Does the Electoral College Need a Change

Wright 1

Aeryn Wright

Stacey Donohue

WR 122

16 March 2020

Does The Electoral College Need A Change?

Every four years Americans flood voting stations to cast their ballot for the President and Vice President of the United States. Their vote, however, does not elect the president or vice president and the election is instead a more complex process. The voting structure is known as the Electoral College, a system in which the public votes go to the chosen electors who then, in turn, choose the President and Vice President of the United States. This institution is made up of 538 electors, requiring 270 to win the presidency. Yet, surveys have revealed America’s preference is that the election is their choice rather than that of the electors. Further concerns about the function of the Electoral College is that it is possible for the candidate who won the popular vote of the public to lose the elector’s vote, meaning they lost the presidency. This issue has happened a total of five times already. Despite this controversy, there are still those who support the Electoral College and claim it is a necessity for the healthy function of the American government. Should the current voting system change or is it really America’s best option for voting? Americans have valid concerns about the complex voting system; however, there are solutions that could appease both supporters and opposers of the Electoral College.

The Electoral College was created by the founding fathers and was included in Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution in 1787. The unique system has a long history and was long debated by the framers until they ultimately compromised, resulting in the Electoral System. At the time, the framers feared the public was not politically aware and would not know about candidates outside of their own state. The fear of the public not knowing each candidate eliminated the direct popular vote some favored. Robert Longley, a history and government expert and journalist explains that the founders had little faith in the public at that time in that they lacked political awareness. He further explains that the framers believed placing power in politically naive hands would result in the tyranny of the majority which was reasonable in 1787 (Longley). Longley notes that the framers also wanted to avoid placing power only to the federal government and believed there needed to be a balance of power. Additional fears discussed in the debates of the founding fathers were that candidates would appeal to small groups’ interests rather than national interests (Longley). Therefore, after the process of elimination the framers decided the Electoral College would do best at enforcing the concept of federalism, according to Longley. While at that time, the majority was uneducated and were not politically aware as we are today with mass media, we no longer lack such awareness today. They further believed the Electoral College would protect the interests of each state equally by providing them with representation, a combination of senators and representatives. Each candidate would then become required to appeal to national interests.

While the intention was to provide equal representation among the states, the Electoral College fails to provide such. In fact, smaller states hold more power than much larger states. This was made possible due to the fact that each state has the same number of senators regardless of population, which is assessed every ten years. While the number of representatives per state is based on population, two senators are provided per state. The state representation may appear at least reasonable, however, when calculating how many public votes each elector represents it reveals how underrepresented populous states are. Benjamin Bolinger, a political science major, provides these calculations in his academic article to display how the Electoral College can grossly overrepresent some states. California has 55 electors in comparison to Wyoming which only has 3 (Bolinger 180). By only considering how many electors each state has, it would be within reason to assume California is overrepresented in the Electoral College. Bolinger illustrates this is not the case as California has a significantly higher population than Wyoming with 33,871,648 residents, as of 2000, resulting in one elector representing 615,848. Meanwhile, Wyoming has a population of 493,782 and 3 electors, therefore, “receives one vote per 164,594 residents” (Bolinger 180). When one state’s residents’ votes count more than others, the Electoral College has failed to provide equal representation that many supporters claim it delivers.

Further reasoning for how the Electoral College has failed to uphold equal representation, is that swing states often garner more attention from candidates than any other state. Swing states, also known as battleground states, are those that could be won by a Democratic or Republican candidate. Due to this inconsistency of which party will win in the swing states, candidates heavily focus their time persuading the battleground state residents. There is little incentive for the candidates to campaign in states that are not the competitive swing states. Nate Cohn claims a similar view, as he asserts “The winner-take-all bias that elevates the battleground states overruns all of the other biases” in his New York Times article. Political Science expert and Professor George C. Edwards argues further in his book Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America, that candidates often ignore a large percentage of states and focus their funds and attention on the few swing states (206).

Another way the Electoral College fails to protect national interests is through the winner-take-all system that is used despite never being specified in the Constitution. The winner-takes-all system that has been employed by all but two states largely ignores the will of the people. This system that states use for how they award votes is “inherently unjust”, according to George C. Edwards. Edwards further claims, it largely ignores the will of the people and encourages political inequality. This system that the majority of the states employ means every elector of the state would put their vote towards the candidate who won the majority of the state. Therefore, if a republican lives in a largely democratic state, such as New York, they may not feel like their vote counts as it is common all electoral votes go to the democratic candidate. All the republican votes of a democratic state go ignored. Nate Cohn explains in his The New York Times article how the winner-takes-all system allows for a candidate to win presidency despite not winning the popular vote. Cohn asserts that while this issue is not too common, it has occured five times in American voting history thus far, and each time has upset the public. A saying commonly heard during these election years is “your vote matters”, however, it's easy to understand why many do not feel their vote does matter.

It is commonly claimed by supporters of the Electoral College that it protects national interests but that the system additionally provides national harmony. Interestingly, there has been an increase in party polarization despite this claim. The two political parties in America are now more divided than ever since the Civil War. As Colton Carpenter pointed out in his column in the Harvard Political Review, the United States is not as united. Social scientists conducted a survey that revealed nearly half of all republicans and one-third of democrats reported they’d be somewhat to very unhappy if their child married an individual of the opposite political party, which is a 1,000 percent increase of such view since 1960 (Carpenter). This makes it evident that Americans feel largely politically divided.

Not only is the public increasingly divided, but Congress has also had an increase in disunity. While in 2009 both political parties shared the same top priority issues, however, this is no longer true (Carpenter). According to Carpenter, this consensus allowed for bipartisanship that resulted in the Wall Street bailout in order to promote job and economic growth, both of which were a top priority for both parties. As recently as 2014, the two parties were able to bundle issues together when they did not share top priority issues. Carpenter explains this allowed for the Farm Bill to pass which provided crop insurance and farm subsidies that the republicans prioritized bundled with issues democrats prioritized such as food stamps and soil conservation. Unfortunately, there has been a 36 percent increase in the partisan gap between the political parties, according to Carpenter. By working together and rebuilding bipartisanship through bundling issues or working together on top priority issues shared, America can decrease the division to promote a healthy government. This effective strategy has been used in the past to resolve the division before. However, this alone is not the only issue with the Electoral College.

An option to resolve some of the disadvantages of the Electoral College is to do a run-off vote. The runoff voting system allows the voters to list each candidate based on preference. The candidate with the least votes would be eliminated if no candidate had won the overall majority. The process of elimination would continue until a candidate had a majority of votes, at least 50 percent plus 1 of the vote of that state. Bolinger assures this would resolve common issues Americans have with the Electoral College. He claims the runoff voting system would eliminate the current disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens in the territories and lessen the inequalities among the states (Bolinger). However, an issue to this resolution is that it would require abolishing the Electoral College.

The abundance of issues related to the Electoral College system makes it easy to understand why so many support abolishing the system. Longley raises a valid argument, in that it would be highly difficult to execute such an extreme response. Abolishing would require two-thirds from both houses of the Congress and would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states (Longley). Therefore, this change would require a strong bipartisan support, which as previously discussed is very unlikely today. The increase of political polarization means abolishing the Electoral College nearly impossible. This is the very reason I propose finding a solution that could be the middle ground, best possible solution for the current voting system. This is made possible by the fact that the Constitution does not include how states are required to allocate their votes (“Electoral College”). Those who favor some of the advantages of the Electoral College could compromise by maintaining it but changing how their votes are allocated.

Most states allocate their votes electoral votes through the winner-takes-all system, which elevates the power of battleground states and small states. However, two states Maine and Nebraska, use a district method to allocate their votes, as explained by Edward Fowley in his Politico article. These states allocate their votes to the winner in each district giving two electoral votes to the state wide winner (Bolinger). The elimination of the winner-takes-all and splitting up the electoral votes by using a district method rather than the whole state, could provide some power back to the public vote. Additionally, candidates would have strong incentives to pay attention to states outside of the battleground states. The district method does have the risk of gerrymandering which is a particular political party manipulating the district lines in order to give their party the unfair advantage (Fowley). The parties can strategically place districts in a way that would put their party in favor of a state, even if they did not have the majority of votes. This is one disadvantage that should be considered in solutions. While this option ensures the will of the people is better represented, it would be easy to gerrymander the system and with an increase in party polarization this could be likely. If gerrymandering became a problem, then again America faces a continuation of undemocratic voting practices as the political parties would take control by simply strategically drawing districts to ensure they won each district.

The final solution and the one I suggest is to proportionally split the electoral votes. This process would better represent the will of the people while preserving the spirit of the Constitution and the electors. By maintaining the Constitutions and spirit of the electors, the change can appeal to supporters of the Electoral College system. It can also appeal to those who oppose the Electoral College system for disenfranchising voters and ignoring the will of the people. Vincy Fon describes this method quite extensively in her article “Integral Proportional System: Aligning Electoral Votes More Closely with State Popular Votes” in the Supreme Court Economic Review. Fon claims the proportional system greater demonstrates the “voter preferences in a state by assigning a number of electoral votes similar in proportion to the statewide popular vote” (1).

Fon explains the system would maintain the number of electors in each state, however, by splitting the vote it would represent the voter preferences in each state, although, not proving an equal representation in each state (19). The solution is far more equal and fair than the current winner-takes-all that provides a large number of power in battleground states and small states. The states that have 3 electors would provide all their votes to a candidate with 67 percent of the votes. Below that percentage, the candidate with the most percent of votes would receive 2 of the 3 (Fon 19). However, in a state with 5 electors the candidate must win at least 80 percent (Fon 19). As Fon states it, the system “favors the majority of voters without ignoring the minority” (Fon 21). Fon does admit the most valid worry with the integral proportional system, or IPS, is the potential of having no Electoral College winner (Fon 20). However, this is still a concern with the current system and is very unlikely. In the chance that this does happen, the vote goes to the House of Representatives.

No election system is perfect, however, does that mean we should settle for a system that disenfranchises voters, provides inequality, and ignores the will of the people? The Electoral College has rarely proven to be as advantageous as supporters claim. I believe there is a solution that would allow our votes to be better represented. Five times a candidate has lost the national popular vote but still won the election through the Electoral College system, the ISP system would lessen the likelihood of this ever happening. The ISP system also encourages candidates to appeal nationally, rather than appealing to battleground states. The solution would also force both parties to come to a compromise, which would hopefully restore some of the bipartisanship our government desperately needs. Let’s restore our country back to a system that involves citizens. As Abraham Lincoln said a “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

Works Cited

Bolinger, Benjamin. “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College.” International Social Science Review, vol. 82, no. 3/4, 2007, pp. 179–182. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41887327. Accessed 7 Feb. 2020.

Carpenter, Colton. “The Divided United States of America.” Harvard Political Review, 18 March 2018, https://harvardpolitics.com/columns-old/divided-states/

Cohn, Nate. “The Electoral College’s Real Problem: It’s Biased Toward the Big Battlegrounds.” The New York Times, 22 March 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/upshot/electoral-college-votes-states.html

Edwards, George C. Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. New Haven, Yale University Press, 20 August 2019.

“Electoral College.” International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Encyclopedia.com, 24 December 2019, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/us-government/electoral-college

Fon, Vincy. “Integral Proportional System: Aligning Electoral Votes More Closely with State Popular Votes.” Supreme Court Economic Review, Vol. 16, 2008, pp 1-21, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228237316_Integral_Proportional_System_Aligning_Electoral_Votes_More_Closely_with_State_Popular_Votes

Fowley, Edward. “An Idea for Electoral College Reform That Both Parties Parties Might Actually Like.” Politico Magazine, 12 January 2019, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/12/electoral-college-reform-conservatives-223965

Longley, Robert. “Reasons to Keep the Electoral College.” ThoughtCo, 16 January 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/why-keep-the-electoral-college-3322050

DMU Timestamp: May 11, 2020 21:16