Popular Vote or Electoral College?

This year’s presidential election – currently “too close to call” – is bringing up the issue of the Electoral College. As voters are discovering, the candidate chosen by the majority of the popular vote may not win the Presidency.  It is an issue that almost never comes up, since the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the electoral vote are usually the same.  The last time the Presidency was won by a candidate who received a majority of the Electoral College votes without winning the popular vote was when Benjamin Harrison won in 1888.  Now, in 2000, the American public seems to be asking “What is the Electoral College and how does it work?”

The Electoral College was established by the framers of the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by popular vote and the election of the President by the Congress.  The framers were concerned that members of the public would not be able to stay informed about candidates from other regions. They were also worried about the arrangements that might be made between the state’s Representatives behind closed doors.  While the concern over deals struck between our elected Representatives might continue to be a concern in modern times, the ability of the public to be informed about the candidates is not.

The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors.  Each state gets 2 electoral votes due to its 2 senators, and one electoral vote per US representative.  The District of Columbia gets 3 electoral votes for its 2 senators and 1 representative as well.  It takes a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.  In only two states, Nebraska and Maine, the electoral votes are divided, with the electoral vote for each congressional district going to the winner of the popular vote in that district and the 2 electoral votes for the Senate going to the overall winner of the state.  In all other states the winner of the popular majority in the state takes all of the state’s electoral votes.

While in the past, no “faithless elector”, an elector who casts a vote different from the one he is “supposed” to, has altered the election results, there is nothing that prevents an elector from going on his own and casting a vote independent of the outcome in his state.

After the Electoral College casts its votes, they are sent under seal to Washington D.C. where they are opened before a joint session of the Senate and Congress.  The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the session where the votes are opened and tallied.  The Vice President will then announce the results and declare the winner of the Presidency.

It will be interesting to see the public’s reaction if the results of the Electoral College don’t match up with the results of the popular vote in this Presidential election.  One strong argument for keeping the Electoral College is that it forces Presidential candidates to campaign in states with small populations.  If the Presidential election were decided by the popular vote, candidates might focus their campaigns only on highly populated areas, leaving states with smaller populations with little say in who is elected President.  It is hard to say whether this argument is strong enough to overcome any sense of unfairness voters may feel if the candidate who wins the popular vote loses the Electoral College election.  Because the Electoral College process is part of our Constitution, it can only be changed by a Constitutional amendment – not an easy thing to do.