The Electoral College vs. The Popular Vote
Gordon Haist began the presentation by asking, “How fundamental is the right of every citizen to vote?”
“Is democracy about individual rights or about consensus?” he asked.
Only the president and vice president are officially elected by the Electoral College.
In accordance with the Constitution and Amendments 12 and 23, each of the 50 states appoints electors for president and vice president, separately, equal to its number of senators and representatives to Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors. To win the presidency, a candidate must get 270 Electoral College votes.
The 2022 Electoral Reform Act prevents states from changing electors after Election Day, clarifies that each governor or each state’s legal representative certifies election results and identifies the vice president’s role in certifying national results is only perfunctory, not substantive.
Currently 18 states are members of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV). These states would not abolish the Electoral College, which would require a Constitutional amendment, but seek instead to make sure the candidate with the most popular votes wins the election in another way. They want jurisdictions (states and District of Columbia) with 270 votes total together to determine the winner.
Five times in national history the Electoral College has sent presidents who did not win the popular vote to The White House: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.
Pro Electoral College arguments:
It limits the power of third parties. It provides for a two-step process. States’ preferred candidates are elected by a pluralist method, and the Electoral College then elects the president by a simple majority method. It levels the playing field between small and large states and enables consensus among differences to develop.
In addition, the Electoral College balances national powers and states’ rights.
Con Electoral College arguments:
It does not provide for every citizen’s vote to be counted. (As examples, Democrats’ votes in South Carolina and Republicans’ votes in Illinois do not register at the national level; this reality reduces voter turnout.) The big states and “swing” states have a disproportionate influence. As examples, in 1912 Woodrow Wilson won 82 percent of the Electoral College votes but less than 42 percent of the popular vote, and in 1980 Ronald Reagan won 91 percent of the electoral votes but less than 51 percent of the popular vote.
Mathematically, candidates for president and vice president could win the pluralities in only 11 states and be elected.
Although polls show that 58 percent of U.S. adults favor amending the Constitution so that the popular vote would replace the Electoral College system, the party in power is not likely to promote such an upheaval. Amending the Constitution to do that would require three fourths of the states to vote in favor.
Ethics issues around “strategic voting” are also debatable. For example, citizens may use the internet to trade votes across states lines in order to affect the electoral votes. Also, voters in open-primary states may vote in the primary for the candidate they like the least in one party in order to help their favorite candidate of the other party in the general election.
From the audience came these comments:
“Since 1956, when I was a student at Colgate, I have been against the Electoral College. States should make their electoral votes proportional so make sure everybody’s vote counts. This is a discussion in Lifelong Learning every year, and Democrats and Republicans agree.” (Paul Weismantel pointed out that such a change would not require a Constitutional amendment; rather, each state could decide to do that.)
The Electoral College needs to go but since that will never happen, proportional voting by states is what should happen.
Presidential candidates rarely campaign in states that are not “swing states.”
Ranked choice in voting might be a good solution, but it is complicated.
Since compromise in a democracy is necessary, perhaps “strategic” voting (making practical choices instead of ideal ones) is also necessary.
Suppose Trump wins the popular vote but losses the Electoral College.
Voter turnout is so low because of the way we do it.
We have many anti-democratic aspects to our system: the Electoral College, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Supreme Court, the gerrymandering.
How do I vote for Republican principles but not for Trump?