Isabella Carter
The Electoral College is a process that decides who will be elected President and Vice President of the United States. It was established by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The College consists of 538 electors, with each state having the same number of electors as it does members of Congress. The College has been criticised as archaic and ambiguous and there have been many proposals to reform or eliminate it. However, supporters argue that it preserves an important dimension of state-based federalism in presidential elections.
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What You'll Learn
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College as a compromise
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College is a process, not a place, and consists of 538 electors. The number of electors each state appoints is equal to the size of its congressional delegation, with each state entitled to a minimum of three electors.
The Electoral College process includes the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The Founding Fathers crafted this compromise in 1787, and it was officially selected as the means of electing the President towards the end of the Constitutional Convention. This was due in part to pressure from slave states wanting to increase their voting power, as they could count slaves as three-fifths of a person when allocating electors. Small states also benefited from this system, as it increased their power given the minimum of three electors per state.
The Electoral College has been a source of ongoing debate in the United States, with supporters arguing that it preserves an important dimension of state-based federalism and guarantees that Presidents will have nationwide support. Critics, on the other hand, argue that it consigns most states to "spectator" status in presidential elections, reduces voter turnout, and dramatically polarizes the nation's politics. Over the years, there have been numerous proposals to reform or eliminate the Electoral College, reflecting the controversy surrounding this system.
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The Electoral College is a process, not a place
The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and is treated like a state for the purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.
The voters in each state choose electors to serve in the Electoral College. The state executive of each state signs the Certificate of Ascertainment to appoint the electors chosen in the general election. The electors in each state then meet to select the President and Vice President of the United States. Finally, Congress meets in a joint session to count the electoral votes.
The Electoral College has been a subject of ongoing debate in the United States since its inception at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Supporters argue that it requires presidential candidates to have broad appeal across the country to win, while critics argue that it is not representative of the popular will of the nation. There have been many proposals to reform or eliminate the Electoral College over the years, but it would take a constitutional amendment to change the process.
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The Electoral College has been criticised as undemocratic
Secondly, critics argue that the Electoral College reduces voter turnout and relegates most states to "spectator" status, with only a handful of "swing states" receiving attention from candidates. This dynamic dramatically polarises the nation's politics. The Electoral College has also been criticised for not requiring electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state's popular vote, allowing "faithless electors" to cast their votes for someone else.
Additionally, the process by which electors are chosen has been criticised for not being uniform across the nation, with state legislatures having the power to determine how electors are selected without consulting the public. This lack of uniformity and direct voter input has led to proposals for a direct popular election of the president, with some suggesting a run-off provision if no candidate receives 40% of the vote in the first round.
The American Bar Association has criticised the Electoral College as "archaic" and "ambiguous", and polling has shown that a majority of Americans have favoured abolishing it at various points in time. However, surveys of political scientists have supported the continuation of the Electoral College.
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The Electoral College has faced many attempts at reform
The Electoral College is a process, not a place, established by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. It is a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The College consists of 538 electors, with a majority of 270 electoral votes required to elect the President.
One common argument for reform is that the Electoral College does not provide for a direct democratic election, gives an advantage to less populous states, and allows a candidate to win the presidency without winning the most votes. This last point has been subject to major criticism, especially after the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton received 2.87 million more popular votes than Donald Trump, but Trump received 304 electoral votes to Clinton's 227.
There have been several attempts to require states to divide their electoral votes into single-vote districts, allowing states to split their votes between different candidates. Reformers hope that this would decrease the number of safe states, decrease the role of swing states, and decrease the chance of the winning candidate losing the popular vote. Between 1813 and 1824, the Senate approved amendments for the district plan four times, and the House approved a separate amendment in 1820.
Other proposals to alter the Presidential election process have been offered, such as direct nationwide elections by eligible voters, but none have been passed by Congress. A recent plan to address the problems of the Electoral College is the National Popular Vote Plan, which has won support from a dozen states plus the District of Columbia.
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The Electoral College's role in electing the Vice President
The Electoral College is a process that was established by the Founding Fathers in the US Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The term "electoral college" does not appear in the Constitution, but the process is part of its original design. The Twelfth Amendment was a restructuring of presidential elections and a revision of American politics in the early 19th century. It mandated that a distinct vote be taken for the president and the vice president.
The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, and a candidate must receive at least 270 votes to be elected to the office of President or Vice President. The voters in each state choose electors to serve in the Electoral College, and these electors meet to select the President and Vice President of the United States. The votes of the electors are then sent to Congress, where the President of the Senate opens and counts the votes.
In the case of a tie or no absolute majority after the Electoral College vote, the Senate decides who the next Vice President will be. This has happened twice in history, with the Senate electing a Vice President in 1800 and 1836. In 1800, the Electoral College vote resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, with both receiving 73 votes. The House of Representatives ultimately chose Jefferson as President, and the Federalists considered him the lesser of two evils. In 1836, Richard M. Johnson, Martin Van Buren's running mate, fell one vote short of a majority in the Electoral College. Johnson was eventually elected Vice President in a run-off in the Senate.
The Electoral College has faced criticism for being "archaic" and "ambiguous", and there have been over 700 proposals in Congress to reform or eliminate it. However, supporters credit it with preserving an important dimension of state-based federalism in presidential elections and argue that it ensures nationwide support for the President.
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Frequently asked questions
The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
The Electoral College is a process that consists of the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.
The Electoral College can be abolished, but it would require a constitutional amendment. Over the past 200 years, more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College.
