A Change for the Electoral System

By Tim Holland

It seems to me that as we continue into the 21^st century we should revisit the way in which we elect our Presidents. The manner in which the Electoral System is structured seems to run counter to the “one man one vote” principal the courts have affirmed with regard to non-presidential elections. However, although it is impractical to eliminate the Electoral System and replace it with a simple popular vote (see Time for a Change – 1, ToTheCenter.com June 13, 2007), there is a way to make it more responsive to voting preferences.

In order to bring about a change, it is necessary to understand the electoral system itself and why it was a good idea to begin with and continues to have merit.

The use of Electors, who are the persons who actually elect the President of the United States is found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress:….

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons…. The Person having the greatest number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed:….

The twelfth amendment to the Constitution changed Article II so that separate votes for President and Vice President were mandated. It was proclaimed on September 25, 1804 and is the only change made to the Constitution relating to the Electoral System. It was the response to the presidential election of 1800 where Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes and left the election of the President up to the House of Representatives. According to the rules set out in Article II, Section 1, each state delegation had one vote. With 16 States voting it would take a clear majority of nine to elect a President. The initial vote was eight for Jefferson and six for Burr with two states’ delegations evenly split. The vote remained unchanged through 35 ballots until Jefferson made some concessions to the Federalists and received 10 votes on the 36^th ballot, thereby giving him the Presidency and Burr the Vice Presidency.

The Electoral System worked as designed but had one flaw: the candidate receiving the second highest electoral vote total would become the Vice President. After the 1804 election, the States’ representatives believed the country would be best served by a separate and distinct electoral vote for Vice President, hence the twelfth amendment. Even though in modern day elections candidates run as a “ticket”, both Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates appearing together so that they are voted for as a unit, each state is required to hold two separate and distinct votes: one for President and one for Vice President.

There is no provision in the constitution for the present “winner take all” concept used by 48 of the 50 states when elector’s votes are tallied. Two states use the “District method” in allocating electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska), whereby each elector is assigned a Congressional District and their vote is supposed to mirror the popular vote in the District.

When the Constitution was being amended in 1804, nowhere in any of the discussions among the states was there any serious consideration of eliminating the Electoral System in favor of a popular vote, as that would involve too many of the small states volunteering to give up the advantages they received under Article II of the Constitution. With the growth in the number of States in the Union, the percentage of small States has grown making the possibility of a popular vote amendment extremely remote.

So how does the system become changed? The power is with the state legislatures. Each State has the authority to make its own decision as to how it will choose the electors that will cast their votes for President and Vice President. Early in United States’ history it was clear that the one unacceptable method of choosing electors was by popular vote. Through the first 9 elections there was a gradual movement among the states to have the general population become more involved in the Presidential decision; in fact, no attempt to maintain a record of the popular vote count occurred until the 10^th election: J. Q. Adams vs A. Jackson.

In 1824, eighteen of twenty four states chose their electors by some form of popular vote and for the first time the voter tallies were kept. This was the election where it is said Jackson won the popular vote but lost the election. True but not entirely accurate, since six states did not have popular voting and Jackson received only 37.9% of the electoral vote. Adams won the election on the first ballot in the House of Representatives with 13 states supporting him.

Given that the Electoral System will not be changed, the only way for the voters to be truly heard would be for each State to change away from the “winner take all” concept and replace it with a “proportional” system. In the 2004 election the states of California and Florida are a good example:

Winner Take All Distributed-Proportional

California Florida Total California Florida Total Change

Kerry 55 0 55 30 13 43 - 12

Bush 0 27 27 24 14 38 + 12

Would the outcome of the 2004 election have been different? No. Bush would have received eight fewer electoral votes, which is more in line with the popular vote and six votes would have been allocated to third party candidates. But what about the election of 2000? Ah, there’s where Proportional Electoral voting gets very interesting.

© 2007 Timothy Holland Published 7/30/07

Note:

This opinion/essay is the property of the author. It is offered for use by individuals who are also free to copy and make it available to other individuals as they wish. Anyone wishing to make use of the material for commercial purposes must seek permission of the author, who can be reached at Impressions@Tim-Holland.com. Such permission will not be unreasonably refused.