“It wasn’t like the Founders said, ‘Hey, what a great idea! This is the preferred way to select the chief executive, period.” says Edwards. “They were tired, impatient, frustrated. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.” George Edwards 111, emeritus political science professor at Texas A & M University[1]
In the coming months, as the presidential election approaches, we will hear more and more about the Electoral College and why we should or should not have it. This exchange of ideas, opinions, and debates is exactly what politics is all about.
The Electoral College is part of the Constitution that most of us have heard about but do not quite understand. We know this is about electing the President, so what is all the fuss about? This subject was debated endlessly in the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The discussions went on for months. Some wanted Congress to select the President and others thought the President should be voted on by a popular vote. Eventually, the compromise came to be known as the Electoral College.
It boils down to 535 electors from the states and 3 from Washington, D.C., for a total of 538 electors. Comparable to the number in the House of Representatives. Each state would appoint temporary electors to vote in the current presidential election, and they would cast their votes for President and Vice-President. The first candidate to receive 270 votes was the President-Elect.
One of the big stumbling blocks was how to allocate electors from the South. The controversial three-fifths compromise came out of these discussions. Three-fifths of the enslaved Black population would be counted toward representatives in the House and for electors as well as collecting federal taxes. “The compromise ensured that Southern states would ratify the Constitution and gave Virginia, home to more than 200,000 slaves, a quarter (12) of the total electoral votes required to win the presidency (46).”[2]
If we were to eliminate the Electoral College and go with majority rule and inequity results. The large states with high populations would decide the winner of the election. Candidates would never go to small, populated states to stump for votes. It would not pay since the only states that matter would be the most populous states. Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, Delaware, Rhode Island, and others would never have a chance to elect a President. Only big states such as New York, California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania would have a say in who wins the election. There is “little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states.”[3]
As it turned out, none of the assumptions of the Founding Fathers came about. Most of the Founders thought the electors would vote their convictions and each individual vote would count. There were no political parties when the Constitution was written so that assumption seemed sound. The parties formed after the first presidential election, and the electors began to vote as a block. All the votes went to the majority of the state’s electors. The Founders also thought the elections would go not by the people or the electors but by the House of Representatives.
The Electoral College survives today because it is still the best way to select the President. Still, we will hear from those who want to go with the majority vote of the electorate, which, in essence, would disenfranchise the smaller populated states.
[1] Dave Roos, What is the Electoral College, National Archives, December 14, 2020 https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/about [2] Ibid [3] Ibid George Edwards 111
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