Hello, I'm Daven Hiskey, you're watching the
TodayIFoundOut YouTube channel.
In the video today, we're looking at why the
U.S. uses the electoral system, rather than
allowing general citizens to vote on the Presidency.
On December 13, 2000, Vice President Al Gore
conceded the presidential election to Governor
Bush.
A day earlier, a lengthy and expensive manual
vote recount process in Florida was stopped
by the United States Supreme Court despite
Bush leading by only 537 votes.
With Bush winning the state’s 25 electoral
votes, it gave him 275 electoral votes and
put him over the needed threshold.
This election result was highly unusual, not
just because of Supreme Court decisions and
hanging chads.
It was also only the fourth time in United
States history that a candidate had garnered
a majority of the popular votes but lost the
election- Gore received 50,996,582 votes and
Bush 50,456,062.
Bush won because of the Electoral College
system - a much maligned and complex way of
determining the future leader of America.
How does it work?
Why does America use the Electoral College?
Why isn’t a simple vote count good enough
to determine the president of the United States
of America?
To begin with, contrary to popular belief,
when Americans go to the polls to seemingly
vote for the next president of the United
States, they are, in fact, not actually voting
for the president.
Rather, they are casting a vote for a group
of electors who will then vote for the president
as they see fit.
To reduce any chance of confusion, rather
than having people explicitly vote for electors
on the ballot, the presidential candidate
a given group of electors is pledged to vote
for is put on the ballot instead.
Another common misconception about presidential
voting in the United States is that the president
is elected once the general public's votes
are tallied up.
Again, because the general public does not
technically vote for a president, but rather
on which Electoral College representatives
will get to vote for president, the president
isn't officially elected until the following
January.
Specifically, on January 6th the current vice
president opens voting during a Joint Session
of Congress.
It's during this session that electoral votes
are tallied, with the deadline for those to
be submitted being in late December.
This may seem to be something of a technicality,
but there are many completely legal scenarios
in which a different president may be chosen
than the one who appears to have won after
the general public has cast their ballots
for electors.
(More on a couple of these scenarios in a
bit.)
So who are these voters that actually elect
the president and how are they chosen?
There are only two federal laws that pertain
to who can be an elector.
The first one comes from Article II of the
Constitution, which states that “no Senator
or Representative, or Person holding an Office
of Trust... shall be appointed an Elector.”
The second is a provision buried in the 14th
amendment that says any state official that
was involved in an insurrection or rebellion
against America is also barred from being
an elector.
(You can thank the Civil War for that one.)
Beyond those two restrictions, anyone can
be an elector.
As for who ends up being an elector, that
depends on the political parties and how a
given state legislature sets the method of
selection.
But in a nutshell, each state’s political
parties nominate a group of electors who are
extremely loyal to their respective parties.
Their number is equal to the number of electoral
votes the state has, which in turn is equal
to the number of senators (two per state)
and number of representatives (determined
by population) said state has, or in the case
of the District of Columbia, a set three electors
(thanks to the 23rd Amendment).
There is also potentially one additional minor
caveat to consider when the party selects
its groups of electors- an elector cannot
vote for a vice president and president who
both are from the elector's home state.
This rule was meant to ensure an elector could
not vote for two of their state's "favorite
sons".
(More on why this was considered so important
in a bit.)
Today, this is obviously not an issue for
anyone so long as the presidential candidate
picks a vice presidential candidate from another
state than their own.
On election day, whichever political party’s
candidate, be it Republican, Democratic or
a third party, wins the majority of the state’s
votes, that slate of electors becomes the
ones who get to vote for the president in
their respective state.
For example, in 2012, Californians voted for
the 55 party-selected Democrats who in turn
all cast their 55 votes for the Obama/Biden
ticket.
(Note: there are currently two exceptions
to this all-or-nothing approach- Maine and
Nebraska; they both use a district system.
In this system, the state's popular majority
is accounted for in some electors' votes,
but others vote based on congressional district's
popular majority within the state.
This can potentially result in a splitting
of the votes.
For instance, in 2008, Nebraska ended up with
four Republican electors and one Democrat.)
However, as previously alluded to, to make
this even more confusing and convoluted, there
are no federal laws or Constitutional provisions
that require electors to cast their vote in
accordance with the state’s popular vote
result.
There are some state laws, however, pertaining
to this; 29 states (and the District of Columbia)
have laws that require the electors vote the
way the popular vote has instructed them too.
That said, penalties are not too severe in
most cases- failure to adhere to these state
laws by so-called “faithless electors”
could result in a fine or replacement as an
elector.
That also leaves 21 states that do not have
such laws, allowing electors to vote as they
see fit instead of how the general public
directed them too.
It turns out, this seems to have been what
the founders intended.
It should be noted here that, according to
the National Archives, more than 99% of the
time electors have voted as instructed and
no elector has ever been prosecuted or punished
for failing to vote in accordance with the
popular vote of their respective states.
However, there have been 22 times involving
179 electoral votes that faithless electors
have bucked the system.
The most recent was in 2008 when an elector
apparently accidentally voted for John Edwards,
rather than the Democratic nominee Barack
Obama.
Another notable recent instance was in 2000
when a DC elector abstained from voting in
protest over the District’s lack of representation
in Congress.
Despite the occasional faithless elector,
to date, none of these faithless votes has
ever been the deciding vote in an election.
However, there have been elections where a
single faithless elector could have decided
the president, such as in 1876 when Rutherford
B. Hayes, despite losing the popular vote,
won 185 electoral votes vs. 184 to Samuel
Tilden.
So, why does the United States use the somewhat
convoluted Electoral College when a popular
vote would be drastically simpler and more
democratic?
In short, it was a necessary compromise from
a time when the "united states" were not bound
nearly as cohesively as today, nor the general
public very well educated on the whole or
well informed about the various candidates.
For the more detailed answer, the Electoral
College dates back to 1787’s Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia, where they were
given the gargantuan task of figuring out
a solution to the mostly ineffective Articles
of Confederation.
Among the many issues that needed resolving
was how the president of United States was
to be elected.
In order to understand the delegates’ thought
process, context is needed.
The young country was only 13 states and residents
were generally extremely provincial, meaning
they still trusted their own state more than
the federal government.
Further, in many cases people identified more
as a citizen of their state, rather than a
citizen of the United States first.
From this, the founders were concerned that
citizens of each state would put their own
best interest before the nation's.
On top of this, because each state's citizens
would likely know their own candidates much
better than candidates from other states (most
of whom they probably wouldn't even have ever
heard of), they were doubly likely to vote
for their own candidates.
The ultimate result of this was feared to
be that the winner of each state would likely
be a citizen of that state, who would in turn
have little chance of winning, or even garnering
any support at all, in other states.
This brings us to the first option put on
the table- election via popular vote.
While more democratic, as mentioned, delegates
were very concerned that each state would
potentially elect their own candidate, making
it difficult to ever get a candidate with
wide support throughout the nation.
Instead, they feared they'd be left with a
field of many "favorite sons."
Among these favorite sons, the bigger states
- like Virginia - would dominate, resulting
in little chance of someone from a smaller
state ever becoming president, and making
it so Virginia's interests would be disproportionately
represented in the nation's highest office.
For reference, at the time, Virginia had 424,000
men eligible to vote, which was more than
Georgia, Delaware, South Carolina, Rhode Island
and New Hampshire combined.
The other major option proposed was a simple
Congressional appointment.
Despite being inherently non-democratic, there
was a thought that the president should be
less powerful than Congress and, therefore,
needed to be dependent on them.
Also, the thinking went, the general public
was largely extremely poorly educated and
poorly politically informed.
Congressional members, on the other hand,
were not only already elected to represent
their respective citizens in such matters,
but were also intimately familiar with prospective
presidential candidates, their character,
work ethic, political leanings, etc. and were
generally quite well educated relative to
most people.
Thus, in a nutshell, members of Congress were
simply the most qualified to pick the most
qualified president.
Ultimately this proposal lost because it threatened
the checks and balances of the federal government.
As then delegate and future President James
Madison noted,
“[T]he election of the Chief Magistrate
would agitate & divide the legislature so
much that the public interest would materially
suffer by it.
Public bodies are always apt to be thrown
into contentions, but into more violent ones
by such occasions than by any others.
[T]he candidate would intrigue with the Legislature,
would derive his appointment from the predominant
faction, and be apt to render his administration
subservient to its views.”
Essentially- if the president was elected
by Congress, while in theory Congress at the
time may well have been in a much better position
to pick the best president, those who sought
the office would be constantly campaigning
and trying to impress those members, perhaps
even giving favors upon election in exchange
for votes.
Beyond this, no president interested in getting
re-elected could ever oppose Congress for
fear they wouldn't re-elect him or her later.
Needless to say, this system was ripe for
extreme corruption.
So while in theory Congress was best suited
to pick the potential best president, in practice
they'd likely not have done so, or if they
did, lorded too much power over that individual.
Thus, the Committee of Eleven on Postponed
Matters devised and proposed the Electoral
College, a system the delegates ultimately
approved.
Alexander Hamilton noted of the Electoral
College, "...if the manner of it be not perfect,
it is at least excellent."
As to what "the manner of it" actually was
intended to be- the idea here was essentially
something of a cross between a popular vote
and congressional selection- it was democratic
in the sense that the popular vote could potentially
determine the state’s allegiance (in the
beginning state legislatures didn't all do
it this way), but it also limited the larger
states' influence slightly by awarding extra
votes to smaller states via an elector for
each of their senatorial representatives.
As for why it was also partially a compromise
for those who advocated for a congressional
selection, in a time before political parties
in the United States, there is evidence that
the founders very much assumed the electors,
who explicitly could not "hold an Office of
Trust or Profit under the United States" (to
avoid at least some of the aforementioned
corruption potential), would not be bound
by the popular vote in their state or party
affiliation or any such similar device.
In fact, in the earliest elections, over half
the states' legislatures selected their presidential
electors with no regard for public vote, a
right state legislatures still technically
retain, but is a practice that died swiftly
around the turn of the 19th century.
Beyond potentially disregarding popular vote
in selecting which group of electors gets
to vote for president, if a given state legislature
really wanted to, they could even decide to
pick a group of electors via something completely
arbitrary like putting a bunch of mice in
a maze, one representing each person who ran
for president, with the winning mouse determining
which group of electors is chosen.
Of course, no state legislature would dream
of doing something so outlandish.
However, several state legislatures have very
recently begun banding together to use their
elector picking power to potentially disregard
their own citizen's popular choice (more on
this in a bit).
In any event, by 1790, along with the rest
of the Constitution, the Electoral College
was ratified by all 13 states and has in the
vast majority of cases resulted in little
controversy or public outcry for a change
to the original system.
In fact, the Electoral College has undergone
only a few small changes since 1790.
The most significant change occurred following
the election of 1800.
At the time, each elector would cast two votes,
one for one presidential candidate and one
for another.
The person with the most votes became president,
and the person with the second most became
vice president.
This ensured that, at least in theory, the
second most qualified individual was vice
president- ready to step in should something
happen to the most qualified person- the president.
Today the person who potentially would step
in should something happen to the president
is not selected by members of the Electoral
College, nor even by the citizens of the United
States, but rather by the president- the most
undemocratic selection of all.
As Senator Samuel White of Delaware noted
when this switch was made, the vice president
is now chosen, not based on the individual's
qualifications for that office, but rather
by if "he by his name, by his connections,
by his wealth, by his local situation, by
his influence, or his intrigues, best promote
the election of a president..."
So what spurred the change in the Electoral
College, no easy thing to do given that it
requires an amendment to the Constitution?
Mainly the rise of political parties.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were
both vying for the presidency, with each having
their preferred vice president within their
own party- something of a new concept.
This was a problem if all electors for a given
party ended up voting for both individuals,
for instance, Thomas Jefferson and his proposed
vice president, Aaron Burr.
If this happened, they'd both be tied for
president.
It happened.
What followed was 36 rounds of voting within
the House to try to break the tie (the opposing
party members muddied things up by voting
for Burr just to attempt to see their most
hated rival, Jefferson, defeated).
There were even threats of militia's forming
to march on the capital to push for Jefferson,
before Jefferson, who was always understood
to be his party's choice for president over
Burr, was chosen.
In the aftermath, the 12th amendment was passed.
This said that each elector got two votes,
as before, but instead of both votes being
for a potential president, one would be for
president and the other for vice-president,
thus creating little chance that a vice-presidential
candidate could be elected president.
(Little chance, because, as VEEP illustrated,
it can still happen).
Other than that, over two hundred years later,
the Electoral College is still essentially
the same process as it was on day one.
While today it's a bit outdated given most
American’s attitudes concerning federal
and state allegiances, it is a process that
has survived in no small part because it's
both relatively difficult to amend the U.S.
Constitution and, on the whole, the system
has worked pretty well, not garnering nearly
as much controversy as it would need to spur
a Constitutional change.
All that said, following the highly controversial
2000 election between Bush and Gore, there
have been attempts to tweak the Electoral
College system without the need for amending
the Constitution.
How would this be possible?
It all comes down to the fact that states
are allowed to select their electors however
they see fit, not just based on a winner-take-all
popular vote selection.
Towards this end, several bills have been
proposed in various states to tweak the elector
selection.
In most cases, these bills looked to switch
to a district system, rather than a winner-take-all.
To date, little has come of these, as most
who oppose the Electoral College want a nation-wide
popular vote system, which on the surface
would seem to require a Constitutional Amendment...
or would it?
It turns out there is a way around this, too,
via the National Popular Vote system.
This is a clever proposal in which each state
that joins agrees to give all its Electoral
College votes to whatever candidate wins the
national popular vote, rather than their particular
state-level popular vote.
In some cases, this may well mean a state's
legislature would go against its own citizen's
popular vote in selecting electors.
Currently 11 states have pledged to this system,
for a total of 165 electoral votes.
If 105 more electoral votes are pledged (making
for a total of 270), the system will take
effect and the United States, while still
using the Electoral College system, will begin
electing its president via electors based
on the national popular vote- no Constitutional
amendment required.
