In July, I entertained XAD readers with a description of the circus known as “primary elections” in the U.S. This month, I’m back to further confuse you with an explanation of how we count the votes in our presidential elections. The system is not quite as crazy as it sounds. It was designed with great care by our Founding Fathers when they wrote our Constitution. Unfortunately, after 220 years, the “Law of Unintended Consequences” is taking its toll. The Electoral College system is now widely criticized as anachronistic and unfair.
The original problem
First, let’s take a look at the background – how and why this system began as it did. America’s founding fathers were intelligent, reasonable men with a good understanding of history and political theory. They were also, of necessity, politicians. Their task was to form a viable union – a nation – from the thirteen colonies that had broken away from England. There was no guarantee of success. The colonies might easily have balkanised into two or three -- or even thirteen -- tiny nations, each one weak and vulnerable.
To prevent such a disastrous disintegration, the writers of the Constitution had to balance the interests of north and south, rural areas and cities, agricultural states and industrial states. They had to reassure the thinly populated regions that they would have influence in the national government, and would not be at the mercy of the more populous areas.
The solution
To achieve this balance, our lawmaking body (Congress) is formed of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the upper chamber, the Senate, each state has two Senators. In the House, the number of Representatives for each state is based on its population in the most recent census. So, as you can see, in the upper chamber each state has equal influence, while in the lower chamber the more populous states have more power.
The total number in the House is now set at 435. Each state must have at least one Representative. Every ten years, when the latest census results are counted, some states gain seats in the House while others lose them. The US does not use “el sistema d’Hondt” to apportion seats to candidates. Rather, each state is divided into geographical voting districts, based on its number of representatives to Congress. (A low-population state elects one single representative at large, to represent the entire state.) For example, I am registered to vote in the 10th district of the State of Georgia, in the northeast region of that state. My town, Athens, was in the 10th district of a total of ten when I lived there in the 1970s. For a while in the 1990’s the lines were redrawn to put Athens in the 11th district of eleven. Since the 2000 census, with Georgia’s booming population, Athens has been in the 10th district of thirteen.
The Senate has remained constant at 100 members since 1959, when the number of states reached 50. If a new state is ever admitted to the union (for example, Puerto Rico) two new Senators will be added. Senators are elected at large from their states. Each US citizen is represented in Washington by one representative in the lower chamber and two Senators in the upper chamber.
In news articles you will often see the word “big” for the heavily populated states. It’s a handy verbal shortcut, as long as you remember what it means. The biggest state by far in physical size is Alaska, yet it’s a “small” state in population, ranking 48th out of 50. California and Texas are “big” in both senses of the word. Alaska has only one Representative in the House, in contrast to California’s 53. Each of them, of course, has two Senators.
The Electoral College
The states’ representation in Congress determines how much influence each state has on the presidential elections. A state has an assigned number of “electors” equal to the sum of its Senators and Representatives. (This is why I’ve used so many words explaining our Senators and Representatives to you.) No state can have less than three electoral votes, since every state has two Senators and at least one Representative.
A special case is made for the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) The capitol city is not part of any state, nor is it a state itself. It has neither Senators nor Representatives in Congress. The District of Columbia was granted three electoral votes by an amendment to the Constitution in 1961. Before this amendment was passed, residents of Washington D.C. had no say in the presidential elections.
Technically, it’s not correct to say that an American voter casts a vote for a presidential candidate. Each voter marks on his ballot the list of electors from his state who are pledged to the candidate the voter wants to elect. When the votes are counted, the candidate -- that is to say, the list of electors -- receiving the majority of a state’s popular vote (or a plurality if there are more than two candidates) receives all of that state’s electoral votes -- except in the case of two states, Maine and Nebraska, which use proportional representation to assign their electors. In the other 48 states, a candidate receiving 50.1% of the popular vote (or even, conceivably, 35% in a very close three-way race) wins 100% of that state’s electoral votes.
The states are free to set up their own rules for choosing a slate of electors. Any or all of them could choose proportional representation, like Maine and Nebraska, if they wished. It’s a matter that is decided at the state level, not dictated by the US Constitution.
If all the states used proportional representation to assign their electoral votes, Al Gore would have received more electoral votes than George Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Likewise, if the US elections were conducted by direct popular vote – one man one vote, nation-wide – Gore would have won the 2000 election.
However, an anomaly such as this is rare. In the 55 Presidential elections since the first one in 1789, there have been only four in which the final result did not reflect the popular vote. Even in those cases, the discrepancy was not great.
51 separate elections
You can see that there is not really a national election for the U.S. President. There are 51 separate elections in the 50 states and Washington D.C. From these 51 elections, the popular vote of a nation with over 142,000,000 registered voters is distilled into 538 electoral votes. Is this democratic? Is it fair?
Is it fair? At first glance, you might think that the system favours the “big” states. Arithmetic tells you otherwise. California, with nearly 12% of the national population, gets just 10.2% of the electoral votes. The seven least populous states, combined, have 3.9% of the electoral vote, even though they are home to only 1.65% of the national population. This seems unfair, doesn’t it? But it means that the system still achieves today what it was originally designed to do. It gives the citizens in the thinly populated rural states a chance to assert themselves.
In my opinion, having 51 separate elections for President is no bad thing. On election day, each state is electing its Senators and Representatives to Washington, as well as the officers to run its own state government. Each state is at the same time voting on many questions particular to their own state – anything from property taxes to education policy to environmental guidelines. It is logical to include their vote for the one national office of President/ Vice President on the same ballot. What is not necessarily logical is that they cast their votes, not for the presidential candidate, but for a list of electors pledged to that candidate.
Reform – is it needed? Is it possible?
Those who favour keeping the electoral college system point out that this method promotes stability in government by lessening the influence of small, peripheral parties. The opposite argument is that, in effect, the electoral college suppresses small parties, and so discourages diversity. There may be as many as ten small party candidates on the 2008 ballot, standing for such parties as the Greens, the Libertarians, and the Peace and Freedom Party, among others. It is most unlikely that any of them will carry a single state, so probably none of them will get even one electoral vote. In the 1992 election, Independent Ross Perot managed to get 19% of the popular vote nationwide without gaining one electoral vote.
Many people insist that the electoral college system needs to be reformed. Can the Constitution be changed? Yes, it can be amended. There are already 27 amendments to the Constitution, (including one amendment that repeals an earlier amendment !) The procedure to alter the Constitution is complicated and slow. An amendment must be proposed in either the Senate or the House. Then it must pass by a 2/3 majority in both houses. If it passes in the two chambers, the amendment must then be ratified by majority vote in the legislatures of at least three fourths of the states (i.e. 38 states). No signature from the President is needed for a Constitutional amendment.
In the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to either reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposed amendments concerning the electoral college than for any other subject. However, not one of these proposals has passed the first hurdle of gaining 2/3 approval in both House and Senate. Consequently, no constitutional amendment concerning the electoral college has ever been sent to the states to be ratified.
Source: goverment archives
Public opinion polls show that a majority of the American public favour changing the electoral college system. Evidently this “favouring” is just a passive preference in answer to a questionnaire. There is little sign of any active demand for it to change. Perhaps if people felt more strongly on the matter, they would launch a campaign to persuade their Senators and Representatives to get serious about amending the Constitution.
by Mary C. Sears
