The Electrical College (Simpsons Reference)

It is worth tracing the history of this institution to understand what its relevance is today. At the convention, the majority position initially favored having the House of Representatives choose the President. The smaller states advocated having the Senate alone vote, or at least having the vote as well (diluting the democratic effect of the H of R). However, others were concerned about having a president too beholden to the legislature. Eventually, it was decided to create an institution for the sole purpose of election, with electors chosen by states as a whole rather like delegates to the constitutional ratifying conventions or the Continental Congress with which they were familiar. The compromise was that if the Electoral college gave nobody an absolute majority, the choice would devolve to the H of R. The Madison made it plain that he thought most elections would go to the H of R.

The other issue that concerned them was presumed parochialism of states. A mechanism was set up where the person who got the majority of votes would be President, and the runner-up would be VP. This double voting system was made on the theory that everyone would vote for a native son from his own state, and then also for a national figure. The national figure, the "second choice vote" would then be President because it would attract more votes. This system fell apart within 8 years. Politics became national, not parochial, and the election of 1796 had a Federalist (Adams) as Pres, and a Republican (Jefferson) as VP. In 1800, the Federalists tried to guess who the Jeffersonian Republicans were going to vote for as their second choice and give HIM their second votes, making President a man nobody wanted. The 12th amendment fixed that in 1801, creating our current system. For some reason, the office of VP was retained. It is the appendix of our system.

At least since the election of 1800, it has been widely presumed that the president would be popularly elected, and the electoral college became little more than a crude filter. Electoral college "misfires" (not reflecting the popular will) have occurred four times: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000. Not since 1787 has anybody seriously argued that the undemocratic aspects of the electoral college are to be treasured; on the contrary, every analyst has been an apologist for the system with the same argument "it almost always works anyway, so why change it?" For more than a century, the electoral college was perceived as a nonentity.

Other issues haunt the EC process. Most people believe that the EC has a "winner take all" system built in: namely, whoever "wins" a state (plurality) gets ALL of its electoral votes. The constitution does not require this. In the 19th century, many states split their electoral votes on a proportional basis. Maine and New Jersey still do (Maine allocates by congressional district). We faced the prospect in 2000 that Gore could have lost the election if one of 'his' states (Maine) had split its electoral votes, while none of Bush's states did.

The old question returns: Cui bono?
*Popular wisdom says that small states benefit, because mathematically their votes are overweighted. But small states are rarely "in play" - or if they are the stakes are low. So their issues are thoroughly ignored. Neither political candidate will set foot in Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, or the like. Large states get lots of attention, but only if they are "in play." The truth is that the current system favors states that are politically divided (what we saw in Florida, where 500 voters outweighed the 500,000 Gore plurality nationwide).
*Popular wisdom also says that the EC rewards candidates with broad geographic appeal, but this is again false. Nader and Perot had wide national appeal, but were not concentrated enough to win any electoral votes. George Wallace in 1968 won almost no popular votes outside the south, but many electoral votes because he was geographically concentrated. Put another way, a candidate getting 80% of all Southern votes in a direct election is not as happy as a candidate who gets 100% of all the Southern votes through the electoral college system.

There is, in my view, no justification at all for the EC today. Direct popular election (what we advocate for every other country on earth) should be the rule here. The real advantage is that each vote would count. Democrats would campaign in Alaska and Texas; Republicans in NY and Mass. "Swing states" would vanish; "swing voters" would matter.