History News Service

Arguing the Electoral College: Con

By Joyce Appleby
History News Service

The 2000 presidential election is unique in the annals of American history. Because of its indeterminacy? No. Its singular distinction comes from the fact that never before have both the popular and electoral votes been close in the same election.

When John F. Kennedy squeaked out a victory over Richard Nixon in 1960, his 48.7 percent of the popular vote triumphed over Nixon's 48.5 percent, but Kennedy won 303 electoral votes, 85 more than Nixon. Similarly, earlier close popular votes yielded major differences in Electoral College strength.

The simultaneous convergence of near-ties in the 2000 presidential race denies the winner the clear-cut authority of either the nation's informal popularity contest or its official Electoral College count.

This disturbing outcome may also alert the nation's voters to the real flaws in the Founders' ingenious invention, the Electoral College, detailed in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.

Previous criticism of our peculiar way of electing a president through 50 separate contests has focused on the winner take-all policy in 48 of our 50 states. This policy of treating 51 percent of the votes the same as 75 percent can thwart the popular will when one candidate garners the requisite number of electoral votes in states that are evenly divided while the opponent overwhelming carries his or her states.

Election 2000 has thrown a searchlight on a far graver defect in the Electoral College: the two-elector bonus every state gets for its senators. The Constitution assigns electoral votes to states on the basis of the number of its representatives in Congress plus its two senators. After every census, congressional strength is readjusted to reflect population shifts. Not so the bonus senatorial electors; they never change.

If population were evenly dispersed among the United States, the bonus senators wouldn't make much difference. But, as this election has made crystal clear, voters are clustered in a handful of big states. The figures: 29 states have fewer than 8 electors. Only seven have more than twenty.

What does the math show? That our 31 smallest states get a 25-percent boost in their electoral strength from the senatorial bonus while California gets only 4 percent and New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida get 6 percent to 9 percent.

This campaign has also made starkly apparent just how much the Electoral College skews the candidates' campaigns. Why did Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore return again and again to Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, Missouri and Michigan? Because their electoral votes were up for grabs while New York, Ohio, California and most of the states in the West and South had already formed majorities for one or the other candidate.

Can we expect reform of this dreadful system soon? Probably not. Those 31 states to which the Constitution delivers a 25-percent gift of electoral strength also have the power to determine the fate of the necessary constitutional amendment to eliminate the college. Amendments require the approval of three quarters of the states. Montana, Wyoming, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Alaska are unlikely to line up to give up their electoral heft. Tradition, constitutional reverence, protection of state differences, and anti-big city sentiment can all be expected to serve their cause.

But there's one thing -- after this election -- that the Electoral College's supporters won't be able to say: if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Joyce Appleby is a professor of history at UCLA, former president of the American Historical Association and author of Inheriting the Revolution, published this year by Harvard University Press. She is co-director of the History News Service.

[Joyce Appleby, 615 Westholme Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024 Telephone: (310) 470-8946; fax: (310) 206-9630; e-mail: appleby@history.ucla.edu.]