On The Electoral College
When is the last time you heard someone argue that a presidential election was illegitimate because the victor did not win the popular vote? Does such an argument have merit? How many times has this happened? Do you wonder why the U.S. uses an Electoral College to select the winner of a presidential election? If any of these questions piqued your interest, read on.
Donald Trump is set to be the fifth President who has failed to win the aggregated popular vote. Here are the previous ones: 1824 - John Quincy Adams; 1876 - Rutherford B. Hayes; 1888 - Benjamin Harrison; 2000 - George W. Bush. Does that concern you? Should it?
America is a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy.
The U.S. Constitution was the result of a grand compromise among the states designed to form a federal government but still grant significant authority to the states. Because the smaller states feared that the larger states would possess inherent advantages within a federal system, they ensured specific conditions were met before ratifying. The resulting compromise included a provision for the states to be treated equally in the Senate irrespective of population (2 senators per state) as well as the use of an Electoral College to elect a president.
“The U.S. does, in fact, select its president by popular vote. But it is 51 separate and distinct elections.”
Our current Electoral College system does, in fact, account for the popular vote. Rather than aggregating the vote for the entire country, however, the system accounts for the popular vote tallies in each of the 50 individual states plus Washington D.C. If a candidate wins the popular vote of the state (and individual congressional district for Maine and Nebraska), he or she is awarded electoral votes consistent with the size of the state. Accordingly, the candidate receives electoral votes based on the number of senators and congressmen in the state's congressional delegation. For instance, California with its 53 congressmen and 2 senators has 55 electoral votes, and South Dakota with its 1 congressman and 2 senators has 3 electoral votes. Some might find this unfair or unwise, but it is wholly consistent with the Constitution's balance of powers and federalism principles. Review the map below to identify the number of electoral votes granted to each state.
Consider also the fact that California (population over 37 million) and South Dakota (population under 1 million) have the same number of senators. Is it illegitimate that full population numbers do not impact votes in the Senate?
To place in better perspective, let's talk baseball.
Consider the World Series requirement to win 4 out of 7 games. Here, the key is to win individual games (think popular vote of individual states), not score the most runs throughout the series (think aggregated popular vote throughout the country). If the Cleveland Indians win the first game 10-0, but the Chicago Cubs win the next 4 games by the score of 1-0 in each game, the Cubs win the World Series. It does not matter that Cleveland outscored Chicago 10 runs to 4 throughout the series. Make sense?
The Electoral College system is the rule, and has been the rule for the entire existence of the U.S. Going into elections, all candidates know the rule, understand the rule, and develop plans based on the rule. So, after the election, opponents arguing that an election is illegitimate because of a bad rule seems hallow and unpersuasive. The candidates played by the same rules. If the rules were different, do you think the candidates would have developed different strategies and tactics to win based on those specific rules? Applied to the 2016 vote, wouldn't both Clinton and Trump have focused their campaigns much differently if the winner simply had to win the aggregated popular vote of the country? Under the current Electoral College model, for instance, Trump chose to ignore California and allow Clinton to run up big numbers. Under an aggregated popular vote scheme, however, it seems likely that he would have chosen to invest in California and attempt to shrink the margin of victory.
Under such a system, would candidates ever travel to, or invest funds in New Hampshire, Iowa, or other small states? Or would they simply concentrate on the large population centers? What would you see as the positive and negative impacts of such concentration?
Looking for more information?
For background on the Electoral College's origination and application, please see here.
