REFORMING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Many progressives in our current political system are calling for the elimination of the Electoral College. One of the features of our constitutional republic is the indirect election of our presidents. Citizens actually vote for a slate of electors pledged to support the candidate of each voter’s preference. The president is actually elected in December when the electors meet and cast their ballots. Except for a few rogue electors the outcome of the electoral vote is usually known right after the election outcome in November.

The total number of current electors is 538 apportioned as follows:

1.     Each state is allotted the number of electors equal to the number of congressional representatives and the two senators each state is allotted.

2.      The District of Columbia, although not s state, nevertheless is allotted three electoral votes,

There are a total of 538 electoral votes. To win the election, a candidate needs 270 electors to vote for him/her. If the top two candidates tie at 269 votes each or if a third-party candidate(s) receives enough votes to keep the top vote getter below 270 electoral votes, there is a constitutional mechanism to deal with this deadlock. Below we go on any further, this does not necessarily mean there is a constitutional “crisis” because the framers anticipated a “no winner” presidential election and provided a remedy for such an eventuality.

The House of Representatives would then consider the top three presidential candidates and elect the new president with each state voting as a block and 26 votes needing to win. The Senate would then consider the top two candidates for vice president and each senator having one vote each select the new vice president with 51 votes needing to win.

The Twelfth Amendment rarified in 1804 establishes this procedure in response to the 1800 election in which the House selected the president under obsolete means. Only in 1824 did the House again selected the president. I invite the reader desiring more information to conduct further research.

The chief complaint against the Electoral College by the progressives appears to be that it is anti-democratic. A candidate can receive a of the majority popular vote but fail to win the presidency by not receiving most electoral votes. This situation has occurred numerous times, more recently in the elections of 2000 and 2016.

This complaint misses the point in several ways-

·       Our government is designed to be a constitutional republic not a democracy.

·       Our government is a federal system in which is composed of states as well as citizens.

Nevertheless, the Electoral College should be reformed, not eliminated. There are several models of reform that we will consider in this essay.

The first model is the National Popular Vote Compact. In this model states agree to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote, regardless of the vote in each state. To date, 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on to the compact.

The compact has several weaknesses. First, the 15 states and the District which have signed on to the compact have the potential to sway any presidential contest with their shear numbers of voters, regardless of how the other states vote. (And the current compact states and District have voted as a bloc in the past several elections.)

Second, I believe this model is unconstitutional as it would upend our federal system by effectively eliminating the Electoral College notwithstanding what is explained on its website- “…

 

So, I believe a constitutional amendment would be necessary for the National Popular Vote Compact to become operative, as would our second model for consideration- the Fractional Proportional Allocation with Runoff. With this model there is no change to how each state’s electoral votes are determined. Nevertheless, there are three major changes proposed with the adoption of this model-

1.     Human electors are replaced with electoral votes calculated to the right of the decimal point.

2.     In each state, the three candidates with the most popular votes are awarded the state’s electoral votes proportionally.

3.     A candidate would need more than 269 electoral votes to be elected. If no one does, Congress sets the runoff mechanism.

The third model is the easiest to adopt, would not require a constitutional amendment, and is currently used by two states- Maine and Nebraska. This model is the Congressional District Method (hereafter referred to as the M/N Model).

In this model each state’s congressional districts award their electoral votes on the winners of the popular votes in the district whit the two “at-large” electoral votes going to the winners of the overall popular vote in the state. For example, election pollsters forecast that one of the three districts in Nebraska will vote for Harris giving her 1 electoral vote while the remaining 4 votes will be given to Trump, and that Trump will win one district in Maine giving him 1 electoral vote while the remaining 3 votes will be awarded to Harris.

One of the first questions to be asked about the M/N Model is how the model has affected past presidential winners. The table below shows the difference between the current electoral vote system and all states using the M/N Model for the elections this century (except the 2024 election).

 

YEAR	CURRENT ELECTORAL	USING M/N MODEL	CHANGES
2000	Bush- 271 Gore- 267	Bush- 285 Gore- 252	Larger victory for Bush
2004	Bush- 286 Kerry-251	Bush- 319 Kerry-219	Larger victory for Bush
2008	Obama-365 McCain- 173	Obama- 301 McCain- 237	Reduced victory for Obama
2012	Obama-332 Romney-206	Romney-277 Obama-260	Election flips to Romney
2015	Trump-304 Clinton-227	Trump-292 Clinton-246	Reduced victory for Trump
2029	Biden-306 Trump-232	Biden-277 Trump-261	Reduced victory for Biden

                                                                                                                     

One election would have changed if all states used the M/N Model- Mitt Romney would have defeated Barack Obama in 2012. Also, the election of 2000 would in essence not would have been decided by the Supreme Court in the Florida vote count case.

The M/N Model offers several advantages over the current electoral vote system-

1.     Each congressional district averages 761,169 persons as established by the 2020 US Census. Voters will more likely feel “their votes count” especially in more populus states using a “winner-take-all” system or in “one party” states.

2.     The major party candidates can strategically target districts in “one party” states.

3.     Third party presidential candidates can have more impact by strategically targeting districts instead of entire states.

4.     Maine adopted the model in 1972 and Nebraska in 1996, so all or the vast majority of legal, political, and procedural kinks have been worked out.

In summary, the Electoral College is a bedrock to our constitutional republic. Yet, it needs to be reformed and the model used and tested by Maine and Nebraska offers, in my opinion, the best alternative.