Electoral College

Electoral College

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Electoral college is the popular name for the system used to elect the president and vice president of the United States. Voters in the United States choose among candidates for these offices in November every four years, but the votes they cast are actually for another office, that of elector. In most states the names of the candidates for elector are not even on the ballot. Those chosen as electors collectively constitute the electoral college, a body that never meets as a group. State delegations of electors meet in early December in their respective state capitols to cast their “electoral votes” for president and vice president. These votes are then counted in early January at a session of Congress. If a majority of the electoral votes for president (at least 270 of a total of 538) is cast for the same person, that person wins the presidency. Likewise, if a majority of the electoral votes for vice president is cast for the same person, that person wins that office.

If no person receives a majority of the electoral votes for president, the selection of the president is placed with the U.S. House of Representatives. If no person receives a majority of votes for vice president, selection for that office is placed with the U.S. Senate. When this “contingent election” procedure is used to select a president, every state delegation in the House has one vote, which may only be cast for one of the top three recipients of electoral votes for that office. The winner must receive the vote from a majority of the states. When the contingent procedure is used to select the vice president, each senator has one vote, and only the top two recipients of electoral votes for that office may be considered. The winner must receive a vote from a majority of the senators.

This framework for electing a president and a vice president is specified in Article II, section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1789. This provision awards each state a number of electors equal to the number of members the state has in Congress, with one elector assigned for each of the state’s representatives and senators. Representatives are allotted to the states based on population, with the caveat that every state must receive at least one. Larger states therefore have more electors than smaller states. Every state, however, is allotted the same number of senators, two, regardless of population. This allocation, along with the minimum of one representative for every state, results in smaller states receiving proportionately more electoral votes, per population, than larger states.

Two amendments to the Constitution have directly altered the electoral college system. The Twelfth Amendment, adopted in 1804, separated electoral voting for the president and the vice president. Prior to this amendment each elector had two votes to cast and the person receiving the highest number of votes, provided that number constituted a vote from a majority of the electors, won the presidency. The vice presidency went to the person receiving the second highest number of votes. In the election of 1800 this resulted in the presidential and vice presidential candidates of one party receiving the same number of votes from a majority of the electors, pushing the selection of the president into the House. The Twelfth Amendment was added to preclude this type of result. The other amendment altering the electoral college was the Twenty-Third, adopted in 1961, which allowed voters in the District of Columbia, which is not a state, to choose as many electors as the least populous state, currently three. These electoral votes are cast in Washington, D.C.

Article II, Section 1, leaves the method of choosing electors to the states themselves, through their respective legislatures. Since 1836 all states but one have let the voters make this choice; the exception, South Carolina, switched to popular elections in 1860. Another important change made by states has been the adoption, by all but two states, of the “unit rule” for allocating electors to the candidates. Candidates for elector are vetted by the political parties and pledged to vote for that party’s candidates. This unit rule is a winner-take-all provision under which all of a state’s electors are awarded to the slate of presidential and vice presidential candidates that received the most votes in that state in November. Congress has specified that the unit rule applies to electors for the District of Columbia as well. Maine and Nebraska award two electoral votes to the slate of candidates winning a statewide plurality of votes, and another electoral vote to the slates winning a plurality within each of their U.S. House districts.

Commentators have described the electoral college as everything from “a brilliant constitutional device” (Ross 2004, p. 9) to “an anti-democratic relic of the eighteenth century” (Edwards 2004, p. 158). Those who defend the electoral college typically assert that it is a fundamental part of the American federal system of government that needs to be maintained, and that it provides more diverse interests, especially those of smaller states, with a voice in the election of the president. Those who find the system antidemocratic argue that the people, not the electors, should determine who is elected. The votes cast in November for president and vice president, which only determine how electoral votes are distributed among sets of candidates, do show which slate of candidates was preferred by the people. With rare exception, the people’s choice and the electors’ choice are the same. But when the popular vote is close, the unit rule and the fact that electors are not allocated based strictly on population make it possible for the winners of the two votes to be different.

This happened in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush finished second in the popular vote with 47.8 percent, but first in the electoral vote with 50.5 percent. He was labeled by many as the “wrong winner.” Presidents and vice presidents chosen under the contingent election procedure likewise need not be the public’s choice.

The American public has demonstrated numerous times, in surveys and polls, that they prefer their president and vice president to be their choices, not those of intermediaries. A variety of reforms have been proposed that would accomplish this (see Edwards 2004, pp. 153–157; Bennett 2006, pp. 49–58, 161–178; and Koza et al. 2006).

SEE ALSO Congress, U.S.; Constitution, U.S.; Democracy, Representative and Participatory; Democratic Party, U.S.; Elections; Presidency, The; Republican Party; Voting

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennett, Robert W. 2006. Taming the Electoral College. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Edwards, George C., III. 2004. Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Koza, John R., Barry Fadem, Mark Grueskin, et al. 2006. Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote. Los Altos, CA: National Popular Vote Press.

Ross, Tara. 2004. Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College. Los Angeles: World Ahead Publishing.

Richard L. Engstrom