
are used to redraw congressional districts. Though the
total number of representatives is constant at 435, the
distribution throughout the states changes. This in turn
affects the Electoral votes for each state. Over the
past half-century there have been some general
population trends that have affected the political
scene. Rust-belt states (industrial states from
Pennsylvania to Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan) have lost
population, with each of these states losing two
Electoral votes over the past 20 years. New York has
lost five. These traditionally Democrat-leaning states
have weakened the Democratic Party somewhat, as states
in the south and southwest, which tend to vote
Republican, have gained population and Electoral votes.
Texas has gained five votes. At the same time,
California, a strong Democratic state, has gained eight
votes over the past 20 years.
History of the
system The Electoral College system was
originally designed as a compromise to guard against the
"political passions" of the electorate and the personal
agendas of their representatives. In the late 18th
century when the system was being designed, its
architects worried that the people of the new nation
might be subject to whimsical voting and popular
currents, as in those days in the expansive United
States communication was poor and travel difficult and
time-consuming, and so it was difficult for candidates
to mount a nationwide campaign. The other alternative
was to allow Congress to choose the president, but this
was not an acceptable choice because it was seen as a
blurring of the lines between the executive and
legislative branches of government, and it was felt that
individual representatives might let their personal
agendas interfere with the job of representing their
constituents.
Thus the Electoral College was
born. In the earliest days of the College, the electors
cast their votes for individual candidates rather than a
party slate consisting of a president and vice
president. The winner of the most electors was chosen as
president, while the runner-up was vice president.
Occasionally this led to a situation when bitter rivals
were elected to serve together. Through the years, as
parties have become more organized and well defined, and
as communication and transportation have improved, the
Electoral College has become somewhat ceremonial, though
its provisions can sometimes cause huge controversies,
as was the case in the 2000 election.
The system
has persisted unchanged since the 12th Amendment was
passed in 1804 except for a minor modification by the
23rd Amendment in 1961, which stipulated that the
District of Columbia would have three electors.
The critics This system has drawn a
great deal of criticism due to the possibility that the
president might be elected without winning the popular
vote. Although this had happened in 1876 and 1888, it
was considered an almost academic possibility until the
2000 election, when George W Bush was elected despite
having lost the popular vote by more that half a million
votes. Calls for a new system intensified, with
Democrats leading the charge. The critics argue that
those who vote for the loser in every state are
disfranchised.
Other critics of the system point
to the fact that smaller states (in terms of population)
have disproportionate representation. Since each state
is guaranteed at least three Electoral votes, voters in
sparsely populated states, such as Wyoming, technically
have more say as to who becomes president. For example,
in 1988 the combined voting-age populations of the seven
least populous states was just over 3 million, but they
had 21 Electoral votes. Florida, with a population three
times as large, also had 21 Electoral votes. Critics
also argue that in the event of the race being decided
by the House of Representatives (in the case where no
candidate achieves a simple majority), the smaller
states have disproportionate power due to the
one-state-one-vote rule.
Critics also argue that
the current system discourages third parties by making
it extremely difficult for them to have a showing in the
Electoral College results. Although third-party
candidates have won Electoral votes in the past, the
most recent high-profile third-party candidates, Ralph
Nader and H Ross Perot, failed to win a single Electoral
vote despite substantial popular-vote counts, especially
in the case of the latter.
The
defenders Proponents of the system counter these
arguments by saying that the criticisms of the Electoral
College system could be generalized to become
indictments of the whole federal system of the United
States. They also argue that if the president were
decided by a pure popular majority, the election would
be more vulnerable to fraud, as each state would have an
incentive to run up the vote in favor of a particular
candidate. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that
the officials charged with counting the ballots often
are members of one party or another. In the current
system, however, any potential fraud is
compartmentalized, as the votes from one state do not
affect other states. In addition, the current system, it
is argued, makes a recount easier, as it is only
necessary to recount the votes in the disputed state(s).
Supporters also argue that the system protects
the rights of rural voters and residents of small states
by guaranteeing that candidates expend time and
political capital in an effort to win their Electoral
votes. Without the system the candidates would probably
focus all of their time and energy on major urban
centers. The current system ensures that candidates
visit and cater to the wants and needs of all citizens.
The phenomenon of swing states is an example of this
state-to-state campaigning.
Ironically,
proponents of the system also use the third-party
argument, suggesting that the current system prevents
the formation of splinter parties that have disrupted
politics in other democracies. They argue that the
Electoral College system protects the integrity of the
two-party system. They also argue that any move to
congressional-district-based apportionment would
encourage gerrymandering (the drawing of election
districts to favor one party or population).
Alternatives? Over the years there
have been hundreds of proposed constitutional amendments
to change the system, but none of them has passed. After
the 2000 election, debate intensified and there were
renewed calls for an overhaul of the system.
The
most likely reform would be to assign electors based on
the winners in each congressional district, as is the
practice in Nebraska and Maine. Any move in this
direction, though, would probably have to be at the
state level, as all previous constitutional amendments
have failed. When voters go to the polls next week in
Colorado they will decide on such a proposal. If the
2004 election is as close as the 2000 election and is
decided in a similar manner, there will likely be more
such initiatives in the coming years.
(Copyright
2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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Oct 30, 2004
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