The Electoral College Is Not The Problem

It needs fixing, but do not throw the baby out with the bath water

I am not going to go through the complete and ugly history of the Electoral College as there are plenty of books on the subject. But I did want to explain some things about it so that people can understand its relevance even to today’s elections.

First a quick bit of history. There were two key purposes to the Electoral College as it was constructed by the Founding Fathers.

The first was to manage the threat of populism by having electors in each state that were leaders of the community that would stop candidates, like Trump, from gaining power. The idea being that these leaders would vote for the good of the nation, not their self interests, and put in power people that also put the nation first, citizens second, their political party and themselves last. Over time, some States have eroded this purpose by enacting laws that force electors to only vote for the party they represent. As a result, a candidate like Trump has a way to be put in power.

The second purpose of the Electoral College was to provide less populous states with a somewhat equal say in the management and control of the country. The Founding Fathers were concerned that states such as Rhode Island would be disenfranchised from the Union if their votes never mattered as much as a state such as Pennsylvania or New York. We have seen prime examples of this in recent elections where the Electoral College has caused candidates to lose the popular vote and yet still be elected to office because of the Electoral College.

A quick reminder that each state’s electors are compromised of the number of House Districts plus their two Senate seats. This is how we get to a total of 538 electors, 435 Representatives in the House, 100 Senators plus the 3 electors for the District of Columbia.

So what can be done to fix the Electoral College so that it better serves its purpose?

The idea of community leaders voting their conscience in today’s world is an old world idea. That is never going to happen, so we are likely never to see that happen.

Nebraska and Maine allocate their electors by House district and by overall winner of the state’s popular vote. Whomever wins the popular vote in a House District wins that elector. Whomever wins the state’s popular vote, wins the state’s two Senate electors.

In my humble opinion, all states should allocate their electors like Nebraska and Maine. The reason is that such a scheme ensures less populated areas are not disenfranchised by a state’s population centers. My rationale for this is simple mathematics. If the popular vote is the only thing used, then the major population centers (largely Democratic) will control all future elections making the less populated areas irrelevant, i.e., flyover country. To keep those areas relevant, we need an elector scheme that still provides representation for those less populated areas.

It is the stopping the “winner take all” nature of electors that needs to be addressed, This can be fixed either at the state level or the Federal level. Fixing this at the state level is easier than at the Federal level where it would require amending the Constitution. Therefore, we need people to push their state legislatures to change their laws regarding how electors are allocated in their states.

One potential modification would be to allocate one Senatorial elector for the winner of the state’s popular vote and the other Senatorial elector to the winner of the most House Districts. In the event of a tie in House Districts won, a coin toss or draw of high card could allocate the last elector.

To go along with this new elector scheme, we also need to fix gerrymandering in the states. House Districts need to be truly allocated by population using unbiased computer programs that generate the borders of those Districts. Want a good use for artificial intelligence, this is probably the best use there is. Districts would be drawn by the Census Bureau based on their work. Sadly, such a change would be needed at the Federal level with a Constitutional amendment and those take time.

I know there will be push back on any such change because “we’ve always done it this way!” However, that is not true just like the Democratic and Republican parties have not existed since the beginning of the US. The way elections are conducted have changed over time as well, and it is time we change them again for the better.