The Electoral College Explained

Although altered by the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, the process of choosing the nation’s executive has remained virtually unchanged since its inception at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Often called a convoluted and confusing process, the Electoral College does exactly what the Founding Fathers intended—it serves as an extra layer of protection between the whims of the electorate and the nation’s highest office.

According to American historian David S. Muzzey (Our Country, 1943, p. 184), the success of the American experiment depends chiefly upon an affirmative answer to three questions:

“First, will the people be wise enough to choose as their public servants men and women who are wholly devoted to the public welfare? Second, will the people be intelligent enough to control their government by the force of an enlightened public opinion? Third, will the people be orderly enough to seek desired changes by the patient remedy of law rather than by the impatient resort to revolution?”

While the Founding Fathers were hopeful of the latter two, they would ensure the success of the former from the start.

The electoral college, which the Founders had compromised on for choosing the president, entrusted the election to a group of electors who would make informed decisions about the best candidate and thus safeguard against the general public’s potential errors in judgment.

How Does It Work?

Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution allocates each state in the Union a specific number of electoral votes equal to its total number of senators (two) and representatives, which today results in 538 electoral votes. While not a state, the District of Columbia saw the 23rd Amendment grant it three electoral votes. While Article II does not explicitly state it, most states (except Maine and Nebraska) use a winner-takes-all system, with the candidate who receives the majority of that state’s popular vote being awarded all of the state’s electoral votes. The Founding Fathers never intended for the process to become a rubber stamp for the popular vote, and thus, this process remains quite controversial among Revolutionary Era scholars.

The winner-takes-all system also frustrates the electorate as it can lead to a candidate winning the presidency without winning the national popular vote. If a state has 20 electoral votes, and one candidate receives 51% of the popular vote to their opponent’s 49 percent, they do not receive 51 and 49 points, respectively. Instead, one candidate receives 20 electoral votes while the other, while only losing by a 2-point margin, receives zero.

Because even a narrow win in a state results in securing all of its electoral votes, the electoral vote margin is often much wider than the actual popular vote margin, thus granting a candidate a “landslide victory” even though it is not reflected at the polls. President Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1984 election, one of the largest in American history, saw the Californian receive 97.6% of the electoral votes, even though a closer examination would reveal that he had only won 59% of the popular vote.

Because the winner-takes-all system can lead to situations where a person wins the presidency without winning the general election’s popular vote, the fight for securing key states with larger electoral vote allocations becomes each party’s priority. While Americans are often frustrated when their candidate does not win the election, there have been times in history, most recently in 2000 and 2016, when the winner of the people’s choice did not win the presidency due to the lack of sufficient electoral votes. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Yet, the losses in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were not enough for her to win the College.

States that consistently lean toward one party, such as New Jersey or California, which often vote Democratic, or Texas, which tends Republican, are traditionally ignored during election season in favor of those battleground states where the outcome is uncertain. If a candidate can sway more states into their camp, especially those with many electoral votes, their victory can be secured regardless of the popular vote.

Because “swing states” have changed over the years, detailed polling notifies respective presidential campaigns of the states that their candidate should focus on the closer it comes to election year. The disproportionate influence in presidential elections granted to swing states often leads to further voter frustration. In states such as California, where the Democratic Party is dominant, Republican voters may feel like their vote is meaningless, which can result in decreased voter registration in that state. The same goes for traditionally Republican states.

While many people wonder about the outcome of the Electoral College, not many pay attention to the selection of the electors, which begins with political parties and ends with voters casting their ballots. The selection starts at the state level, where each political party chooses its slate of potential electors, from party loyalists, usually selected for their dedication and service to the party. While they may include state and local party officials, party leaders, or respected citizens, the Founding Fathers stated in the Constitution that no member of Congress could serve as an elector to ensure total independence between the executive and the legislative branches.

The Founders also chose not to establish a federal standard for how the electors would be chosen, leaving it up to each state to decide on the process. Some make the selection through party conventions, others through selected party committees. Once a given party’s candidate wins the popular vote within that state, the electors from that respective party are officially appointed and cast their votes for the winner. Thus, when the voters cast their votes in November, they are technically not voting for the person on the ballot but for their party’s slate of electors from their state, who will pledge their votes for the favored candidate.

Once the general election results are in, the electors gather in their state capitals on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, which follows the election. As dictated by the 12th Amendment, which separated the president’s and vice-president’s votes, the electors cast two distinct ballots, one for each. When the results are certified by each state’s electoral officials, a joint session of Congress meets in early January to count the votes before the President of the Senate (the vice president) certifies the results.

One may think that once the electoral votes are counted and the winning candidate receives the minimum of 270 votes (or the majority) of the 538 electoral votes, the bitterness ends, and everyone goes home happy. However, that is hardly ever the case. Regardless of the results, the very system at the core of selecting the US president continues to be contentious.

One of the Electoral College’s main criticisms is the system’s tendency to reward smaller states, stemming from each receiving two votes for an equal number of senators (two), granting them a higher number of electors per capita when compared to larger states. In the case of Wyoming, which has only three electors, which equates to one for every 193,000 residents, its electoral vote carries more weight than the US’s most populous state of California, where each of its 54 electors represents closer to 712,000 residents.

Another criticism centers on candidates prioritizing issues and concerns of the swing states’ electorate, leading to a skewed national policy agenda that does not always reflect the entire country’s interests.

While some propose the complete abolition of the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote, others continue to defend the Founding Fathers’ intent of safeguarding against the evils of the will of the masses.

Another proposal points to nationalizing the Nebraska and Maine model, namely, distributing the electoral votes based on the popular vote in the said election instead of a winner-take-all approach. Then, there is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), an agreement between a group of US states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote. As of the time of this article, only 16 have joined—not enough for the constitutionally needed 270 electoral vote majority.