What Is the Electoral College and Is It Still Relevant in Our Democracy?
What’s It About? The reasons why the Electoral College exists are often poorly understood. They needn’t be. The Issue? Is the Electoral College obsolete?
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1. Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 wanted members of Congress to elect the president of the United States. Other delegates argued for election by popular vote—that is to say, for a direct election by the people. Why did the Framers of the Constitution ultimately reject both these ideas?
2. What is the three-fifths compromise? How would you assess its impact on the results of the presidential elections in the early history of the American republic?
3. What are the strongest arguments for and against the relevance of the Electoral College today?
4. What factors may have enabled Donald J. Trump and George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote in the presidential elections of 2016 and 2000, to win the presidency?
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1. The Framers of the Constitution ultimately rejected the idea of Congress electing the president because they wanted to create a separation of powers and ensure that the executive branch remained independent from the legislative branch. They also rejected the idea of direct election by the people because they were concerned about the potential for uninformed or impassioned voters to make a poor choice for president.
2. The three-fifths compromise was a compromise reached during the Constitutional Convention regarding the counting of slaves for representation and taxation purposes. It stated that slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person in the population count for determining representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. This compromise benefited southern states with large slave populations by giving them greater representation and influence in presidential elections.
3. Strong arguments for the relevance of the Electoral College today include its promotion of a geographically diverse representation of voters and its ability to prevent a few populous states from dominating the outcome of presidential elections. It also encourages candidates to have broad appeal across different regions of the country. However, arguments against the Electoral College include its potential to allow for the election of a candidate who did not win the popular vote, leading to a lack of legitimacy and undermining the principle of majority rule.
4. In the cases of Donald J. Trump and George W. Bush, there were several factors that may have enabled them to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote. These factors include the winner-takes-all system used by most states in the Electoral College, where winning the popular vote in a state awards all of its electoral votes to the winning candidate. This can lead to a candidate winning the electoral vote while losing the national popular vote. Additionally, both Trump and Bush were able to strategically focus their campaigns on key swing states, where they were able to win a higher number of electoral votes.
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