Position Paper: Should Electoral College be Abolished?

The Electoral College is the name for the electors who formally choose the President and Vice President of the United States. Each of the states receives a certain number of electors, which is determined by the total number of Senators and Representatives it sends to the U.S. Congress. Therefore, each state has at least 3 electors. The Electoral College was devised by the Constitutional Convention as a procedure to elect the President by the people, at least indirectly.

When the Constitutional Convention chose a method of selecting a President, they took several problems into consideration. The first problem they had to solve was the lack of information that the people had due to poor communication. At the time the U.S. contained approximately 4 million people who lived spread apart along the Atlantic coast with very little communication or transportation. This made it difficult for the people to choose a President from a list of people that they knew little about. Another reason was the direct election of the President would give them much power.

After choosing the Electoral College as the method of selecting the President, the Framers described it in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. In this new procedure, the process of choosing the electors was left to the states, in order to eliminate the states’ suspicion of the federal government and members of Congress. Employees of the government were not allowed to serve as Electors. In order to prevent bribery and secret dealings, Electors from each state were required to meet in their own states rather than all together in one large meeting. Also, the Framers tried to prevent the possibility of having no majority by requiring that each Elector vote for two candidates, one of which had to be from outside their state. The person with the majority would become President, while the runner up would become Vice President. If there was no majority the election would be turned over to the House and they would select the President.

The Electoral College is not an efficient way to vote at this time because everyone can access information on the internet, television, radio, or in the press. There is no excuse to be uninformed about the candidates for President or Vice President.

In order to change the way the President is elected, it would require changing the Constitution. Amending the United States Constitution is not a small task. From the article, “The Electoral College”, there are essentially two ways to amend the Constitution. The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. It has to pass three-fourth of the states to become a law. The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. The first method is the one that is commonly used.

Although there is a legal way to solve the problem, debates about the Electoral College will never end. According to the “Should Electoral College be Eliminated?” article on Creators.com, Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter both supported proposals to eliminate the Electoral College and replace it with a direct popular election, with a runoff between the top two candidates if none received at least 40 percent of the vote. The most recent example of the power of the Electoral College to elect the President and Vice President is the election of 2000, in which Al Gore won the national popular vote but lost to George W. Bush in the electoral vote.

Although Al Gore lost less than 4% of the popular vote in Florida, New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada and Tennessee (his home state), he lost all the popular votes in those states. If Al Gore had won any of those small, insignificant three-vote states, he would have been President. However, according to Matthew Venia, a writer for Helium online newspaper, it shows that “the Electoral College did its job.”

If we were to change and go with just the popular vote half of the states would become irrelevant. All a politician would have to do is campaign in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Georgia to reach 50% of the nation. If a politician could get half of Cal, Tex, NY, FL and Ill to vote for them they would have as many votes as Al Gore had in 2000. With just a popular vote only about a dozen cities would need to be visited: LA, NY, Houston, Miami, Chicago, Philly, and a few others. No need to visit small cities like Pierre, Green Bay, or even Portland. (“Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?”)

Venia’s solution to adjust the number of votes each state gets is using the Banzhaf Power Index. It measures how much power an individual has in swinging a particular contest. In the current system California measures 3.4 and New York 2.4 while Oregon is 1.2 and Kentucky is 1.2. In other words a vote cast in New York is twice as likely to affect the outcome as a vote in Oregon or Kentucky. California is three times as likely.

"We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago,” said Senator-elect Hillary Clinton.

I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our President. I hope no one is ever in doubt again about whether their vote counts. (“Hillary Calls For End To Electoral College”).

Another reform worth serious consideration is for all states to do as Maine and Nebraska do, awarding electoral votes by congressional district.

Corbin Pon, in his article “Electoral College should be eliminated,” says that the Electoral College needs to be thrown out for the 2012 election and simply replaced by a nation-wide popular vote. Pon goes on to explain that United States citizens have the resources, so the voting infrastructure would not need to be changed. They have the models, as large states like California have no serious issue running popular vote elections for their chief executive officers. They have the motivation, as the smothering embers of the Gore vs. Bush Presidential election still flare up now and again with the fact that Gore lost while holding the popular vote.

Jeffry R. Fisher, a computer programmer who has been writing as an "aspiring statesman,” says that the ways to reform the Electoral College are:

1.            Don't allow states to bind electors to a particular candidate; require a secret ballot by electors,

2.            Don’t allow candidates to select electors. Every elector would become a candidate, and every Presidential hopeful would need to first prevail as an elector. Nobody would really know until after the election who the final candidates would be,

3.            Use approval voting at all stages. With approval voting for electors, the two party strangleholds on power would evaporate. With approval voting among electors, there would always be a winner, so we could eliminate all the rules about sending the election to the House of Representatives.

One of the writers of Helium online newspaper, Matthew Venia, says, “Refined, yes. Abolished, no.” He explains that the Electoral College does serve the important purpose of making votes in “flyover country” count. The idea is every state casts a ballot with size based on population. Therefore the smaller states aren't completely ignored, but the larger states do, rightfully, earn more attention. (“Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?”)

Paul Shlesinger, a consultant from Virginia, who is involved primarily with the Federal government, assisting them in commercial services management, public policy, and quality assurance initiatives, says that while the Electoral College system is not perfect, it should not be abolished. Although people point out the disadvantages of the Electoral College, it is important to consider the advantages. The Electoral College is fair, simply due to the fact that the rules are known upfront. Candidates know that the only thing that counts is how many electors they end up with. They campaign based on it, and they make all their decisions with full knowledge of the rules. The Electoral College system acts as a stabilizing force. What this means is that candidates competing for electors are pulled more to the middle on issues, which helps to avoid radical, destabilizing change. In a purely popular vote system, candidates would focus on heavy population centers where the most votes could be gained. The Electoral College system, however, forces candidates to compete in states where the population is closely divided politically. The system rewards the candidate that can win independents and moderate voters. This reduces the likelihood that a candidate holding extreme views will succeed. Another benefit is that the Electoral College system ensures that non-voters are fairly represented. The point here is that the biggest benefit to the Electoral College is its ability to handle rare events that the Government may not have even considered before.

Although the Electoral College has always been the way to vote for President and Vice President, it does not mean that the Electoral College is the way to do it forever considering the development of the country. In contrast to the statement that the Electoral College system ensures that non-voters are fairly represented, non-voters consciously choose not to be represented by not voting. The Electoral College makes sense in the condition of a lack of information, but for today, there is no excuse to uninformed about the candidates for President or Vice President. A popular vote is more fair and effective than a vote by the Electoral College.

WORKS CITED

Fisher, Jeffry R. "Should the Electoral College Be Abolished? - by Jeffry R Fisher - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Helium, Inc. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .

"Hillary Calls For End To Electoral College - CBS News." Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News - CBS News. The Associated Press, 20 Nov. 2000. Web. 23 Feb. 2010. .

Pon, Corbin. "Electoral College should be eliminated - October 31, 2008 -." Technique - The South's Liveliest College Newspaper. Georgia Institute of Technology, 31 Oct. 2008. Web. 26 Feb. 2010. .

Shlesinger, Paul. "Should the Electoral College Be Abolished? - by Paul Shlesinger - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Helium Inc. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. .

"Should Electoral College be Eliminated? by Newspaper Contributors on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent." Creators Syndicate - The Best Content in The World. Ed. Creators Syndicate. Creators Syndicate. Web. 23 Feb. 2010. .

"The Electoral College." Electoral-vote.com: Election news. Web. 23 Feb. 2010. .

Venia, Matthew. "Should the Electoral College Be Abolished? - by Matthew Venia - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Helium, Inc. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .

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