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Should the Electoral College Be Replaced by the Direct Election of the President? A Debate Author(s): Theodore S. Arrington and Saul Brenner Source: PS, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1984), pp. 237-250 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/418787 Accessed: 18-03-2016 13:51 UTC

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Should the Electoral

College be Replaced by

the Direct Election of the

President?

A Debate

Theodore S. Arrington*

Saul Brenner**

University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Introduction

In many ways the presidency is the cen-

ter of the American political process. The

four-year term of office of the president

makes a kind of cyclical calendar of politi-

cal events. The legislative process often

begins with presidential proposals and

ends with presidential approval or veto of

the bills passed by Congress. The media

coverage of the office is massive; greater

by several times than the attention paid

to the Supreme Court, the Congress, or

the bureaucracy. The president is clearly

dominant in making foreign policy and

rivals the Congress for power in domestic

matters.

In this debate we will examine the proc-

ess by which the American president is

elected. If the presidency is central to our

political system, the method of filling the

office must surely be a central concern of

those who wish to understand American

politics. The presidential selection proc-

ess is extremely complex; involving a

multitude of primary elections, seemingly

chaotic conventions; nationwide voting,

and the Electoral College. It is this last

element in the process we have chosen

to debate.

The provisions of the original Constitu-

tion (written in 1787), the Twelfth

Amendment, and the extra-constitutional

*Theodore Arrington, an associate professor

at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte,

publishes in the general area of parties and

voting behavior. He is currently president of

the faculty at UNCC.

**Saul Brenner is an associate professor at

the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He

is the author or coauthor of 20 articles, most

of which concern Supreme Court decision-

making.

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Theodore S. Arrington (left) and Saul Brenner

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development of the two-party system

combined to produce the election system

usually referred to as the Electoral Col-

lege. This arrangement provides that the

president is chosen by presidential elec-

tors. Each state is entitled to as many

electors as it has U.S. Senators (two) and

U.S. Representatives (at least one each).

The electors from each state go to their

own state capital to cast their votes for

president and vice-president. If no candi-

date obtains a majority of these electoral

votes, the House of Representatives

decides who is to be president from

among the three people who received the

most electoral votes, with each state

delegation in the House entitled to one

vote. The Senate selects the vice-

president in such cases.

In November of 1980, a

Gallup Poll found that 67

percent of the American

people favored the direct

election of the president,

19 percent opposed, and

14 percent were unde-

cided.

Although the Constitution permits each

state to determine for itself the method

by which presidential electors are to be

chosen, all states (except Maine) have

used the winner-take-all at-large election

method for over 100 years. Under this

procedure each political party designates

a slate of electors to run in each state and

the slate that receives the most popular

votes constitutes the electors from that

state. The electors that are chosen on the

winning slate are supposed to vote auto-

matically for the nominee of their party.

Indeed, this tradition is so strong that in

most states the names of the party nomi-

nees for president and vice-president ap-

pear on the ballot instead of the names of

the electors on the slate. In the post-

World War II period, however, six elec-

tors failed to vote for their parties'

nominee and in 1960 Mississippi and

Alabama elected 14 people who ran as

unpledged electors.

With two exceptions (1800 and 1824)

all the candidates elected president ob-

tained a majority of the electoral vote,

and thus there was no need to turn to the

House of Representatives to choose the

president. In 1824, 1888, and probably

in 1876 the candidate who was elected

president secured fewer popular votes

than one of his opponents.

Constitutional amendments for the direct

election of the president have been intro-

duced in Congress throughout American

history, but it wasn't until the late 1960s

that such an amendment had a chance of

adoption. A number of events occurred in

1966 and early 1967 that aided the

direct election cause. Prominent among

them was the support for the direct elec-

tion concept by Senator Birch Bayh (D-

Indiana and Chairman of the key Con-

stitutional Amendment Subcommittee of

the Senate Judiciary Committee), Con-

gressman Emanual Cellar (D-New York

and Chairman of the House Judiciary

Committee), and the distinguished Elec-

toral College Reform Commission of the

American Bar Association.

In 1969 a constitutional amendment

(House Joint Resolution 681) was in-

troduced in the House of Representatives

which provided for the direct election of

the president. It also provided for a runoff

election between the top two candidates

in the event no candidates obtained at

least 40 percent of the popular vote. The

amendment was passed by the House on

September 18, 1969, by a vote of 338

to 70, with 41 of the opposing votes

coming from Southern Democrats. In

1970 virtually the same measure was in-

troduced in the Senate (Senate Joint

Resolution 1) by Senator Bayh, but it was

the victim of a filibuster. By a narrow

margin the Senate refused to invoke

cloture and thereby end debate on the

amendment. Almost all the votes against

ending debate came either from Southern

Senators or from Senators from states

with eight or fewer electoral votes.

In March, 1977 President Carter in-

troduced a four-part electoral reform

package, one part of which called for the

direct election of the president. On

September 15, 1977, Carter's proposal

was passed by the Senate Judiciary

Committee, but no action was taken that

year or in 1978 by the Senate as a

238 PS Spring 1984

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whole. No action on this matter has oc-

curred since 1978.

In November of 1980, a Gallup Poll

found that 67 percent of the American

people favored the direct election of the

President, 19 percent opposed, and 14

percent were undecided. In this debate

Arrington will argue for Senate Joint

Resolution 1 (S.J. Res. 1), while Brenner

will defend the present Electoral College

system.

Affirmative

In this affirmative argument I will show

that: (1) the Electoral College is

undemocratic because it can, and has,

thwarted the expressed will of the peo-

ple; (2) the system is undesirable

because it encourages regionally based

third parties to seek undemocratic elec-

tion results and thus influences the

presidential candidates to attend to

regional instead of national concerns; and

(3) it is undemocratic because the elec-

toral vote system results in some votes

counting more than others. I will also

show that only a direct popular vote

system can correct these defects.

The Wrong Choice. Why does the Elec-

toral College sometimes select as presi-

dent a person who comes in second or

third in the popular vote? The answer is

found in the winner-take-all provisions of

the system. A candidate who gets the

most votes in a particular state will obtain

all of the electoral votes of that state. Yet

that candidate will not have received all

of the popular votes in that state. Indeed,

he or she may have received less than

half of them. Because of this mechanism,

there is never a one-to-one relationship

between popular and electoral votes. In-

deed, the votes can be distributed in such

a way that one candidate wins a majority

of electoral votes by slim margins while

the other wins a minority of electoral

votes by wide margins.

At first this unfortunate result seems

unlikely. After all, it has failed to occur

since 1888. In fact, we simply have been

lucky. In any close election the chance of

the popular winner being the election

loser is great. The last two times it hap-

pened occurred within twelve years of

each other, during a period when the par-

ties were closely competitive. From

1896 to 1948, however, one party or

the other was overwhelmingly dominant

in presidential elections. Only since 1948

have the parties again been closely com-

petitive. An analysis of recent elections

shows how close we have repeatedly

come to having the Electoral College and

the popular vote disagree. In 1948, for

example, Truman beat Dewey by over

2.2 million popular votes. Yet a shift of

only 30,000 votes in Illinois, California,

and Ohio would have made Dewey the

fourth popularly rejected president in our

history. A switch of less than 12,000

votes in five states would have made

Richard Nixon the fifth popularly rejected

president in 1960. Gerald Ford would

have been the sixth in 1976 with a

change of a mere 5,558 votes in Ohio

(.14 percent of the vote cast there) and

3,686 votes in Hawaii (1.2 percent of

the vote cast in that state). This shift in

votes in 1976 would have given Ford a

majority of the electoral votes (270), but

still would have left Carter with over 1.5

million more popular votes than Ford and

an absolute majority of such votes (50.4

percent).

In any close election the

chance of the popular

winner being the election

loser is great.

The problem is not just that the Electoral

College can reject the popular choice of

the nation, but that it can do so in an

essentially random fashion in close elec-

tions. If the current system were to pick

the best candidate in an election where

the popular choice was not really the best

for the country, then there would be a ra-

tional, although undemocratic, excuse

for keeping the system. But there is no

principle or rationale for deviation be-

tween popular and electoral votes. It is

just a matter of luck. And such deviation

is a moral travesty, for it violates the prin-

ciple that the people should select those

who govern them. To be sure, there is no

requirement that the people elect every

government official. The president,

however, is now at the very center of

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American government. This office is

much too important to be filled in any

way except by direct popular vote. Cer-

tainly we want our presidents to be more

than popular. We want them to be

moderate, effective, and careful not to

abuse their powers. But the Electoral Col-

lege does not improve the chances that

the president will be any of these other

things.

The Electoral College

winner-take-all system

greatly exaggerates the

attention paid to some

states and causes can-

didates to ignore other

states completely.

Additional problems arise in any election

system when there are more than two

candidates and none of them receives

more than half of the popular votes.

Neither philosophers nor political scien-

tists agree on the best or the most

democratic way to handle this situation,

but there are two practical methods of

solving this problem: electing the can-

didate who obtains the most votes (the

plurality solution) or requiring a runoff

election between the top two candi-

dates. The reform proposal in S.J. Res. 1

uses both these procedures. If a can-

didate secures more popular votes than

any of his or her competitors and garners

at least 40 percent of the total popular

vote, he or she is elected. If, however, no

candidate receives 40 percent, a runoff

is held between the two most popular

candidates in the first election. The

chances that none of the candidates

would get at least 40 percent appear to

be slim. This has happened only once in

American history (1860). But, when it

occurs there is a need for a runoff elec-

tion to build support for the president.

This is clearly illustrated by the election

of 1 860 which led to the Civil War. Lin-

coln won a majority in the Electoral Col-

lege but only 39 percent of the popular

vote. The deep divisions among voters at

that time were not caused by the election

system and could not have been cured by

it. But the process of having a runoff

election to assure that the president is

supported by a substantial portion of the

American people can be important. True,

such circumstances are rare; but the

election system should still provide for

them.

On the other hand, how does the Elec-

toral College system handle multiple-

candidate contests? In a multiple party

race, as in the two-candidate contest,

the person who receives the most votes

in a sufficient number of states to attain

an electoral vote majority will win. This

may or may not be the person who ob-

tained the most popular votes (the plural-

ity winner) and it may or may not be the

person who could win a runoff election.

The Electoral College fails to deal well

with the situation of high factionalism.

As the election of 1860 shows, the Elec-

toral College may select as president a

candidate who is supported by less than

40 percent of the people, while on other

occasions it fails to award the office to

those with plurality support far above 40

percent (as in 1824, 1872, and 1888).

In short, it is a crazy system in which vic-

tory is related to popular support only on

most occasions.

For those of us who believe in the

democratic ethos, the above argument is

sufficient to demonstrate the foolishness

of the Electoral College. But there is

more. The election of the popularly re-

jected candidate these days would under-

mine the president's legitimacy and

possibly produce a constitutional crisis.

In the period since our last popularly re-

jected president (Benjamin Harrison in

1 888) the American people have come

to accept democratic values which in-

clude the belief that the president ought

to be the candidate that most people

prefer. This is apparent in the Gallup Poll

results reported in the Introduction. And

the Gallup organization has also been

asking Americans to explain the Electoral

College in polls since 1951. They have

found that only about one-third of the

people can even correctly identify the

Electoral College. Will these people, who

accept popular election as right and do

not realize that the Constitution fails to

provide for it, recognize the legitimacy of

a president who lost the popular vote?

240 PS Spring 1984

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Would the losers in the Electoral College

recognize the legitimacy of a president,

when their own candidate received a

greater number of the popular votes? I

maintain that a large proportion would

not.

A person has the legitimate claim to the

presidency when virtually all of the peo-

ple believe that he or she has the right to

be president. When some substantial pro-

portion of the people reject such a claim,

the president would find it exceedingly

difficult to carry out the duties of the of-

fice. Foreign leaders, bureaucrats, in-

terest groups, and Congress would ig-

nore presidential wishes. The govern-

ment would be leaderless. I contend that

the loss of the popular vote to another

candidate would create sufficient doubt

about the president's legitimacy to pro-

duce this kind of a crisis. When Gerald

Ford was president, some observers

claimed that his apparent failure to lead

the country was, in part, the result of his

lack of an election mandate from the peo-

ple. Yet his claim to the office was firmly

grounded in the Constitution. Think what

would happen if the president were the

candidate who was actually defeated in

the popular vote election, but won the of-

fice through the mathematical peculiar-

ities of the Electoral College.

Do we have to wait until the Electoral

College again selects a popularly rejected

candidate before we act to replace this ir-

rational system with the only alternative

that makes sense?

Regional Third Parties. Minor parties are

a valuable part of the American two-

party system. As long as there are free,

competitive elections, there will always

be some people who are dissatisfied with

both major parties. These people should

be free to form their own political

organizations and contest the presi-

dency. In American history, such third

parties have been important outlets for

new political ideas. Some of these new

concepts have been adopted by one or

both of the major parties.

However, third party activity is unde-

sirable if its aim is to "spoil" the chances

of some other candidate winning a major-

ity of the votes. It is particularly un-

wanted if it is pursued to blackmail the

major party candidates into making con-

cessions to regional or local interests.

The Electoral College encourages such

unfortunate third party activity, but

direct popular election would not do so.

To understand why this is true we must

look at the majority vote requirement of

the current system.

In one sense the Electoral College ar-

rangement is a plurality system. In each

state the candidate who receives the

most popular votes is awarded all of the

electoral votes of that state. This aspect

of the system discourages third parties in

general or, to be more precise, broadly

based, national third parties (such as the

John Anderson Party). This is obvious

from American political history. Since the

Civil War, only one election has been

fought between more than two broadly

based strong candidates. This was the

election of 191 2, when Theodore Roose-

velt ran for the presidency on the Pro-

gressive Party ticket. In other words the

winner-take-all plurality vote features of

the Electoral College permits third parties

to form and have their say, but does not

allow them to prevent the people from

making their choice between the two ma-

jor parties.

People become valuable

to a candidate depending

on where they five. It is a

mistake, however, to

think that the same

groups are always favored

by this arrangement.

The Electoral College, on the other hand,

provides that if no one receives a majority

of the electoral votes, the election is

thrown into the House of Representa-

tives. Thus regional or specific state-

based third parties, by commanding

enough popular votes in one or more

states to receive a plurality there, can

capture electoral votes. It is possible for

such regional groups to capture electoral

votes by winning only a very small frac-

tion of the total national popular vote. By

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withholding electoral votes from the ma-

jor party candidates they may be able to

prevent anybody from getting a majority

in the Electoral College. This can be

useful in three ways. First, the regional

third party could instruct its electors to

vote for one of the two major party can-

didates in exchange for specific promises

on future presidential actions. This

strategy is explicitly what is planned

when a party runs a slate of unpledged

electors. But even if the electors are

listed on the ballot as favoring a specific

candidate, they are legally free to

bargain, with or without that candidate's

approval. Second, if the Electoral College

bargaining fails, the regional Congress-

men in the House of Representatives

could make a deal during the complicated

one-vote-for-each-state runoff pro-

cedures that must be followed in the

House in such cases. Lastly, regional

third parties might find contesting the

presidency useful even if it fails to pre-

vent one of the major parties from obtain-

ing a majority of the electoral votes. The

fear that a similar effort might be suc-

cessful in future elections can influence

the major parties to make deals with

regional interests.

Some claim that certain

minority groups are ad-

vantaged by the Electoral

College, but this is clearly

incorrect.

The history of presidential elections

clearly confirms the way in which the

current system encourages such regional

third party behavior. Since World War II

such parties have received electoral

votes in 1948, 1960 and 1968. In all

three cases their avowed aim was to

bargain with the major parties for presi-

dential concessions, and they almost

succeeded each time. In 1948 Strom

Thurmond's States Rights Party would

have held the balance of power if

12,486 votes had shifted from Truman

to Dewey in California and Ohio. In 1960

a switch of about 9,400 popular votes in

Illinois and Missouri would have left Ken-

nedy four electoral votes and Nixon

twelve short of a majority. Nixon and

Kennedy then might have started bar-

gaining for the fourteen available un-

pledged electors from Mississippi and

Alabama. The 1968 election was almost

a replay of 1948. A change of 43,000

votes from Nixon to Humphrey in

Missouri, New Jersey, and Alaska would

have put the American Independent Party

Candidate, George Wallace, in the posi-

tion of deciding who would be president.

Or, as an alternate scenario, a shift of

55,000 votes in Ohio and Missouri

would have produced the same king-

maker role for the Alabama governor. Nor

does this election by bargaining

necessarily require regional forces to run

their own candidate. In 1976 a switch of

the 5,558 votes in Ohio (mentioned

above) along with 6,390 popular votes in

Delaware (2.7 percent of the total vote

cast there) would have produced an elec-

toral vote tie (269 votes both for Carter

and for Ford). But what if even one of the

electors were unfaithful? Indeed, one of

the Ford electors in 1976 violated his

promise and failed to vote for his party's

candidate. Think of the pressure on

these 538 people, when any one of them

could make history by deciding who

would be the next president. What kinds

of deals might they make in that situa-

tion?

If attaining the presidency is the result of

bargains and tawdry, under-the-table

deals with regional interests, it is even

less legitimate than in the case where the

mathematical peculiarities of the Elec-

toral College produce a popularly rejected

president. Indeed, even a candidate who

receives a majority of the popular votes

might be perceived as illegitimate if he or

she gets the office through a shabby deal

with a regional third party. John Quincy

Adams was made president in 1824

through such a process. As a result, he

was unable to be effective. And, as

1824 clearly shows, we have no reason

to expect the House of Representatives

to necessarily choose the popular vote

choice, especially given the one-state-

one-vote system that is used in such

cases.

In recent years this threat of regional par-

ties disrupting the Electoral College

242 PS Spring 1984

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system has come from the Southern

states. This particular region may be less

likely to play these kinds of games in the

next few years, since the South is now

much closer to the American political

mainstream. But no one can predict the

future. Regionalism is a recurring part of

politics in this country and throughout

the world. In the late 1800s in the U.S. it

was the populists in the Great Plains and

Mountain states who mounted third

party efforts. In the early 1900s it was

the progressives of the Middle West. In

recent years we have seen regionalism

grow in Canada (Quebec) and in Great

Britain (Scotland and Wales). Where and

when will regionalism again become

strong in the U.S.? The truth is that we

don't know; but it is clear that when

regionalism becomes a factor in Ameri-

can politics, the regional forces have a

strong tool in the Electoral College. I ad-

vocate that we deny small regional

minorities this tool before they use it to

disrupt the presidential election system.

Unequal Votes. The ideals of democracy

and recent Supreme Court rulings have

emphasized the concept of one-person,

one-vote, that all people should be

counted equally in elections. Because the

popular vote is filtered through the Elec-

toral College, all votes are not counted

equally in our presidential contests.

The first inequality is derived from the

allocation of electoral votes. Each state is

entitled to as many electoral votes as it

has representatives in Congress. Be-

cause each state has two Senators and

at least one Representative, no matter

how small its population, the electoral

vote distribution itself is somewhat un-

fair. This suggests that the smallest

states (those with three electoral votes)

are favored in the current system.

The second problem is that the Electoral

College winner-take-all system greatly

exaggerates the attention paid to some

states and causes candidates to ignore

other states completely. For example,

Ronald Reagan might have been faced

with a choice of campaigning in Louisiana

or in Illinois during the last week of the

1980 campaign. Suppose Reagan be-

lieved that by campaigning he could gain

20,000 votes in Illinois or 40,000 votes

in Louisiana by going there. Where would

he go? At first, the answer seems to be

Louisiana. But it is not so simple. Sup-

pose the polls showed that Reagan would

win Louisiana in any event, and it only

has 10 electoral votes. Illinois was close,

according to the polls, and had 26 elec-

toral votes. Thus, Reagan goes to Illinois.

In this case 20,000 votes in Illinois are

more important than 40,000 people in

Louisiana.

Third-party candidates

cannot win under the

Electoral College but

under the right conditions

can be victorious under

the direct election

scheme.

This example also points up the third type

of inequality in the Electoral College.

Once a candidate has a plurality of the

popular votes in a particular state, addi-

tional popular votes are not useful to him

or her in capturing the presidency. These

votes are wasted. They are not counted

toward the candidate's total in the real

count: the Electoral College. Similarly,

the votes of those who lose in a state do

not affect the candidate's overall totals in

the Electoral College. They too are

wasted votes. In short, the extent of a

candidate's victory in a state is not

measured in the Electoral College.

A fourth inequality in the current system

arises from differences in voter turnout.

All the electoral votes of a state are

awarded to the victor in that state,

regardless of how many people voted.

Thus those who vote in low turnout

states have a greater say in the outcome

than those who vote in states with a

higher rate of citizen participation. Since

this idea is complicated, an historic ex-

ample is in order. In 1960 both Kansas

and Mississippi had the same number of

electoral votes. In Mississippi only about

one-fourth of the eligible voters turned

out. Thus, each Mississippi electoral vote

accounted for 37,271 voters. In Kansas

the turnout was over 70 percent and

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each electoral vote represented 116,103

voters. In other words, voters in

Mississippi were three times as powerful

as voters in Kansas. Shouldn't a vote in

Kansas count the same as a vote in

Mississippi?

Which states are favored

by the Electoral College?

Most scholars argue that

it is the populous states

with the large electoral

votes that are benefited.

From these arguments it can be seen that

the Electoral College distorts the

significance of votes. People become

valuable to a candidate depending on

where they live. It is a mistake, however,

to think that the same groups are always

favored by this arrangement. Specific cir-

cumstances of specific candidates make

one or another state or group more or less

important in specific campaigns. The

Electoral College, for example, does not

give advantage to the people of the big

states just because they have more elec-

toral votes. For all the people of the big

states to use any electoral vote power

they must act together for common

goals. But states are just arbitrary

geographic units under the Electoral Col-

lege. The populous states have not voted

the same in recent close elections: quite

the reverse. Where their electoral vote

clout could have affected the outcome

(as in the close elections of 1960, 1968,

or 1976), the big states' electoral votes

have been divided between the candi-

dates. And these states are also divided

internally. To illustrate, think of it this

way: if you were a Carter voter in Califor-

nia, then the Electoral College actually

worked against your interests in 1976.

Although your candidate got 49 percent

of the votes in your state, his opponent

(Ford) got all 45 of your state's electoral

votes.

Some claim that certain minority groups

are advantaged by the Electoral College,

but this is clearly incorrect. In order for

some minority group to be advantaged by

the system the group must first be so

concentrated in the most populous states

that it can sway the vote of those states

by having the members of the group vote

as a bloc. And second, the group must be

so small in national terms that such bloc

voting would not be equally effective in a

direct popular election. One is hard

pressed to find a group that meets these

criteria. Take blacks and poor people, for

example. According to the 1980 Cen-

sus, the U.S. population is 12 percent

black. The 14 biggest states (which

together have a majority in the Electoral

College) are also 12 percent black.

Similarly 12 percent of the people in the

U.S. in 1980 were classified as living

below the "poverty level." In the 14 big-

gest states 12 percent had incomes this

low. The point here should be obvious: if

an election is close, then blacks or poor

people could decide the outcome in the

states with a large number of electoral

votes. But in such close elections, bloc

voting by these groups would be equally

effective in determining the outcome of a

direct election, for these groups con-

stitute about the same proportion of the

population at large. In non-competitive

elections such as 1964, 1972 or 1980

these voting blocs are irrelevant under

either election arrangement, since they

are too few in number to change the out-

come.

I do not contend that the present system

is defective because one group or

another benefits from the system.

Rather, I argue that the Electoral College

arrangement causes some votes to count

more than others. And this special

weighting is arbitrary and irrational. Why

should a person who lives in Louisiana be

less important than one who lives in Illi-

nois? Why should one who lives in

Mississippi be more important than one

who lives in Kansas? Why should the

California resident get more attention

than the resident of Alaska?

Conclusion. I have shown that the Elec-

toral College is undemocratic because it

sometimes fails to elect the popular

choice as president, violates the one-

person, one-vote principle, and en-

courages regionally based third parties to

seek undemocratic outcomes and thus

causes presidential candidates to be

244 PS Spring 1984

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more attentive to regional interests than

to national concerns.

The direct popular vote alternative, as

proposed in S.J. Res. 1, solves all of

these problems. Since the president

would be directly elected by the voters,

the popular choice would always prevail.

And all votes would be equally counted,

no matter where the voter lived. The

potential constitutional crisis of legiti-

macy would cease to worry us. Regional

third parties would be no more encour-

aged than nationally based ones. They

could not prevent the popular choice

from being elected, nor could they

bargain or blackmail the major party can-

didates into special concessions.

In some ways reform of the Electoral Col-

lege is like a leaky roof. The roof doesn't

leak until it rains, but then it is hard to fix

the leak. When the sun is out the leak

would be easy to repair, but it isn't leak-

ing. So, too, we don't need to get rid of

the Electoral College as long as it con-

tinues-by luck-to select the candidate

who is also favored by most voters.

When the water floods into our house, it

will be too late to fix the roof. Let's not

wait until this reform is "needed" before

we act.

Negative

In defense of the Electoral College and in

opposition to the direct election scheme I

will show that (1) the direct election plan

will result in the election of candidates

preferred by a minority of the voters; (2)

it is highly unlikely that a regional third

party candidate will be able to do mis-

chief under the Electoral College; and (3)

the direct election proposal will create an

uneven balance between the larger and

the smaller states.

Direct Elections: The Danger of an

Unrepresentative Result. What stand-

ards ought to be used in a democratic

society for selecting a president? Clearly,

in a two-candidate race the person who

receives the most votes ought to be

chosen. My opponent is so concerned

that a presidential candidate with fewer

votes than his or her adversary might be

elected under the Electoral College that

he is willing to scrap the Electoral College

to make sure that this result cannot hap-

pen. Yet, since 1888, in the course of 22

two-person races (defined as elections in

which the two leading candidates gar-

nered at least 80 percent of the vote) the

presidential candidate who obtained the

most votes always won the election. My

opponent attempts to explain this result

in two different ways. First, he asserts

that the popular will can be thwarted only

in "closely competitive" elections and

many of the elections in the post-1i 888

era were held during periods when one

party was dominant. Seven of these elec-

tions, however, were "closely com-

petitive" (defined as elections in which

the winning candidate's margin of

popular victory was 5 percent or less).

Nevertheless, the man who received the

most votes always won. Indeed, in 1960

John Kennedy's popular margin was only

.2 percent and in 1968 Richard Nixon's

was only .7 percent. Second, my adver-

sary claims that the conformity of the

elections under the Electoral College to

democratic principles is a matter of luck.

A professional gambler would reply to

this argument by saying, "When you win

22 times in a row, or even 7 times in suc-

cession, you are likely to have more than

luck in your favor."

The above discussion pertains to one

way democratic principles can be vio-

lated. A far greater threat to these prin-

ciples can occur when there are more

than two major candidates seeking the

presidency. In that situation a much

higher percentage of the voters can be

denied their choice. It can be expected

that the direct election scheme, with its

40-percent runoff provision, will

generate elections of this kind.

To show how this can occur let us ex-

amine the presidential election of 1964.

In that year the Republicans nominated

Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and

the Democrats selected President Lyn-

don Johnson. The early polls (and the late

ones as well) indicated that Goldwater

was an exceedingly weak candidate. A

Roper Poll published the day before the

Democratic National Convention (August

24, 1964) showed that Goldwater was

favored by only 28 percent of the voters,

Johnson was preferred by 67 percent,

and 5 percent were undecided. Based

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Forum

upon this poll it was likely that Goldwater

would fail to garner 40 percent of the

two-party vote and, indeed, he obtained

39 percent to Johnson's 61 percent.

We ought to view the

disadvantages received

by the people in the

smaller states under the

Electoral College as being

roughly balanced by the

advantages they obtain in

the Senate and in the

House. Indeed, the sys-

tem of checks and bal-

ances established by the

authors of the Constitu-

tion is based in part upon

the expectation that dif-

ferent branches of the

federal government will

have different constituen-

cies.

If the election were held under the direct

election plan, Goldwater's weakness

might have encouraged another

Democrat to run as a third-party can-

didate with a reasonable hope of winning

the presidency. Possibly, the popular

Robert Kennedy, former attorney general

under President Kennedy and brother of

that martyred President, might have been

induced to join the race in 1968. How

is it possible that a third-party candidate

such as Kennedy could have won? The

best guess is that Goldwater would have

obtained no more than the 39 percent of

the popular vote that he secured in his

two-man race. The people who voted for

Goldwater mainly supported him either

because he was the Republican nominee

or because they were attracted by his

conservative stands on issues. Since

Kennedy would have been perceived as a

Democrat (even if he had run on a third-

party ticket) and since Kennedy was

known as a champion of liberal causes,

he could hardly attract the support of

would-be Goldwater voters. Kennedy, on

the other hand, would have had wide

popular appeal among potential Johnson

supporters. It was he, and not Johnson,

who was viewed as the heir of the Ken-

nedy tradition. Indeed, it is conceivable

that Kennedy could have garnered more

votes than Johnson. If Goldwater retain-

ed 39 percent of the vote and if Kennedy

obtained more votes than Johnson (but

less than 40 percent of the total vote),

then Goldwater and Kennedy would have

been in a runoff. In such a runoff Ken-

nedy would probably win. Yet, most

Goldwater voters would have preferred

the moderate Johnson to the liberal Ken-

nedy. Thus, the candidate favored by a

minority of voters, the candidate who

would have lost to one of his opponents

(Johnson) in a two-way race, would have

won the election.

If, however, Kennedy had run under the

Electoral College and if Johnson's vote

had been divided in each state between

Kennedy and Johnson, then Goldwater

would have won with 80 percent of the

electoral vote. The moral is clear. Third-

party candidates cannot win under the

Electoral College but under the right con-

ditions can be victorious under the direct

election scheme. Since the voters know

this to be true (or will be so informed by

the people of the media during the cam-

paign) they will not vote for such can-

didates under the Electoral College. They

do not wish to waste their votes. No such

wasting, however, will occur under the

direct election proposal.

There is another possible danger of the

direct election plan which also can be il-

lustrated by the 1964 election. In a

three-person race Goldwater might have

won the most votes and also obtained 40

percent of the vote, instead of 39 per

cent. If that occurred he would have been

elected President. This result is even

worse than the selection of Kennedy as

president, for Goldwater would have lost

to either Kennedy or Johnson in two-

person races.

The election of 1964 is not unusual. In

any election in which one of the two ma-

jor party candidates is unlikely to achieve

40 percent of the vote, a major third-

party candidate may be persuaded to

enter the race. As a consequence, an

unrepresentative result may occur. And,

246 PS Spring 1984

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indeed, in 8 of the 21 presidential elec-

tions held in the twentieth century 1 of

the 2 major party candidates failed to at-

tain 40 percent. The last such race took

place in 1972, when the Democratic

nominee, George McGovern, received

only 38 percent of the vote.

In recent years the ability of a major third

party candidate to challenge the two

established parties has been enhanced by

the substantial decline in party identifica-

tion and party voting. And the third party

candidate need not fear the lack of a per-

manent, long-term party organization to

support him or her, for parties are in-

creasingly becoming less important in

electing presidential candidates. Can-

didates for the presidency now seek

popular support through television in-

stead of through party workers; receive

advice and intelligence from media peo-

ple, pollsters, and management experts,

instead of from party leaders; and secure

campaign funds from special interest

groups, rock stars, and the federal

government, instead of from the party. In

the words of David Broder, "The party is

over."

In short, the only element preventing the

entry of a major third-party candidate in-

to the presidential race is the Electoral

College. Change the Electoral College to

the direct election plan and a major third-

party candidate will run whenever condi-

tions are favorable. The result: the wrong

person, the person preferred by a small

minority of the voters, may be elected.

Regional Third Parties Under the Elec-

toral College: A Dead Issue. In his se-

cond argument my adversary claims that

under the Electoral College regional third

parties have run in the past and will be

encouraged to run again in the future.

Candidates from such parties will seek

electoral votes in regions in which they

are strong and hope that neither of the

two major party candidates will obtain a

majority of the electoral vote. If both

these goals are achieved, the election will

be subject to some kind of bargaining.

This sounds terrible, and if there were a

real chance that these events could hap-

pen I, too, would favor changing the Elec-

toral College system to eliminate the

threat. I, of course, would still oppose the

direct election scheme. Rather, I would

urge that the electoral votes be cast

automatically, with the candidate receiv-

ing the most electoral votes declared the

winner. But the Constitution should not

be amended to guard against remote

possibilities.

Why is the scenario pictured by my oppo-

nent so remote? The answer is that it re-

quires three conditions to be met, all of

which are unlikely. The first condition is

that a regional third-party candidate must

obtain electoral votes. In the post-World

War II period regional third-party can-

didates have been successful in securing

such votes only in the deep South. The

last regional candidate to receive elec-

toral votes was George Wallace of

Alabama, who in 1968 garnered elec-

toral votes from 5 deep South states. But

the South, and even the deep South, has

changed substantially since 1968. In-

tegration has been accepted. Racism has

been denounced. Prosperity has come to

the South. And in 1976, a born-again

peanut farmer from rural Georgia was

elected president on a major party ticket.

In view of these events, even my adver-

sary admits that it is less likely that the

South will want to play the regional third

party games of past. He argues,

however, that we do not know when and

where other kinds of regionalism might

flourish in the United States.

Although anything or almost anything is

possible, there is no reason to believe

that regionalism (or regional third parties)

are the wave of the future. Most social

scientists talk about the growing na-

tionalism of America and not about in-

creasing regionalism. A recent survey

showed that people in all parts of the

country now have similar attitudes on

most of the major political issues. There

are no longer any one-party regions in the

United States. Income levels in the

South, which used to be lower than in the

rest of the country, are now approaching

national norms. There is extensive move-

ment of people and industry between

regions. In short, the United States is in-

creasingly becoming a national society.

The second condition that must be

satisfied is that no candidate receive a

majority of the electoral vote. This has

not happened since 1824, over 150

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Forum

years ago. Indeed, the Electoral College

inflates the margin of presidential vic-

tory. Since 1868 only two winners

(Hayes in 1876 and Wilson in 1916) fail-

ed to obtain at least 55 percent of the

electoral vote, despite the presence in 6

of these elections (1892, 1912, 1924,

1948, 1960, and 1968) of third party

candidates who obtained electoral votes.

In view of the difficulty of preventing one

of the two major parties from securing a

majority of the electoral vote, voting for a

third party candidate is perceived by the

overwhelming majority of the voters as

wasting one's vote. In 1968, for ex-

ample, the Republican, Strom Thurmond,

was able to hold South Carolina for Nixon

primarily because of his argument that,

"A vote for Wallace is a vote for Hum-

phrey." Indeed, Wallace's support during

the campaign declined from 21 percent

to 13.5 percent mainly because of the

wasted vote argument. The wasted vote

argument also explains the decline in sup-

port for John Anderson in 1980.

Although anything or

almost anything is possi-

ble, there is no reason to

believe that regionalism

(or regional third parties)

are the wave of the

future.

The final condition that must be met is

that the third party regional candidate is

able to bargain either its electoral votes

or its votes in the House of Represen-

tatives for policy commitments. As my

opponent so ably argues, such an agree-

ment would be perceived by most Ameri-

cans as an unholy bargain and, if it occur-

red, would severely undermine the

legitimacy of the new president. In 1968

both Nixon and Humphrey announced

that they would not make any deals in

the Electoral College for Wallace's elec-

toral votes. It is doubtful if Wallace would

have had much clout in the House of

Representatives, for a majority of only

one state delegation (Alabama) sup-

ported him during the campaign. One

wonders how many members of the

House of Representatives would be will-

ing to bargain with this delegation in

1968 or with similar groups in future

years. Rather, the members of the House

would simply vote along straight lines for

their respective party candidates.

Direct Election: Unequal Balance.

Which states are favored by the Electoral

College? Most scholars argue that it is

the populous states with the large elec-

toral votes that are benefited. There are

two reasons for this result. First, the

winner-take-all provision makes the

populous states a bigger prize. If a

presidential candidate wins in California,

he or she receives all 47 California elec-

toral votes. If, on the other hand, the

same candidate wins Alaska the reward

is a mere three electoral votes. Second,

most of the states with the large popula-

tions can be captured by the presidential

candidate of either of the two major par-

ties. Thus, the prize is not only large, but

is also available.

If the large states are advantaged by the

Electoral College, then the people who

live in these states are benefited as well.

More specifically, any group in the

population whose voting percentage in

the populous states exceeds its percent-

age in the country as a whole is favored

by the Electoral College. In the 1980s

people who lived in urban areas,

Catholics, Jews, and Hispanics had this

characteristic, while in the 1960s blacks

and possibly low-income people were in

this category as well.

At first glance the advantage received by

these groups appears to be unfair and

seems to suggest that the direct election

plan, which treats all votes the same,

ought to be adopted. But prior to chang-

ing one element of the federal system we

ought to consider the workings of the

other parts of that system. When we ex-

amine the distribution of the seats both in

the Senate and in the House of Represen-

tatives it is clear that the less populous

states are favored in these two bodies

and, thus, the very same groups that are

benefited by the Electoral College are

disadvantaged in Congress. In the Senate

it is obvious that the small states are ad-

vantaged, for there are two Senators

from each state regardless of population.

248 PS Spring 1984

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As a consequence, in the 1980s each

Senator from the smallest state (Alaska)

represents 401,851 people, while those

from the largest state (California) repre-

sent 23,667,902 people. The people of

Alaska were thereby favored by a ratio of

59 to one. In the House each state is en-

titled to at least one seat, no matter how

small its population. As a result, in the

1980s the one House member from

Alaska represented the same 401,851

people, while each of the 45 members of

California represented approximately

525,953. Thus, the people from Alaska

had one and a third times the voting

power of the people of California.

Now that we know the relevant

statistics, the question arises: how

should we use them? Perhaps, we ought

to favor both the distribution of the seats

in the Senate and House and the selec-

tion of the president on the basis of the

one-person, one-vote principle. This cer-

tainly is a consistent and reasonable posi-

tion. Alternatively, we ought to view the

disadvantages received by the people in

the smaller states under the Electoral Col-

lege as being roughly balanced by the ad-

vantages they obtain in the Senate and in

the House. Indeed, the system of checks

and balances established by the authors

of the Constitution is based in part upon

the expectation that different branches

of the federal government will have dif-

ferent constituencies. As a practical mat-

ter, however, there are not two choices

open to us, but only one; for it is

unrealistic to believe that the Senate or

the House will ever be altered to conform

to the one-person, one-vote standard.

Article V of the United States Constitu-

tion states that, ". . no State, without

its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal

Suffrage in the Senate." The people in

the smaller states, certainly will not agree

to give up their voting power in the

Senate. The distortions in the House can

be remedied by increasing its size. In the

1980s, for example, each member could

represent 400,000 people (i.e., the

population of Alaska). California, under

this plan, whould have 59 seats instead

of 45. But this solution will not be

adopted because the people in the

smaller states would be unwilling to

reduce their power and also because it

would result in a House much larger, and

therefore less effective, than the present

one.

Since the distribution in favor of the peo-

ple in the smaller states in the Senate and

House will not be modified, it is unfair to

ask the people in the larger states to

abandon their advantage in the Electoral

College. It would result in an unequal

balance.

Conclusion. My adversary claims that

the Electoral College contains three major

defects: (1 ) the unrepresentative result in

the two-candidate race; (2) the participa-

tion of a regional third-party candidate in

the selection of the president; and (3) the

unequal votes generated by the winner-

take-all system within each state. I have

shown that both the first and the second

results are highly unlikely to occur, and

the third phenomenon is an advantage in-

stead of a defect. I have also demon-

strated that the direct election plan may

foster unrepresentative results in

multiple-candidate elections and will

create an unequal balance between the

less and the more populous states.

In short, a new roof is neither needed nor

desirable. Our old, well-built, slate roof

has withstood the heavy rains of the past

and has held tight. I

Selected Bibliography

In Favor of Direct Election

Banzhaf, John F. III, "One Man, 3.312 Votes:

A Mathematical Analysis of the Electoral Col-

lege," Villanova Law Review (Winter, 1968),

303-46.

Longley, Lawrence D. and Alan G. Braun, The

Politics of Electoral College Reform, 2nd ed.

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).

Peirce, Neal R., and Lawrence D. Longley, The

People's President (New Haven: Yale Univer-

sity Press, 1981).

Yunker, John H. and Lawrence D. Longley,

"The Biases of the Electoral College: Who is

Really Advantaged?," in Perspectives on

Presidential Selection, ed. Donald R. Mat-

thews (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings In-

stitution, 1972).

Zeiderstein, Harvey, Direct Election of the

President (Lexington, Mass.: Heath-Lexington

Books, 1973).

249

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In Favor of the Electoral College

Best, Judith, The Case Against Direct Election

of the President: A Defense of the Electoral

College (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

1975).

Bickel, Alexander M., Reform and Continuity:

The Electoral College, The Convention, and

The Party System (New York: Harper and

Row, 1971).

Diamond, Martin, The Electoral College and

The American Idea of Democracy (Washing-

ton, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for

Public Policy Research, 1977).

Power, Max S., "Logic and Legitimacy: On

Understanding the Electoral College Con-

troversy," in Perspectives on Presidential

Selections, ed. Donald R. Matthews (Wash-

ington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution,

1972).

Polsby, Nelson W. and Aaron Wildavsky,

Presidential Election: Strategies of American

Electoral Politics, Sixth Edition (New York:

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984), 246-256.

Sayre, Wallace S. and Judith H. Parris, Voting

for President: The Electoral College and the

American Political System (Washington, D.C.:

The Brookings Institution, 1970).

250 PS Spring 1984

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