Legitimacy for any elected official is an important factor for governance of a State. The United States, Presidential elections provide a level of legitimacy to each new administration by following the will of the people (Clayton 2007; Koza 2016). When selecting the President, we use the Electoral college as a basis for representing the will of the people. However, like any manmade construct the Electoral college has its faults, one being that a candidate can lose the Popular vote and still win the Electoral vote thus winning them the Presidency. We saw this happen in the 2016 election with Donald J. Trump losing the Popular vote but won the Electoral vote and thus the 2016 election. With Trump`s win, the debate of whether to keep or abolish the Electoral College has heated up and intensified.
Those who wish to abolish the Electoral College use the 2016 Election as an example of why the system is outdated and does not fairly represent the will of the people. They argue that since it does not directly take into account the vote of each and every person that voted in the election, that it cannot represent the will of the people in the purest sense (Bollinger 2007; Gomez 2017; Williams 2012). Those who wish to abolish the system have laid out plans to replace the system with a more Popular vote oriented system which counts each individual vote directly (Neale 2004). On the other side of the debate are those who would keep the Electoral college in place.
Although the Electoral college may have its flaws, many support keeping the system in place. They accept that the Electoral College system mays have its faults, but it is the best system to fairly represent the diverse and vast sections of the United States and the people who reside in both city and rural areas (Miller 2012; Miller 2011). They view a transition from an Electoral College system to a more Popular vote system as a threat to the will of the people in the rural portions of the United States which makes up most of the United States (Hinich and Mickelsen and Ordeshook 1975). They view the Popular vote as a way to lessen the power of the people in rural areas, and make the focus of elections and political campaigns centered around the urban and city regions of each state. Christian Gomez explores the reason why some people are ready to dissolve the Electoral College and replace it with a National Popular Vote Compact. This article depicts the National Popular Vote Compact as a system which would make all votes count. This article tries to answer the question of whether or not a popular vote would be better able to represent the will of the people more accurately and fairly. Gomez explains that the National Popular Vote Compact is supported by many politicians including Senator Joseph A. Griffo, Newt Gingrich, and Billy Hewes of Mississippi. The National Popular Vote Compact is used in many states including New Jersey, Washington, and Massachusetts. Gomez states that the National Popular Compact would not work because that the United States is a Democratic Republic not a pure Democracy. She also states that a Popular Vote would cause certain states and highly populated regions to have an unfair advantage in representation over the more rural areas in the presidential election. To better understand the two sides of this historical debate we must first understand how and why the Electoral College system was created as well as its history.
The Electoral College system was started to keep urban communities as well as cities from having the power in the Presidential election. Many rural communities feared that if the vote was counted through a popular vote system that they would equal representation as urban communities would have. When Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The complex elements comprising the Electoral College system are responsible for one of the most important processes of the American political and constitutional system: election of the President and Vice President. A failure to elect a President, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as amended in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment, sets the requirements for election of the President and Vice President. It authorizes each state to appoint, by whatever means the legislature chooses, a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives delegations, for a contemporary total of 538, including 3 electors for the District of Columbia.
Maine and Nebraska use an alternative method, the “district system,” which awards two electors to the popular vote winners statewide, and one to the popular vote winners in each congressional district. Electors assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 19 in 2016). They are expected, but not constitutionally bound, to vote for the candidates they represent. The electors cast separate ballots for President and Vice President, after which the Electoral College ceases to exist until the next presidential election. State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and other designated authorities; they are then counted and declared at a joint session of Congress held on January 6 of the year after the election; Congress may, however, change this date by joint resolution.
Past proposals for change by constitutional amendment have included various reform options and direct popular election, which would eliminate the Electoral College system, but no substantive action on this issue, has been taken in Congress for more than 20 years. At present, however, a non-governmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, proposes to reform the Electoral College by action taken at the state level through an interstate compact; 10 states and the District of Columbia have approved the NPV compact to date. These issues still affect out modern day political sphere.
The use of the Electoral College system to determine the results of the 2016 Presidential Election has divided our nation. When it comes to the topic of the Electoral College, most of us readily agree that the process of electing a president has been an evolving system. Where the agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of ‘fairness’ of the Electoral College system. Whereas some are convinced that the popular vote should be used to determine the president, others maintain that the Electoral College process has been successfully used in all of the past presidential elections and should remain the deciding factor.
In September 28, 2004, Thomas H. Neale wrote an article called “The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections” for the Congressional Research Service. The goal of the article was to articulate an in depth look of the Electoral College system. Neale provides his audience with the origin and purpose of the Electoral College system. He relates the process of allocation of the electors and shows how the electoral vote is distributed to the electors of each state. Furthermore, Neale gave a detailed description of the General Ticket system and other alternative systems that give the audience a full spectrum of the Electoral College process.
Thomas H. Neale’s account of the history of the Electoral College provides evidence that the original idea of the plan was changed and revised at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. “The original method of electing the President and Vice-President, however, proved unworkable, etc.…†(Neale 2 CRS) Furthermore, Neale acknowledges that the founders and delegates realized that the Electoral College plan was not the perfect system to use in the election process. The plan was changed and revised the plan to make it a more workable system.
In like manner, Thomas Neale also conveys the detail of how the electors are chosen and the electoral votes are established for each state. Neale states “The Constitution gives each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of Senate membership (two for each state) and the House of Representatives delegation (currently ranging from one to 53, depending on population)â€. (Neale 2 CRS) Basically, Neale is saying the Electoral College provides additional leverage to states that have a smaller population.
Moreover, Thomas Neale article depicts the procedure of awarding each state’s electoral votes. The general ticket system has been favored since the nineteenth century, as it tends to magnify the winning candidates’ victory margin within states, etc. (Neale 4 CRS) Neale observes that the general ticket system is used by forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. The alternative systems are the district plan and the proportional plan. The district plan is the one that Maine and Nebraska use now. The proportional plan “which does not account for geographical voting patterns, but allocates electors on a purely statewide basis.†(Neale 5 CRS) was voted on in Colorado in 2004 and did not pass. Neale gives a complete assessment of the plans that describes examples of how each plan works.
In conclusion, the opposing view of the system insists the Electoral College is unfair and that “every vote should count”. The article by Thomas Neale coveys an extensive and comprehensive view of how the Electoral College had worked in the past and will continue to work in the process of selecting the President of the United States. Is the Electoral College plan fair? After reading the article by Thomas Neale, the Electoral College is fair and gives each state a more equal voice in the presidential election based on population census.