symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 18, 2000 | by Philip Klinkner, | James McClellan

Q: Should the Electoral College be abolished in favor of direct elections?

Yes: The Electoral College grossly distorts the principle of one person, one vote.

It finally happened. The ticking time bomb of the Electoral College has exploded. Although the full extent of the damage is yet to be determined, we face the possibility of electing a president who actually received fewer popular votes than his opponent and an election outcome that will turn on a few hundred disputed votes in Florida. Perhaps the only positive outcome of this fiasco is that the American public might finally demand that we scrap the Electoral College.

Even before undermining the legitimacy of this presidential election, the Electoral College had long since outlived its usefulness. The institution is a relic of America's pre-democratic past, when fears of popular majorities consumed the nation's elite. The idea behind the Electoral College was that the state legislatures would appoint the best men who in turn would select a president free from partisan influence and public pressure.

This aspect of the Electoral College has in fact withered away, since by law and/or custom the electors vote according to the results of the popular vote in their respective states. Most electors are nothing more than party hacks, hardly the disinterested and noble sorts envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution. Few Americans are left today to defend the idea that an appointed elite should be able to pick the next president in utter disregard of the popular will.

Some argue that the Electoral College might yet exercise its prerogative to prevent the nation from electing a tyrant or a demagogue. But tyrants and demagogues are in the eye of the beholder. Such labels once were attached to Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Furthermore, the fundamentally elitist character of the Electoral College helps to undermine the very notions of democracy and popular will that provide the strongest protections against the evils of tyranny.

What remains of the Electoral College is merely a scheme for apportioning votes by state in a way that grossly distorts the principle of one person, one vote. Under this system, states are provided with one elector for each senator and one for each member of the House of Representatives, thus assuring each state of at least three electors, regardless of population.

As a consequence, the system is overwhelmingly biased in favor of small states. For example, Wyoming's 619,500 residents make up only 0.18 percent of the U.S. population, yet they receive three electoral votes, or 0.56 percent of the total electoral votes. In contrast, Texas' 20,044,141 residents make up 7.35 percent of the U.S. population, but that state's 32 electoral votes are a little less than 6 percent of the total. Another way of looking at it is that, in regard to the Electoral College, one voter in Wyoming has nearly as much power as four voters in Texas. No wonder Dick Cheney switched his voter registration!

Furthermore, the 42 smallest states together comprise a majority of 282 Electoral College votes. But these states possess only 46 percent of the population. Thus, if a candidate won all of these states by a narrow margin, he or she could win the presidency with less than 25 percent of the popular vote.

Defenders of the Electoral College claim that its abolition would upset the delicate balance between majority will and individual rights struck by the Framers. But the Electoral College protects no individual rights, just the power of certain states. And just because fewer people choose to live in those states is no reason for them to receive an extra measure of protection and power in the Constitution.

In addition, our nation's sense of the proper balance between majority will and individual rights has changed since the framing of the Constitution. Since then, major aspects of the Constitution have been amended to reflect this new balance. The 14th and 15th Amendments extended the rights of citizenship and suffrage to blacks. The 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of U.S. senators. The 19th Amendment extended the right to vote to women. The 23rd Amendment gave Electoral College votes to the citizens of the District of Columbia. Finally, the 24th Amendment forbade poll taxes in elections for federal offices. These changes to the Framers' original design have not undermined our democratic system. On the contrary, they have made them stronger. Thus, abolition of the current Electoral College is nothing more than the next logical step in this historical progression.

Another argument offered for the Electoral College is that it protects the interests of small states from the predations of larger states. But this assumes that small states have definable interests separate from those of larger states. Does anyone really think that Texas is just waiting to prey upon Oklahoma?

Furthermore, even if small states had interests distinct from those of large states, they are not lacking in constitutional protection. Any state, large or small, has the same degree of protection afforded to it by the provisions of federalism and states' rights in the U.S. Constitution. Again, small size should be no reason for additional constitutional protection. Should supporters of small parties be given extra votes so that they can better protect their interests? Of course not. Yet this is much the same argument offered by the supporters of the Electoral College.