When US citizens vote in presidential elections every four years, it’s the controversial Electoral College that determines the winner, not the popular vote. This unique and somewhat convoluted system devised by the Founding Fathers impacts everything from where candidates campaign and how they spend their funds to voter turnout and the viability of third-party candidates. If you don’t live in a swing state, does your vote really matter?
Origins of the Electoral College
The Electoral College was established in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention, and most history books describe its birth as a compromise between those Founding Fathers who supported a true popular vote and those who preferred that Congress choose the president.
The reality is more complex. A number of considerations went into the decision-making process, including whether a president selected by Congress could function as an independent executive and the wisdom of relying on the common voter at a time when information about presidential candidates and their policies was much more difficult to disseminate. Prominent among these considerations was slavery. Or, more precisely, that many southern states had large populations of enslaved people who could not vote, but, despite their number of eligible voters being smaller than their northern counterparts, those states still expected equal say in choosing the president.
James Madison noted, “There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.”
Ultimately, unable to agree on a true popular vote, the delegates to the Convention devised a system whereby each state was awarded a number of electors, originally chosen by the state legislatures, who would vote for the president. Piggybacking on the concept behind the three-fifths compromise, which allowed southern states to count three out of every five enslaved people for the purposes of Congressional representation, the Electoral College awarded those same states more electoral votes than their eligible voting population merited, matching their number of Congressional representatives, in an attempt to ensure all states had equal influence.
Presidential Campaigns and the Electoral College
While the Electoral College system has evolved over time, it is still implemented for every presidential race. To win the presidency, a candidate must collect a majority of the electoral votes, 270. Since these votes are awarded on a state-by-state basis, almost always to the slate of electors for the candidate who wins the popular vote in each state, presidential campaigns largely focus on specific states with the potential to boost their electoral vote totals. States with the largest number of electoral votes seem like one obvious target. However, over time, the majority of states have come to reliably vote either Republican or Democrat, and each party can expect a relatively stable number of electoral votes from their respective red or blue states. This has made states with large numbers of votes, like reliably blue California, for example, less relevant.
States that might swing either way are, of course, “swing states.” And because, in nearly every state, all of the electoral votes are awarded to the state’s popular vote winner, the majority of presidential campaigning is focused on these few “purple” states where the winner is truly in question. Eligible voters in these states are wooed by the candidates, who often speak to the specific issues impacting them—auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan, for example—while voters in states that consistently vote Democrat or Republican feel largely ignored. While this is perhaps of less concern in an age where information is so easily accessible and voters can research candidates’ policy positions on their own, it has long been a source of consternation for voters, who feel unheard.
Would this still be the case without the Electoral College? Proponents of the system argue that it prevents candidates from focusing solely on high-population urban areas and promotes a more national, rather than regional, approach to presidential elections. The data, however, supports the argument that the EC doesn’t deter regional focus; it simply changes which regions are emphasized. According to National Popular Vote, 96% of campaign events during the 2020 election were held in just 12 states, while 33 states and the District of Columbia garnered no campaign events at all. Spending on TV ads was similarly concentrated, with the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Florida receiving the most attention.
Impact of the Electoral College on the Political Landscape
Beyond the presidential campaigns themselves, the Electoral College also shapes the wider political system and the way voters participate in it.
Research suggests the Electoral College system hinders a robust, participatory democracy by essentially disincentivizing voting in states that always vote with one or the other party because voters perceive their votes as irrelevant. Not only do presidential campaigns largely focus on swing states, but voter turnout drives and other efforts to encourage voters to be active participants in their democracy also reinforce the idea that what matters is not how you vote but where.
While the impact this has on presidential election results is unclear because state and local races are decided on the same ballot, it almost certainly affects Congressional contests and other local races. It’s important to note, however, that correlation does not equal causation. While data shows higher voter turnout in swing states, other factors also play a role in overall voter participation, particularly measures that make voting easier, such as mail-in ballots and same-day voter registration, as well as measures critics say hinder turnout, like restrictive voter ID laws.
The Electoral College also helps to maintain the largely moderate, two-party system in the United States, which some favor while others oppose. It is rare for a third-party candidate to earn any electoral votes in the winner-take-all system, with the result that their primary impact is as a spoiler that draws votes away from one of the major candidates.
Proponents argue that, by essentially forcing candidates into one of just two parties, extremists will be pushed to the margins, candidates winning elections with less than a majority of the vote can be avoided, and both parties will need to adopt a more centrist approach to win voters, thereby appealing to the broadest number of Americans.
Critics argue that if the Electoral College were necessary for that outcome, successful extremist candidates and candidates winning with a plurality rather than a majority should be prevalent in races that rely on the popular vote, like state governors, and are not. They also note that while most voters see voting for a third-party candidate as a waste because of the current system, there is steady support among voters for a viable third party.
Alternatives to the Electoral College
As of 2024, 63% of Americans support abolishing the EC in favor of the national popular vote, skewing largely along party lines. Declining support for the EC is perhaps driven by the fact that, while the candidate who lost the popular vote has won the election just five times in the nearly 250 years since the Electoral College was created, it has happened twice already in the 21st century.
Because the Electoral College is enshrined in the Constitution, eliminating it is not so simple; it requires an amendment. Such an amendment passed the House in 1969 but was defeated in the Senate and has not come close to approval since.
However, while the Constitution mandates the use of the EC, it does not dictate how states award their electoral votes. While the majority of states currently award all their electoral votes to the state’s popular vote winner, two, Maine and Nebraska, divide them between the state-wide winner and Congressional district winners. Researchers note that awarding electoral votes on the basis of Congressional districts brings contentious issues like gerrymandering into play, while awarding them proportionally, another potential option, could create disproportionate representation for states with rapidly growing or shrinking populations since the number of electoral votes allocated per state is only revised once per decade.
Notably, 17 states have enacted laws that would award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner if and when a sufficient number of states sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Once 270 electoral votes, enough to win the election, fall under this compact, these laws would go into effect, essentially preventing the candidate who loses the popular vote from winning the election while circumventing the difficulties of a Constitutional Amendment.
So, Does Your Vote Count?
Whatever the founders’ intentions, the Electoral College has shaped presidential elections in a number of ways that critics say are profoundly undemocratic—because, ultimately, the number of people who vote for a presidential candidate is less important than where those voters live. For example, in 2020, Joe Biden led the popular vote by 7 million nationwide; but, had just a few thousand voters in swing states voted differently, he would have lost the presidency. The sense that “your vote doesn’t matter” is understandable when the will of 20,000 voters holds more sway than 7 million because of which state they reside in.
As it currently stands, it is challenging to argue that all votes count equally in the presidential race. Even without considering the swing states issues, critics argue that lower-populated states continue to be overrepresented: “According to 2023 population estimates, one electoral vote in Wyoming accounts for around 194,000 people, while a vote in Texas, Florida or California accounts for over 700,000.” Although electoral votes are redistributed after each census, the total number of electoral votes has been unchanged since 1961—though the US population has nearly doubled since then. And no electoral votes are awarded to US territories like Puerto Rico, which has a population of over 3 million US citizens—more populous than 21 states.
However, while voting for the top executive looms large for most Americans, presidential elections aren’t held in a vacuum. Regardless of where voters live, their votes for congressional candidates and in local races are not caught up in the intricacies of the Electoral College. Which party controls Congress is arguably just as important as who controls the Executive Branch, and state-level leaders also have a great deal of influence over the political system as a whole, given the relatively broad authority granted to states under the federal system.
That is not to say that equal representation is guaranteed in these races, either. Gerrymandering and voter suppression continue to impact elections at all levels across the nation. The 245-year-long project to enshrine free and fair elections under US democracy remains a work in progress.
