Electoral College 101
The process of choosing America’s president has remained virtually unchanged since its inception at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. At the end of the Convention the Founding Fathers could not come to a consensus on whether the president should be chosen by the legislature or by popular election. They finally compromised on a system that 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.
Article II, Section I of the 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 (270 to win). While not a state, the District of Columbia saw the 23rd Amendment grant it three electoral votes. Although Article II does not explicitly state it, most states (except Maine and Nebraska) use a winner-takes-all system allowing the candidate who receives the majority of that state’s popular vote being awarded all of the state’s 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 Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1984 election, one of the largest in American history, saw the Californian receiving 97.6% of the electoral votes, even though a closer examination would reveal that he had only won 59% of the popular vote. The winner-takes-all system can lead to situations where a person wins the presidency without winning the general election’s popular vote. This system makes the states with larger electoral vote allocations each party’s priority. In 2000 and 2016, the winner of the people’s choice or the popular vote 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.
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, including party loyalists, who are usually selected for their dedication and service to the party. 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.
Additionally, the Founders 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. 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.
After the general election results are in, the electors gather in their state capitals on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December (in 2024 – December 17th), which follows the election. As dictated by the 12th Amendment, the electors cast two distinct ballots, one for the president and the other for the vice president. When the results are certified by each state’s electoral officials, a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2024 counts the votes before the President of the Senate (the vice president), who then certifies the results.
In 1969, Congress almost approved a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College. The amendment was proposed by Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana). The House overwhelming passed the amendment, but it was defeated in the Senate by six votes. Another proposal points to nationalizing the Nebraska and Maine model, namely, distributing the electoral votes based on the popular vote, instead of a winner-take-all approach.