The Electoral College Saved the Election
By Christopher DeMuth
Scholars, pundits and progressives widely despise the Electoral College. They think it antiquated, irrational and undemocratic and argue for scrapping it in favor of a national popular vote.
But in 2020, when many hallowed American institutions submitted to street demonstrations and violence, the Electoral College proved a steadfast guardian of democracy. It can’t solve our problems on its own, but has given us a measure of stability to try for ourselves. A national popular election in 2020 would have made our problems immeasurably worse.
The essential feature of the Electoral College is voting for president by states. Each state has electoral votes equal to its delegation in the U.S. Congress—representatives (one for Vermont, 14 for Michigan, 53 for California, etc.) plus two senators. State legislatures determine the “manner” of casting their electoral votes, and 48 of them allocate those votes on a winner-take-all basis to the national ticket that receives the highest state popular vote. Maine and Nebraska select two electors by statewide vote and the remainder by congressional district.
As part of this design, states manage presidential elections along with those for other offices. They establish standards and procedures for voter eligibility, candidate ballot listing, mail-in voting, vote counting, challenges and recounts. The Constitution sets Inauguration Day as Jan. 20; federal statutes set a uniform Election Day in early November and a careful sequence of intermediate dates—for states to certify their election results and cast their electoral votes in December, and for their receipt by a joint session of Congress Jan. 6. To be elected president, a candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes—at least 270 of the total 538.
Electoral votes are cast individually by electors, who gather in their state capitals in December. The Constitution’s framers conceived of electors as intermediaries between voters and candidates, but political parties soon assumed this role, choosing party stalwarts as electors pledged to their candidates. That has made the Electoral College assemblies largely ceremonial (there have been occasional “faithless electors,” but states can replace or penalize them). Still, newspapers ran many stories about electors who trekked to their state capitals to cast their votes on Dec. 14—diligently engaged in a constitutional practice that runs back to the election of George Washington in 1789.
The main complaints against the Electoral College are that it can elect someone who didn’t win the nationwide popular vote and that it causes candidates to campaign heavily in “battleground states” while ignoring those they think they are certain to carry or not. The winner almost always finishes first in the popular vote but has failed to do so a few times, including in 2000 and 2016.
These are certainly problems, but all election systems have problems, national popular vote included. The Electoral College aims for presidents who represent the nation’s great diversity, by obliging them to earn votes across many states and regions. It frequently bestows a broad-based majority mandate on a candidate who has won only a plurality of the national popular vote, which is particularly important in messy elections with three or more candidates. Abraham Lincoln received only 40% of the popular vote in 1860—but 59% of the Electoral College. Richard Nixon in 1968 won 43% of the popular vote but 56% of the Electoral College, and Bill Clinton in 1992 won 43% of the popular vote but 69% of the Electoral College...
