The Electoral College: Rationale And Process

The Founding Fathers wanted to distinguish the newly formed United States from a pure democracy. The Framers defined democracy as government decisions made directly by the people. They decided to use a republic form of government because it promised wiser government. This type of government would allow decisions to be made by representatives elected by people.

The one issue styled under this republican representation was the process on how to choose a president. This process has been the source of continuing controversy for over two hundred years. There have been more attempts to change the twelfth amendment than any other provision in the Constitution. Ironically, in the debates preceding the ratification of the Constitution, the method of presidential selection was not very controversial. Alexander Hamilton wrote, "The mode of appointment of the chief magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence which has escaped without severe censure or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents" (Wright 56).

Alexander Hamilton was the chief architect of the electoral college since he distrusted popular democracy. He said that the electoral college would ensure that a few men of insight and reflection would select the ablest president. Specifically, he wrote, "A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass would act under circumstances favorable to deliberation" (Wright 59). Hamilton believed that the electoral college system would reduce civic unrest if public participation were directed to certify the results of a presidential election. He noted that the electoral college concept was less susceptible to political manipulation.

However, the United States has moved away from the original republicanism rationale experienced by the Founding Fathers. Opponents of the electoral college, such as author Lawrence Longley state, "Today's advancement in communications, computers, and polling computations has permitted our society to accept results the popular vote with confidence" (18). However, the question remains, has the electoral college outlived it original intent and purpose? I believe that we need the electoral college to alleviate future problems that are associated with direct vote presidential elections. Moreover, we have used this system to select presidents since the early 1800's while other methods have remained political theory.

The function of the electoral college is to elect the presidents and vice-presidents of the United States. The Constitution (Article 2, Section 1) provides that each state shall appoint as many presidential electors as the state has members of Congress. Three is the smallest number of electors a state may have, since every state has two senators and at least one member of the House of Representatives.

According to the Constitution and federal law, each state may appoint presidential electors by whatever means they wish. After the electors have been chosen, they meet in their state capitals to cast their ballots. The only constitutional restriction is that an elector may vote for only one candidate who is a resident of the same state of the elector. To be elected president or vice-president, a candidate must receive a majority of all the electoral votes cast. If no candidate receives a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president from among the three candidates receiving the highest number of electoral votes. If the House of Representatives must make a choice, each state receives one vote and a majority of the states must agree on a single candidate. When no candidate for vice-president receives a majority, the Senate then chooses the vice-president from the other two highest candidates. Each senator has one vote and a vice-president candidate receiving the majority of the votes in the Senate wins.

In practice, the presidential electors are chosen through the political parties. Each party in each state nominates a slate of presidential electors for that state. The result is that one party wins all or none of a state's electoral votes. The electors are expected to vote for their own party's presidential and vice-presidential candidates, although occasionally an elector has voted for someone else. The choosing of electors by slates makes it difficult for a third party to challenge the major parties unless it has strength in a number of large electoral states.

Constitutional scholars have been struggling to understand the theory behind the electoral college. Michael Glennon has research the origins of the twelfth amendment for many years. He has concluded that, "Many Constitutional Delegates voted for the system only because they believed that few presidential candidates would ever command a sufficient national following to win a majority of the electoral college votes" (7). Being such, the choice of president was thought to almost always fall to the Congress. The projection was wrong; only twice in American history has Congress been called upon to pick the president.

The present system provides a winner-take-all method of electing presidential candidates. This method awards all of the state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the majority of electoral votes. This gives an advantage to states with large numbers of electoral votes, such as California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania. These five states constitute 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes required for election. These numbers mandate that presidential candidates need to actively solicit support from these states. This encourages greater political favoritism and recognition for these large electoral states. This is one reason the electoral college has not been modified or abolished; the majority of these elected representatives have thwarted any attempts of reform that could curtail their influence.

Adversaries of the current system complain that a victory for a candidate does not guarantee that candidate has the most popular votes. According to an article written by Fred Barbash in the Washington Post, "The electoral college is a time bomb waiting to explode, if more than two strong candidates run for president and no one receives a majority of electoral votes then the decision would be in the hands of the faceless party favorites customarily nominated to the electoral college."

Another charge is that the present system produces inequalities in popular voting power. It is believed the minority voters in each state are denied their political right to expand meaningful alliances across state lines. Their contention is that the minority votes are misappropriated and given to the majority voters of each state. The electoral college's winner-take-all rule,

...