Should We Replace The Electoral College?

The Electoral College, which is the system the Framers created for electing the president, is far from simple. In essence, it turns the race for the presidency into 51 separate elections—one in each state and the District of Columbia—rather than a single national winner-take-all contest (see “Your Guide to the Electoral College” ).

In two of the last five presidential elections—2000 and 2016—the Electoral College winner didn’t win the most votes overall. And that has prompted renewed questions about whether the system still works. An advocate for a national popular vote and a law professor face off on whether to replace the Electoral College.

September 21, 2020

One of the shortcomings of the Electoral College is that a candidate can win the presidency without winning the popular vote. In fact, 5 of our 45 presidents have come into office without winning the most votes nationwide. This happened in 1824,* 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.

Near-misses have also been common. In 2004, a shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio would have given John Kerry a majority of the electoral votes and therefore the White House, despite George W. Bush’s nationwide lead of 3 million votes.

An even more important problem with the current system is that voters in two-thirds of the states are effectively disenfranchised because they don’t live in battleground states. Because most states award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, presidential candidates have no reason to campaign in states in which they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In 2016, 94 percent of general-election campaign visits were concentrated in just 12 closely divided states, and two-thirds of the campaigning was in just six states.

Now, voters in two-thirds of states are effectively disenfranchised.

The National Popular Vote plan—which is based on the fact that the Constitution lets each state decide how to award its electoral votes—would solve these problems: It calls for states to award all their electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes nationally.

So far, the plan has been passed by 15 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia, with a total of 196 electoral votes. It would take effect when approved by states representing a majority (270) of the 538 electoral votes. When the plan takes effect, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and D.C. would become president.

It’s time to make sure every voter in every state matters in every presidential election.

—JOHN KOZA
Chair, National Popular Vote

The Electoral College was a key part of the compromise between large and small states at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and it has served America well for more than 230 years.

There have been more than 700 attempts to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College; all have failed. The latest scheme is the National Popular Vote plan, which would circumvent the Electoral College, rather than abolish it. States would enter a compact promising all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally.

Under this plan, a minority of states representing more than 270 electoral votes could ignore the electoral votes of a majority of states.

That’s not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. They wanted to ensure that support for a president was broad as well as deep, so that a candidate who received 90 percent of the vote in a few of the most populous states but very little support elsewhere would not be elected against the will of the rest of the country.

The Founders wanted to ensure support for a president was both broad and deep.

Minorities should also be alarmed by the National Popular Vote proposal. With the Electoral College system, Black and Hispanic people represent key voting blocs in a number of states. If we abolish the Electoral College, instead of being crucial to victory in several key states, Black voters, for example, simply become 10 percent of the electorate, with much less impact.

In 1956, a young senator named John F. Kennedy gave a speech defending the Electoral College. Getting rid of the Electoral College, Kennedy said, “would break down the federal system under which the states entered the union, which provides a system of checks and balances that insure that no area or group shall obtain too much power.”

We cannot change one component of our federalist form of government without considering the others. The Founding Fathers had great wisdom, and the system they created should not be undermined.

—ROBERT HARDAWAY
Author, Saving the Electoral College