Let’s Keep the Electoral College (Part 1) by Miguel A. Faria, MD

The American Founding Fathers established a Constitutional Republic with a federal system of government—that is, a national government vis-à-vis state governments. As noted in previous chapters, this federal system incorporated a series of checks and balances with separation of powers and both direct and indirect legislative representation. Within the conceptual framework, an Electoral College was created, which has served the United States well for over two centuries. The Electoral College is important to presidential elections because it gives every state, large or small, a major stake in the election.

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is the process by which a body of electors chosen in each state elects the President and Vice President of the United States. State laws determine how electors are selected, the qualifications necessary to serve, and restrictions on how they must cast their ballots.

The number of electors allocated to each state equals the number of “members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators.” Under the 23rd Amendment, the federal District of Columbia was allotted three electors and “treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College.” Today, the Electoral College “consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.” Since the representation is apportioned according to the population of the state, the popular wishes of the citizens as well as sectional and state interests are represented.

 The slates of electors are pledged to cast their ballots for a presidential candidate—either Democrat or Republican. The number of electors for the candidate of each political party is counted, and the candidate receiving the majority of Electoral College votes—at least the required 270 electoral votes—wins the election.

So, when Americans go to the polls to vote in a presidential election, they are actually voting for their candidate’s electors. While many other nations, from so-called socialist people’s republics to social democracies, have come and gone, discarded into the dustbin of history by changing their constitutions or forms of governance via popular vote or revolution, America has endured because of its stable government foundation. Thus blessed, Americans have enjoyed unparalleled political stability, individual freedom, and economic prosperity.

The Founders devised the Electoral College process because of their political philosophy and vast knowledge of history as well as their awareness of unchanging human nature. They knew from ancient history that self-serving demagogues could arouse destructive passions in the populace during periods of social unrest or economic crises. Additionally, incitement of passions could lead to political violence and the overthrow of legitimate authority. As acknowledged in both The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers, the American Founders preferred ordered liberty and abhorred anarchy, which is frequently followed by despotic rule concomitant with the loss of freedom.

Consequently, the stabilizing function of the Electoral College remains as important today as originally intended by the framers at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

Historical Perspective

An unusual situation occurred in the presidential election of 1801.  According to the U.S. Constitution’s original provision implemented less than a decade before, the candidate that received the most Electoral College votes became president, and the candidate receiving the second largest number of electoral votes became vice president.

In the 1801 election, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who were running independently as Democratic-Republicans, not only soundly defeated their Federalist opponents, including the incumbent, John Adams, but the election also ended in a tie between Jefferson and Burr, with both men receiving seventy-three electoral votes each. As the Constitution instructed, the election moved to the U.S. House of Representatives where “each state was allowed one vote.” Historian Edmund Morgan explained:

Voting went on for more than one week through thirty-five ballots without the necessary nine-state majority being reached. Finally Hamilton, who considered Jefferson a lesser of evil than Burr, persuaded some of the latter’s supporters to cast blank ballots. Jefferson was declared elected.

Thus, ended the impasse, and Aaron Burr became vice president.

To prevent a tie vote from happening again in the future—namely, candidates running independently for both president and vice president—the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed on December 9, 1803, and ratified on September 25, 1804. The Twelfth Amendment made modifications to the Electoral College process. The offices of President and Vice President were placed on separate ballots, mandating that the Electors must cast a distinct vote for President and another vote for Vice President. Beginning with the presidential election of 1804, all subsequent elections have functioned under the Twelfth Amendment provisions.

Losing the Electoral College Vote Means Losing the Election

The presidential election of 1824 was the first time in American history the popular vote was actually recorded. In that election, Andrew Jackson received the most popular votes. However, neither Jackson nor John Quincy Adams (who came in second in the popular vote count) received a majority of the Electoral College votes. The election moved again into the House of Representatives, which voted for Adams.

Nevertheless, history and fortune smiled on Andrew Jackson four years later when “Old Hickory” defeated incumbent president John Quincy Adams in the 1828 presidential election. That time, Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote and the required majority vote in the Electoral College.

Conversely, there have been four elections in U.S. history where the president was elected by winning the majority of votes in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote (albeit by slim margins). The cases in point were the presidential elections of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 in which Republican candidates Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, respectively, were elected.

The elections won by winning the Electoral College vote but losing the popular vote, though, do not signify a loss of majority rule, but rather the preservation of the delicate geographical balance among the urban and rural populations of the small and large states in the federated Union. Thus, majority rule was preserved as expected in a federated republic and as conceived in the United States.

Pursuing Equity and Fairness in National Elections

The will of the American people—determined by the ballots cast in the various states in the nation—is expressed through the Electoral College, whose function ensures that all Americans are heard during the electoral process. Therefore, the Electoral College system is fairer than a popular vote or direct election for several reasons.

The Electoral College system is arguably more conductive to requiring that candidates campaign more equitably throughout the country—rural areas as well as urban centers, and smaller states as well as larger states­. Not doing so may result in a candidate’s loss of a state and its entire slate of electoral votes, rather than just losing small clusters of votes in a state.

In direct popular elections, it stands to reason that candidates concentrate their campaigning in heavily urban areas where they can gain more votes for the time and money invested. More lightly populated rural areas are ignored.

Even more acutely, another incident that demonstrates the fairness of the Electoral College system is when natural catastrophes occur, such as floods or hurricanes. Natural catastrophes can disastrously impact voter turnout in a region of a state or in several states. With the Electoral College system, the voters are not penalized, because their state still contributes its full complement of electoral votes toward the election outcome.

A word should be said about allowing proportional or fractional voting in the Electoral College system ­as opposed to the present “winner-take-all” or unit rule procedure. Proportional representation with the fractional casting of a state’s Electoral College votes would drastically dilute the voting strength of the individual state that foolishly adopts it, and make the state irrelevant in a nationwide presidential contest. If the procedure were uniformly adopted throughout the nation by amendments to state constitutions, it would defeat the purpose for which the Electoral College was wisely created and negate all of the previously outlined benefits. Unfortunately, Maine and Nebraska have adopted the practice. Colorado voters wisely defeated the measure in their state.

The most dangerous proposal to date is the currently active National Popular Vote Interstate Vote Compact signed by 12 states—namely, California, Connecticut, Washington, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. This bloc of strongly Democrat states represents 172 electoral votes. The compact would take effect when an additional 98 electoral votes were added. So far, the states of Georgia and Missouri, which comprise 16 and 10 electoral votes, respectively, are unwisely considering joining the Compact.

Elections where the president was elected despite losing the popular vote showed a different aspect of why the system works—that is, balancing federalism with marginal popular vote victories. In this regard, it is perhaps instructive that the contested election of 2000 was followed by the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004, winning both the popular and Electoral College votes by clear majorities, thus, dissipating the previous ambiguity.

Despite complaints of many citizens in the Democrat Party, the Electoral College process has shown that it has worked as intended by the Founders and continues to function well in the 21st century.

Dr. Miguel A. Faria is Associate Editor in Chief of World Affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI) and the author of numerous books. This article was excerpted from his 2024 book, Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions.

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