On the Electoral College

The Electoral College was initially outlined by Alexander Hamilton in a section of The Federalist Papers, "Federalist No. 68: The Mode of Electing the President".

According to an excellent article on Wikipedia.org, there is still some debate as to exactly why it was created. To quote:

Scholars continue to debate the reasons for the adoption of the Electoral College. Some believe it was created to protect small states. Others believe that the Founding Fathers intended to create a system of indirect election whereby the electors would come to a carefully considered decision to nominate a selection of good candidates and then the House of Representatives would again make a careful consideration of the names presented. Others still believe the system of electing the President was given little thought beyond a desire to have George Washington as the first President. Still others hold that it was devised as a compromise between the election of a President by popular vote and by the Congress, although initially the electors were selected by the state legislatures and it was not until later that states started holding a popular poll for the Presidential elections to determine how they would cast their votes.

Hamilton's contribution to The Federalist Papers, written in the all-but-torturous language of the times, gives no hint or suggestion as to the underlying reasons for the system. In fact, the writing appears to be a template for the excessive and grand language-that-says-nothing that government uses today to hide what it's really trying to say.

My biggest question has been, in this technologically advanced day and age, why are we keeping such an antiquated system? After all, if the goal really is One Person, One Vote, doesn't the Electoral College subvert this ideal? (Answer: Yes, and here's the science to prove it)

Again, the Wikipedia article on the Electoral College provides some insight into the Pros and Cons of the Electorial College.

Pros:

Supporters of the college claim that the system protects rural communities and smaller states from the interests of urban centers and large states. Without the Electoral College, with the vote based on majority rule, it would be possible to win a strict majority of votes located in a few geographically restricted areas of the country. One could campaign and win in only the 10 largest cities in the country

Under this arguement, all candidates must (a) have a broad-based appeal and needs to (b) campaign all over the country, not just in those 10 largest cities.

Cons:

Supporters of direct election argue that it would give everyone an equal vote, regardless of which part of the country they live in, and oppose giving disproportionately amplified voting power to voters in small states. In contrast, the Electoral College disenfranchises those voters in every state who cast their votes for the candidate receiving fewer votes in that state. And it also partly disenfranchises voters in larger states by reducing their proportional contribution to the final election result.

An additional aspect of this problem is the "winner-take-all" aspect to the Electoral College. By giving all of the Electors from a state over to a single candidate, it effectively nullifies all of the votes within that state that were cast for any other candidates.

Currently two states, Maine and Nebraska, have modified their Electoral College rules to be divided amongst various candidates depending upon the number of votes cast within those state's congressional districts. While this system still, essentiallly, discounts any votes within that congressional district not cast for the candidate receiving the majority of votes in the district, it does give greater voice to differing voices within the state.

(Colorado has a similar initiative on their November 2004 ballot)

There are problems associated with this system as well. It is still possible that the winner of the Popular Vote (i.e. One Person, One Vote) would lose in the Electoral College vote and, perhaps more importantly, this would present an even bigger incentive for gerrymandering.

The Electoral College, as a way of electing a president, is a part of the US Constitution. To change the system by which the US elects it's President to one which uses the Popular Vote we would have to either amend the Constitution (Hillary Clinton called for this after the 2000 Election, but acknowledged that the chances of it passing were slim) or subvert the system in another way. To quote the Wikipedia article again:

A popular election could occur without amending the constitution. If a sufficient number of states chose their electors by national popular vote rather than state popular vote, then a national popular vote would occur in practice. For example, the eleven largest states, controlling over 270 electoral votes among them, could guarantee that the presidency always goes to the winner of the national popular vote, merely by changing state election law.

While I doubt this is likely to happen, I always like reading clever ways of subverting the dominant paradigm.

The argument about giving smaller states a bigger voice seems to me to be largely nullified by the notion that candidates don't spend that much time and money on states with a smaller number of Electorial College votes. As well, states that are seen as having a majority of votes leaning one direction are all but bypassed by the opposition candidate -- and the majority candidate tends to bypass the state for similar reasons. The majority of time and attention are given to those "battleground states."

At one point it seemed that the entire election of 2000 was going to be decided by a single county in the state of Florida. That struck me as being almost as wrong as the election being decided by the Supreme Court.

Seems to me the Electoral College is outdated and unnecessary and simply needs to go.

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