Electoral College Reform Five times in our nation’s history, the Electoral College has failed and elected a president that was not the majority vote from the election. The two most recent cases were the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore and the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. During elections, there is always a good turnout because people are excited to vote for the next president of the United States, but what they do not know is that they do not directly elect the president under the Electoral System.
The Electoral College needs to be changed to a more efficient system with less possible error in electing the president. The Electoral College has many flaws. Under the current system, there is nothing stopping a faithless elector vote. It also does not give an equal vote to all citizens. Also, with the winnertake-all policy a candidate gets every electoral vote in a state even if the popular vote was only one percentage point different in the state. There is always a possibility that no candidate will receive 270 electoral votes, in which case the U. S.
House decides the winner. Lastly, the Electoral College vote does not guarantee the winner of the popular vote is the winner of the election. There are many alternative methods that have been proposed in place of the system today. There are many reasons why nothing has been done to change the Electoral College election system; the system is difficult to change and hard to find a good replacement system. The Electoral College needs to be reformed into something better to reflect a true democratic election. The graph shows the varying degrees of power each state might have.
The numbers are found by dividing the total population of a state by the states electoral votes. The smaller rural states carry more weight because the small states have a guaranteed three votes regardless of population because of two senate votes and one representative. The darker states have more than a 200% difference in voter power compared to large states like California and Florida. The lighter states are larger in population and do not benefit from the guarantee three votes because they have more than three. The Electoral College does not give equal voting to everyone.
This is because the amount of electoral votes a state has is based on its population with every state getting at least three votes. The average population per vote is 436,000 people (Kirk, 2012). One Wyoming voter is equivalent to roughly four New York voters because Wyoming has one electoral vote representing less than 200,000 people and New York has one electoral vote representing over 600,000 people (Kirk, 2012). The rule of at least three votes in every state makes some votes weigh more than other votes, thus not granting everyone equal vote.
Along with the Electoral College issue of equal voting power for everyone, the winner-take-all policy is an issue. This policy states that every electoral vote goes to one majority vote, regardless of how close the percentage of the majority vote is. There are two exceptions to this rule; Nebraska and Maine both split their electoral votes. The other 48 states and Washington, D. C. do not split the vote. The winner-take-all policy makes it so candidates only focus on the swing states. Some of the swing states are Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Colorado.
These battleground states are where the election is decided so the candidates campaign there the most. If it were decided by popular vote the commonly republican or democratic states’ votes would not be taken for granted. In non-swing states the winner-take-all discourages voter turnout (Ulrich, 2016). The winner-take-all system discourages voter turnout and puts more emphasis on swing states so candidates will not even campaign in small states because a candidate could win the election just by winning majority vote in the eleven most populated states.
This system is not efficient or accurate of the popular vote and should be removed from the voting system. There is always a possibility of a tie between the two candidates, if one of them cannot get a definite win by meeting the requirement of 270 votes. If neither candidate gets 270 votes the vote is thrown to the House of Representatives (Longley, 1972, 18-23). The House of Representatives chooses the top three candidates, and each state has one vote where majority of vote is who gets elected.
The citizens have no say in who is elected if it is brought to a tiebreaker and Congress gets to decide for everyone else which one will be the winner. With the Electoral College, there is no guarantee that the popular vote wins. The Electoral System does not guarantee an accurate representation of the popular vote. There have been five times in the past where the president with the majority vote did not win the election. In 2016 there was a historic gap between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with Hillary winning the popular vote and Donald winning the electoral vote.
Hillary won by a margin of more than 600,000 people, which is the size of North Dakota. In the year 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 over George W. Bush. In 1824, John Quincy Adams did not win the popular vote, or the electoral vote. The election was brought to the House of Representatives because neither candidate received the required amount of electoral votes. The House voted John Quincy Adams in (Gore, 2008). If neither candidate receives the required amount, the US House of Representatives decides state by state who the winner is.
In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote by one and lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 to his competitor, Samuel J. Tilden (Gore, 2008). In 1888, Benjamin Harris received the most electoral votes with 233 versus Grover Cleveland’s 168; Benjamin lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 (Gore, 2008). This is possible because the election relies on electoral votes alone, and the popular vote does not matter. This country needs a better system of government where the president is more directly elected by the popular vote. In most states, there s nothing stopping an elector from voting different from what their state voted for. This is called a faithless elector. There are not many cases of electors being faithless because it would hurt their chances for reelection if they went against their constituents and how they voted. Some states have a fine of $1,000 if the elector refuses to vote or decides to vote different. In the 2016 election, there was a candidate who said he would write in Bernie Sanders for his vote because in that person’s d Bernie is who deserved to be president. He would have to pay the $1,000 fine if he did this.
Electors can choose to either vote different from the party their state voted for, or not vote at all. The ability for electors to vote this way should not be allowed. There have been many alternatives proposed for the Electoral College because there are so many problems with the system and how candidates are chosen. People argue that the system has only failed 5 times out of 57, so proposing a new system is not necessary. Professor Paul Freund of Harvard Law School said, “This is like boasting that 93% of the planes leaving Washington airport arrive at their destination” (Longley, 1972, 21).
In the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been made to reform or eliminate the Electoral College (Archives). It is hard to change because it would have to be passed by a constitutional amendment and no alternatives have been passed by congress. The alternative method must be proposed by 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress and ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures or 34 states in state conventions. It is very difficult to make any changes when the people in power do not want to change anything. There are four popular plans to replace the Electoral College.
The first plan is the Automatic Plan. This removes the possibility of faithless electors, and also removes the possibility of the House of Representatives deciding the winner of the presidential race (Longley, 1972, 43-48). This ensures that the election has less chance of electing the wrong person and keeps they system honest. The second plan is the Proportional Plan. This plan removes the problem of winner-take-all by dividing the electoral vote proportionate to the popular vote (Longley, 1972,49-56). The third plan is the District Plan.
This plan proposes that two senator votes go to the state majority vote, and the rest are divided among the districts (Longley, 1972, 57-63). The fourth and final main plan is the Direct Vote Plan. This plan would fix all problems with the Electoral College; it would remove the faithless elector possibility, eliminate the winner-take-all policy, eliminate the unequal vote problem, prevent elections from being decided by the House of Representatives, and it would guarantee the popular vote wins (Longley, 1972, 64-68). The reformations and fixes to the Electoral College all fix at least one problem but bring up a new unique problem with it.
None of the popular alternatives to the current Electoral College have a perfect fix, but they all fix at least one big part of it. There are problems with reforming the Electoral College and reasons why it has not happened yet. The state political parties who choose electors resist change. The officials are not sure how exactly to change the system. It is easier to resist change than it is to start it. The problem with the Automatic Plan is that it is such a small fix of only one problem that it would not be worth the time for such a small change.
The problem with the Proportional Plan is that it would undermine the two party system and deflate the president’s victory margin, making it hard to lead (Longley, 1972, 49-56). The Proportional Plan would make it harder to obtain the 270 votes necessary to win, which would raise chances for more elections being decided by the House of Representatives Longley, 1972, 56). The Problem with the District Plan is that it is more likely to get Electoral College deadlock, simply meaning no candidate gets the majority vote and the decision moves to the House of Representatives.
The problem with the Direct Vote Plan is that it would deflate the winning margin of the president and make it harder to govern (Longley, 1972, 68). The minor parties would flourish under this system. The candidates would be forced to spend more money on their campaign because they would have to campaign nationwide rather than focusing on swing states only. All of the main alternative plans fix some of the bigger problems but bring in new problems that the old system does not have. There will never be a perfect system, but this country still deserves better than the one used now.
The Electoral College should be reformed if the constituents of America want to have a more direct vote in their leaders and not let their government decide for them. Most people do not know that they do not directly elect their president. If the system is reformed, candidates will start paying attention to all the states and not just the swing states with the most electoral votes. Changing the Electoral College would change the entire way candidates campaign and run for presidency by making every state equally important.
