Reformation of the Electoral College

The elecoral college is made up of five hundred thirty-eight electors selected by one of two ways by the people of the several States and the District of Columbia. Each State receives a number of electoral votes equal to their number of members in the House of Representatives plus their number of Senators. Each State, therefore, appoints at least three electors. The District of Columbia also receives electoral votes equal to the number of Representatives and Senators it would have if it were a State. These electors meet in their respective State capitals and cast two votes each - one for president, and one for vice president. A complete tally of votes in each State is signed by the electors and certified by the Secretary of State (or its equivalent) and then sent by post to the President of the Senate (the U.S. vice president) to be counted in the presence of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The two winners of the majority of these votes, at least two hundred seventy votes each, become the president-elect and vice president-elect. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the elections are decided in contingent elections by the House of Representatives, in the case of the president, and the Senate, in the case of the vice president.

Electors are appointed in whatever manner the legislatures of the several States deem proper. In most States - all but Nebraska and Maine - electors run en bloc with a pledge to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate. This means that the people, though they may believe they are voting directly for a candidate and his running mate, are actually voting all at once for a group of people who have been chosen by the candidate's party or the candidate himself. The slate of electors receiving a plurality of votes State-wide is chosen, winner-take-all, as the State's electoral college. Effectively, this could give the electoral college to a candidate who did not receive a majority of the State popular vote. Suppose party one received thirty percent of the popular vote, and party two received twenty-one percent. Party three, then, receives forty-nine percent. In this case, as unlikely as it may seem, party three's candidate wins all of the electoral college votes for the State, even though a majority - fifty-one percent - of the population of the State does not want party three. Even in cases where a party does receive a majority, the remaining minority receives no voice in the election of the president. Suppose party one receives fifty-one percent of the vote, and party two receives forty-nine percent. Party one receives one hundred percent of the State's electoral votes despite winning only fifty-one percent of the popular vote. Not only does this provide for cases in which significant minorities receive no voice, it may also create situations in which the winner of the popular vote nation-wide does not win a majority of electoral college votes - such as was the case in the 2000 election between then Governor George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore.

In Nebraska and Maine, two electors are chosen based on the winner of the State-wide popular vote. Then, an additional elector is appointed for each Congressional district based on the winner of the popular vote in that district. Nebraska and Maine each have four electoral votes - two for the State-wide election, and one for each of the two Congressional districts. The district-by-district method used by Nebraska and Maine has never resulted in a split delegation in the electoral college. However, this method is demonstrably more majoritarian, more fair than the winner-take-all system practiced by the forty-eight remaining States and the District of Columbia.

Presidential hopefuls now must, if they expect to be a serious contendor for a presidential nomination, raise and spend millions of dollars on campaigns that target the most influential States based on the dates of primaries and caucuses in those States. Once they have secured the nomination from their party, they must then spend more millions of dollars on campaigns in the most influential swing States - that is, States in which there is a strong possibility of a close election, where both candidates have a near-equal chance of winning that State's electoral votes. In the end, the presidential candidates are usually chosen by relatively few States who have early primaries, and candidates are only concerned with campaigning in States where they know they might lose. Even so, only the very few who have the capacity to raise millions of dollars have the slightest chance of winning the presidency, providing for charismatic candidates rather than necessarily competent candidates to be elected.

Given these circumstances, I would overhaul the mechanism of appointment of electors completely, though following the Nebraska-Maine model to a certain extent. Like the Nebraska-Maine model, most electors should be appointed on a district-by-district basis with two electors being appointed on an at-large basis. However, elections are not necessarily the best mechanism to choose these important political figures. Today's elections for electors mean very little given that the parties or the candidates actually choose the people who will be included on an electoral slate, and most individuals believe they are voting specifically for a candidate. Alternatively, the people in each Congressional district should actually directly choose their elector from among their own residents through a caucus system. This method is to provide that the people in each district actually choose an elector as a real person who best represents the way that the people of the district would vote. Rather than selecting the elector based on the person they would vote for, the people should select their elector based on the kind of person, their ideal persona, the people want to hold the presidency. The remaining two electors should then be appointed by the State legislatures. This gives the States, as sovereign entities, the power to affect the election of the president, though not power to decide it.

In addition to providing for a system of presidential election that more closely represents the wishes and ideals of the people of the States, this system will also provide for a larger number of viable candidates for the position. No longer will candidates for president be required to campaign at large to the entire nation; rather, they will only be required to explain their platforms to the five hundred thirty-eight electors whose opinions of the role of the president mirror the opinions of the people of their district. This provides that each and every one of the electors actually choosing the president can be intimately familiar with the candidates and informed of their best decision based on the ideals of the people of each elector's district.