Editorial: Resolving The Electoral College Dilemma

With Congress in recess, Obama on vacation, and the Crotch Bomber still dominating the news cycle, I think this is a good to post a major article.  I’ve been planning an editorial on the Electoral College for some time now and, since Lisa G. brought it up in a comment a couple days ago, I decided to do it now.  In the earliest days of our country, Presidents and Vice Presidents were elected by state legislatures, not by voters.  Because of the great distances that had to be traversed on horseback and the time it took to do so, the founding fathers provided for the electoral college, a meeting of representatives from each state convened for the sole purpose of choosing the President and Vice president of the United States in Article V of the US Constitution.  As time passed, voting for Presidents and Vice Presidents replaced choice by state legislatures, and travel time is no longer an issue, but the electoral college remains.
Here is the 2008 electoral college map:

And here’s how electors are apportioned among the states.

…The Constitution gives each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate membership (two for each state) and House of Representatives delegation (currently ranging from one to 52, depending on population). The 23rd Amendment provides an additional three electors to the District of Columbia. The number of electoral votes per state thus currently ranges from three (for seven states and D.C.) to 54 for California, the most populous state.
The total number of electors each state gets are adjusted following each decennial census in a process called reapportionment, which reallocates the number of Members of the House of Representatives to reflect changing rates of population growth (or decline) among the states. Thus, a state may gain or lose electors following reapportionment, but it always retains its two "senatorial" electors, and at least one more reflecting its House delegation…

Inserted from <history.com>
Here is a table with the same data in textual form:

Jurisdiction	Rep	Sen	Total
Alabama	7	2	9
Alaska	1	2	3
Arizona	8	2	10
Arkansas	4	2	6
California	53	2	55
Colorado	7	2	9
Connecticut	5	2	7
Delaware	1	2	3
DC	0	0	3
Florida	25	2	27
Georgia	13	2	15
Hawaii	2	2	4
Idaho	2	2	4
Illinois	19	2	21
Indiana	9	2	11
Iowa	5	2	7
Kansas	4	2	6
Kentucky	6	2	8
Louisiana	7	2	9
Maine	2	2	4
Maryland	8	2	10
Massachusetts	10	2	12
Michigan	15	2	17
Minnesota	8	2	10
Mississippi	4	2	6
Missouri	9	2	11
Montana	1	2	3
Nebraska	3	2	5
Nevada	3	2	5
New Hampshire	2	2	4
New Jersey	13	2	15
New Mexico	3	2	5
New York	29	2	31
North Carolina	13	2	15
North Dakota	1	2	3
Ohio	18	2	20
Oklahoma	5	2	7
Oregon	5	2	7
Pennsylvania	19	2	21
Rhode Island	2	2	4
South Carolina	6	2	8
South Dakota	1	2	3
Tennessee	9	2	11
Texas	32	2	34
Utah	3	2	5
Vermont	1	2	3
Virginia	11	2	13
Washington	9	2	11
West Virginia	3	2	5
Wisconsin	8	2	10
Wyoming	1	2	3
Total	435	100	538

The electoral college system causes several problems.
The first, and most obvious, is that twice the electoral college has elected a President who lost the popular vote, and the last time, it saddled the nation with the worst President in US history.  Imagine where we might be had Gore been awarded the Presidency he won by popular vote in 2000.  Hopefully he would have been conscientious enough to heed the warnings Bush ignored and 9/11, the war in Iraq, torture, etc., could have been avoided.
The second is that all states except two (Maine and Nebraska) apportion their electors on a winner take all basis.  This effectively disenfranchises every voter who does not vote for the winner of that state.  Candidates would receive 15 electoral votes for winning Georgia by one vote and 15 electoral votes for winning New Jersey by 500,000 votes.  This also inclines candidates to ignore states that are solidly for or against them and concentrate their efforts in closely contested ‘swing’ states.  This deprives the voters in non-swing states of exposure to the candidates and businesses in those states the economic boon that campaign visits bring.
The third is completely anti-democratic.  The electoral college skews power to smaller states.  Our Declaration of Independence declares all created equal, but under the electoral college, some voters are clearly more equal than others, because in addition to an elector for each Representative in the House, which is based on population, states also get an extra two electors for their Senators, regardless of population.  On the surface, that appears minimal, but consider these two examples.

• Wyoming has 3 electors for their population of 532,668.  That’s one elector for every 177,556 people.
• California has 55 electors for their population of 34,756,666.  That’s one elector for every 631,939 people.

That gives a Wyoming voter 3.6 times the electoral power of a California voter.  While this is the most extreme comparison, the fact remains that the less populous a state is, the more electoral clout each voter has.  In my opinion, that is an injustice.
So I hope we can agree that the system needs to be changed.  The obvious way is to eliminate the electoral college.  That requires a Constitutional Amendment, and the procedures for doing so are as follows:

…There are essentially two ways spelled out in the Constitution for how to propose an amendment. One has never been used.

The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment (for example, see the 21st and 22nd).

The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about.

Regardless of which of the two proposal routes is taken, the amendment must be ratified, or approved, by three-fourths of states. There are two ways to do this, too. The text of the amendment may specify whether the bill must be passed by the state legislatures or by a state convention. See the Ratification Convention Page for a discussion of the make up of a convention. Amendments are sent to the legislatures of the states by default. Only one amendment, the 21st, specified a convention. In any case, passage by the legislature or convention is by simple majority.

The Constitution, then, spells out four paths for an amendment:

• Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state conventions (never used)
• Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state legislatures (never used)
• Proposal by Congress, ratification by state conventions (used once)
• Proposal by Congress, ratification by state legislatures (used all other times)

It is interesting to note that at no point does the President have a role in the formal amendment process (though he would be free to make his opinion known). He cannot veto an amendment proposal, nor a ratification…

Inserted from <usconstitution.net>
Regardless of which method is used, the Amendment could not take effect unless three fourths of the states ratify it.  Since more than half the states have an electoral advantage under the present system, we may rest assured that the Amendment could never get enough states on board to be ratified.
However, all is not lost.  There is a way to leave the electoral college in place and still ensure that the winners of the national popular vote will be elected President and Vice President.  How states apportion their electors is up to the individual states.  It requires 270 electoral votes to elect.  If a group of states with combined electoral votes totaling 270 or more were to pass identical state laws requiring that they award all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of how their own state votes, it would guarantee the election of the national popular vote winners.  This could be done with as few as eleven states.   California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina combined have 271 electoral votes, but any combination with that total could make it happen.
There is already an organization working to implement this plan, The National Popular Vote Bill.  Here is their short description of their bill.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

It can work, but if we wait until election time to publicize it and lobby our state legislators, it will be too late.  The electoral college is an injustice we can fix now, if we’re willing to make the effort.  I encourage you to link this, forward this, and otherwise pass this on.