The Electoral College, originally created as a compromise between the founding fathers, consisting of 538 electors is America’s unique way of selecting its commander in chief.
Though a national popular vote might seem like a natural choice, given how much Americans tout about their freedom, American democracy has been preserved because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is far from being outdated, despite what some may believe. Instead, the Electoral College ensures that every state, regardless of size and population, has a voice and prevents the loud voices of a few from overpowering the voices of many.
Although the Electoral College has been discussed as flawed by its critics, the founders had their reasons for not installing a more “democratic” system.
It was James Madison, a founding father and the nation’s fifth president, who warned in the Federalist Papers about the dangers of a pure democracy, citing that these have historically been plagued by unrest and conflict. He noted that, although pure democracies foster free and open discourse, they have often gone down the path of totalitarianism where the minority of people have little to no protection from being overpowered by the majority.
The results of a popular vote system could be a disaster. Densely populated states like California, Texas, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania hold roughly 50% of the nation’s population. These states alone could decide an election in a national popular vote system, leaving smaller states to virtually have no power in who leads the nation. In the electoral system, however, they make up only 131 of the 538 electors, allowing for more than just these five highly populated states to have the final say.
This issue pushed Nevada and Maine to not join the The National Popular Vote compact in 2019, an agreement between the states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote nationwide rather than their states.
“Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose,” said then Democratic Governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak.
The Electoral College forces candidates to direct their policies to more states than just the most densely populated. While Democrats have a hold on states like New York and California, the Electoral College requires them to pay attention to the other states that are not in their secured column. The same applies to Republicans: they hold heavy power in states in the south like Alabama and Arkansas but also focus their attention on battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
The Electoral College gives citizens in some of the more diverse states like Wisconsin and Georgia a chance to be heard, even if the issues most important to them are not being touted nationwide by the candidates.
A counterargument many opponents of this system have pointed to is that it is simply undemocratic. Chris DeRosa, chair of the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University, argues that big states have less value than small states and by value, he means votes.
DeRosa used Washington D.C., which is not a state but is treated like a small one in the Electoral cCollege, as an example. “More people live in D.C. than in Wyoming, the least populous state in the union; but they both get three electoral votes,” DeRosa said.
In addition, five times in the nation’s history a president has been elected that the majority of Americans did not vote for. The first time was 1824 with John Q. Adams and was most recently with Donald Trump in 2016.
Proponents claim that these men have been able to win because of this flawed system; therefore it enables people who don’t have a majority of support to become president. But that’s not necessarily the case, after all our system allows us to replace the president every four years.
Adams lost reelection four years later in 1828, as did Trump in 2020. The candidate who lost the popular vote can also do a good enough job during their first term, they end up becoming the “people’s choice.” President George W. Bush won the popular vote and a second term in 2004 by roughly 2% over Senator John Kerry after losing the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000 by the same margin.
In addition to that, in 54 out of 59 elections; the candidate that has received the most votes nationwide has won the election. In the cases where this didn’t happen, the margins between the candidates were between 2% and 1% or less, with 1824 being the exception with roughly 10 percent between Adams and Jackson.
Others have argued against the Electoral College because of the disaster that can happen when there is a tie. When this happens, congress is tasked with picking the president rather than the people. This has only happened twice, in 1800, and more notably in 1824 when Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and most of the electoral votes, but not the majority required to win. The House of Representatives were forced to choose who would be the next commander in chief, and they chose Adams, who came in second both in the popular vote and the electoral college.
While this was an obvious exception to the people’s will, The Heritage Foundation, a think tank based in Washington D.C., noted that that the Electoral College has done a good job protecting the country from the “tyranny of the majority.” It argues that it has preserved the ideals of federalism that are core to our country, by ensuring that everyone from all walks of life, backgrounds and states get a say in how our nation is run, creating a federal government that people can get behind.
They also warn that a national popular vote election could result in one vote from a single person anywhere in the country could shift the results of an election, which has the same problem that many claim about the electoral college, where someone that the majority of Americans didn’t want ends up with the job.
Imagine if that system were in place for this election. As of Oct. 14, Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Trump are neck and neck in the national polls. With a national popular vote system, given how divided the nation’s politics are today as Pew Research Center has discussed, a recount of such a race could be a disaster, possibly taking longer than the month-long recount in the 2000 presidential race.
In a national popular vote system, every vote nationwide would be recounted, meaning that the nation could be without a president for an extended period of time. In addition, there could be potential issues that the nation could face during this time, such as national security threats.
The 9/11 Commission had found that part of the reason that the terrorist’s plans had gone unnoticed was because of the 2000 election. Neither Gore nor Bush had the time to plan for their possible national security advisors nor get key positions filled, which is why the attacks were not caught until it was too late.
The Electoral College has ensured that all states have a voice regardless of size. Protecting the nation from the fears of the founding fathers regarding tyranny of the majority, upholding the principles of federalism.