What Is The Purpose Of The Electoral College

Correlation Between Popular Vote And Electoral College Votes

Since the mid-19th century, when all electors have been popularly chosen, the Electoral College has elected the candidate who received the most popular votes nationwide, except in four elections: 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. In 1824, when there were six states in which electors were legislatively appointed, rather than popularly elected, the true national popular vote is uncertain. The electors in 1824 failed to select a winning candidate, so the matter was decided by the House of Representatives.

Electoral College: A System Born Of Compromise

At the time of the Philadelphia convention, no other country in the world directly elected its chief executive, so the delegates were wading into uncharted territory. Further complicating the task was a deep-rooted distrust of executive power. After all, the fledgling nation had just fought its way out from under a tyrannical king and overreaching colonial governors. They didnt want another despot on their hands.

One group of delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldnt have anything to do with picking the president. Too much opportunity for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches.

Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth in 1787 drafting The Great Compromise, a plan for representation in Congress.

Another camp was dead set against letting the people elect the president by a straight popular vote. First, they thought 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong democratic mob steering the country astray. And third, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

Out of those drawn-out debates came a compromise based on the idea of electoral intermediaries. These intermediaries wouldnt be picked by Congress or elected by the people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent electors who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

Electoral College History And Purpose

The study of Electoral College history takes us to the first drafting of the Constitution in 1787. The writers feared that the citizens were not erudite enough nor had enough information to elect a president. Plus, the Founding Fathers were unsure if a populist president would command too much power. They also feared that states with larger urban populations would dominate elections. Racism and slavery played a large, yet often not discussed, role in the development of the Electoral College, as well.

Given these concerns, the Electoral College was formed in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, stating that citizens will vote for electors who would select the president and vice president. This worked until 1800 when Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson got the exact number of votes.

After the House of Representatives broke the tie, it led to the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which spells out the role of the college in more detail and is representative of the system used today.

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The Electoral College And Problems Of Democracy

That early compromise allowing the small states great influence over executive and legislative powers and privileges is today at the center of a crisis in American democracy. The Electoral College and its composition are depriving this democracy of its basic principle in presidential elections: majority rule. Whatever the justification for this injusticerepresentation, rights, and interests of small statesit is making a mockery of what the world sees as a model of representative government and should not stand. Indeed, the United States in the 21st Century should not be made to double down on the fears of ideologues, politicians, and monied interests controlling the small states of the 18th.

Indeed, four American presidents since the establishment of the independent republic have won their office without winning the popular vote: Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, George W. Bush in 2000, and Donald J. Trump in 2016.15 In 2000, Bush received more than half a million votes less than the Democratic contender, Al Gore, but edged the latter by two electoral votes in the Electoral College .16 That election hung on the outcome of the popular vote in the State of Florida which at the time had 25 electoral votes. After a tense battle in the courts, the US Supreme Court decided to stop a recount of votes in Florida just as Bush had 537 votes more than his Democratic rival.

The Electors: Ratifying The Voters Choice

Presidential electors in contemporary elections are expected, and in many cases pledged, to vote for the candidates of the party that nominated them. While there is evidence that the founders assumed the electors would be independent actors, weighing the merits of competing presidential candidates, they have been regarded as agents of the public will since the first decade under the Constitution. They are expected to vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the party that nominated them.

Notwithstanding this expectation, individual electors have sometimes not honored their commitment, voting for a different candidate or candidates than the ones to whom they were pledged. They are known as faithless or unfaithful electors. In fact, the balance of opinion by constitutional scholars is that, once electors have been chosen, they remain constitutionally free agents, able to vote for any candidate who meets the requirements for President and Vice President. Faithless electors have, however, been few in number , and have never influenced the outcome of a presidential election.

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States Election And Voting Policies

Individual states have the responsibility of overseeing federal elections and make decisions about their states election and voting laws and policies. Each state has the power to adopt and implement critical policies that expand or restrict voting. These policies include voter accessibility laws like early voting, mail-in voting, same-day registration voting, and voter ID laws. This means that the state you live in plays an important role in determining your ability to vote and how much your vote matters.

What Happens If Theres A Tie

Its possible, but extremely unlikely, that the Electoral College could deadlock 269-269. In that case, the newly elected House would vote on who becomes president. Each state gets one vote 26 votes are needed to win. The Senate would decide who becomes vice president.

USA TODAY reporting and research senate.gov history.house.gov fairvote.org National Conference of State Legislatures Associated Press Reuters

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The Role Of The Electoral College In Electing The American President

The United States is understood to be a democratic republic whose constitution protects the individuals right to choose his/her representatives, from the local ward and district to the highest national office. Yet, the process through which a president is elected veers fundamentally from the basic democratic principle of direct elections in favor of an indirect, phased course. This two-step process of electing a president robs the American political system, at least partially, from that essential feature of democratic representation: direct elections. Indeed, the general electing public appears as if it needs a middling agent to express its true opinion about, and preference for, the person who normally leads the country for four years and in many instances gets the chance to renew his term for another four.

How Many Electoral Votes Does It Take To Win

The important number is 270. A total of 538 electoral votes are in play across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The total number of electoral votes assigned to each state varies depending on population, but each state has at least three, and the District of Columbia has had three electors since 1961.

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Electoral Votes Trump The Popular Vote

More often than not, the candidate who wins the popular vote also wins the Electoral College vote. But it is possible for a candidate to win via Electoral votes alone. This has happened 5 times:

1876 Rutherford B. Hayes versus Samuel J. Tilden1888 Benjamin Harrison versus Grover Cleveland2000 George W. Bush versus Al Gore2016 Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton

Congress Counts And Certifies The Vote

The final step in the presidential election process is the counting and certification of the electoral votes by Congress. The House of Representatives and Senate meet in joint session in the House chamber on January 6 of the year following the presidential election at 1:00 pm. The Vice President, who presides in his capacity as President of the Senate, opens the electoral vote certificates from each state in alphabetical order. He then passes the certificates to four tellers , two appointed by each house, who announce the results. The votes are then counted and the results are announced by the Vice President. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes is declared the winner by the Vice President, an action that constitutes a sufficient declaration of the persons, if any, elected President and Vice President of the States.

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Georgias Role In The Electoral College

The Electoral College is the process we use to elect the U.S. president. Established in the U.S. Constitution, its purpose is to spread the power to elect the president across all 50 states. It was designed to ensure that the more populous states didnt overpower the smaller states when choosing the nations leader.

Do Electors Have To Vote For Their Partys Candidate

Theyre expected to, but sometimes dont. Faithless electors have broken rank and voted for someone other than their candidate. Fairvote.org says 90 electors have cast deviant votes in the past 58 presidential elections. None affected the outcome.

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have laws that mandate electors vote in accordance with the popular vote. The Supreme Court ruled July 6 that states can punish faithless electors who go rogue.

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Can We Change The Electoral College

The only way to change our presidential election process is through a constitutional amendment which is difficult to do. This is why some opponents of the Electoral College system have come up with a workaround the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. When a state joins the compact, it agrees to cast its electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, thus undercutting the Electoral College. Fifteen states have joined the compact a 16th, Colorado, voted on whether to join the compact on the 2020 ballot, but the results werent in at publication time.

Joint Session Of Congress

The Twelfth Amendment mandates Congress assemble in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election. The session is ordinarily required to take place on January 6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors. Since the Twentieth Amendment, the newly elected joint Congress declares the winner of the election all elections before 1936 were determined by the outgoing House.

The Office of the Federal Register is charged with administering the Electoral College. The meeting is held at 1 p.m. in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. The sitting vice president is expected to preside, but in several cases the president pro tempore of the Senate has chaired the proceedings. The vice president and the speaker of the House sit at the podium, with the vice president sitting to the right of the speaker of the House. Senate pages bring in two mahogany boxes containing each state’s certified vote and place them on tables in front of the senators and representatives. Each house appoints two tellers to count the vote . Relevant portions of the certificate of vote are read for each state, in alphabetical order.

Historical objections and rejections

Objections to the electoral vote count are rarely raised, although it has occurred a few times.

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Will The System Ever Change

For years there have been debates about abolishing the Electoral College entirely, with the 2016 election bringing the debate back to the surface. It was even a talking point among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

The idea has public support, but faces a partisan divide, since Republicans currently benefit from the electoral clout of less populous, rural states.

Gallup reports 61 percent of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans.

One route would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

Some hope to reduce the Electoral Colleges importance without an amendment. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, which together control 196 electoral votes, have signed on to an interstate compact in which they pledge to grant their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The local laws would take effect only once the compact has enough states to total 270 electoral votes.

Lastly, an election-related case could find its way to the Supreme Court, which would lend greater importance to the judicial makeup of the court, Professor Wehle said.

Allocation Of Electors And Electoral Votes

The Constitution gives each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate membership and House of Representatives delegation . The 23rd Amendment provides an additional three electors to the District of Columbia. The number of electoral votes per state thus currently ranges from three to 55 for California, the most populous state.

The total number of electors each state gets are adjusted following each decennial census in a process called reapportionment, which reallocates the number of Members of the House of Representatives to reflect changing rates of population growth among the states. Thus, a state may gain or lose electors following reapportionment, but it always retains its two senatorial electors, and at least one more reflecting its House delegation. Popular Election of Electors

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What Are Faithless Electors

Ever since the 19th century reforms, states have expected their electors to honor the will of the voters. In other words, electors are now pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state. However, the Constitution does not require them to do so, which allows for scenarios in which faithless electors have voted against the popular vote winner in their states. As of 2016, there have been 90 faithless electoral votes cast out of 23,507 in total across all presidential elections. The 2016 election saw a record-breaking seven faithless electors, including three who voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was not a presidential candidate at the time.

Currently, 33 states and the District of Columbia require their presidential electors to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Only 5 states, however, impose a penalty on faithless electors, and only 14 states provide for faithless electors to be removed or for their votes to be canceled. In July 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld existing state laws that punish or remove faithless electors.

Awarding Delegates From The Primaries And Caucuses

At stake in each primary or caucus is a certain number of delegates. These are individuals who represent their state at national party conventions. The candidate who receives a majority of the partys delegates wins the nomination. The parties have different numbers of delegates due to the rules involved in awarding them. Each party also has some unpledged delegates or superdelegates. These delegates are not bound to a specific candidate heading into the national convention.

When the primaries and caucuses are over, most political parties hold a national convention. This is when the winning candidates receive their nomination.

For information about your state’s presidential primaries or caucuses, contact your state election office or the political party of your choice.

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Ways To Get Involved/what You Can Do

Measure: Find out what your state and district are doing about the electoral college.

• Where does your state stand on the Electoral College or a National Popular Vote?
• How does your state handle faithless voters?

Identify: Who are the influencers in your state, county, or community? Learn about their priorities and consider how to contact them, including elected officials, attorneys general, law enforcement, boards of education, city councils, journalists, media outlets, community organizations, and local businesses.

• Who can be an elector in your state?
• What steps have your states or communitys elected and appointed officials taken?

Reach out: You are a catalyst. Finding a common cause is a great opportunity to develop relationships with people who may be outside of your immediate network. All it takes is a small team of two or three people to set a path for real improvement. The Policy Circle is your platform to convene with experts you want to hear from.

• Find allies in your community or in nearby towns and elsewhere in the state.
• Foster collaborative relationships with community organizations.

Plan: Set some milestones based on your states legislative calendar.

• Dont hesitate to contact The Policy Circle team, communications@thepolicycircle.org, for connections to the broader network, advice, insights on how to build rapport with policy makers and establish yourself as a civic leader.

Execute: Give it your best shot. You can: