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The Electoral College, Now More Than Ever

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It isn't a loophole - it's a bulwark.

ne must read to the end of the Washington Post's editorial, "Abolish the electoral college," before hitting on the real reason the Post's editors want to upend the long-standing constitutional institution. "Mr. Trump's election was a sad event for the nation," notes the Post, "his reelection would have been a calamity."

Maybe, maybe not. That's a matter of partisan perspective. Those who are genuinely concerned about the future of American governance would be calling to strengthen institutions that provide political stability, not destroy them. But when your concerns about "American democracy" are really just a euphemism for partisan power grabs, you

...

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The Electoral College, Now More Than Ever | National Review

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It isn't a loophole - it's a bulwark. ne must read to the end of the Washington Post's editorial, "Abolish the electoral college," before hitting on the real reason the Post's editors want to upend the long-standing constitutional institution. "Mr. Trump's election was a sad event for the nation," notes the Post, "his reelection would have been a calamity."

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10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem

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10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem

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Sticking with the Electoral College system, but not yet plunging into the surprising too-little-discussed history of why the Framers put it in the Constitution, I want first to dash off a quick list of ten problems and potential problems with the Electoral College system:

Problem No. 1

It creates the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This is more than a theoretical possibility. It has happened at least four times out of the 56 presidential elections, or more than 7 percent of the time, which is not such a small percentage, and it created a hideous mess every time. The most recent occurrence was 2000.

Problem No. 2

It distorts the presidential campaign, as alluded to yesterday, by incentivizing the parties to write off the more than 40 states (plus the District of Columbia) that they know they either can't win or can't lose. Among the states that, in recent history, don't get campaign visits (other than for fundraising) or TV ads (which is most of what all that fundraising pays for and the main method by which the campaign and their "independent," "uncoordinated" allies seek to persuade the persuadable voters in the persuadable states) are the three most populous states (California, Texas and New York, which among them make up more than 25 percent of the U.S. population), the geographically biggest state (Alaska) and the best state (Minnesota, which, despite missing out on the ads and the campaign visits, usually leads the nation in voter turnout anyway, so there).

Problem No. 3

The Electoral College system further distorts the presidential campaign by causing the candidates to grant extra weight to the parochial needs of the swing states. If you have to carry Florida to win, it elevates the already ever-present need candidates feel to pander to elderly voters, Cuban-Americans, orange-growers and any other group that can deliver a bloc of Floridians. The same thing with Iowa and ethanol subsidies and other agriculture-friendly policies, except even more so because Iowa is not only a swing state over recent cycles but has become since 1976 the key first state in the presidential nominating process. . (But that last bit about the nominating process, of course, is not rooted in the Constitution.)

Since the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running-mate, how many stories have you read that said Ryan's controversial plan to change Medicare could be especially costly to the ticket because so many of the swing states have above-average portions of senior voters? Pandering to large groups of voters is not a pretty aspect of democracy, but pandering to groups just because they happen to be concentrated in "swing states" is even uglier. Who can explain how this can be a good thing?

Problem No. 4

For the same reason, it distorts governance. A first-term president who expects to have a tough reelection fight (as they all at least expect to) but who wanted to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba (broken in 1960) would have to consider the possibility that such a policy might cost him Florida and therefore a second term. Perhaps this helps explain why long after Washington normalized relations with the Soviet Union, China and other governments that formerly or presently call themselves Communists, Cuba remains on the do-not-call list.

Problem No. 5

The Electoral College system further distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because electoral votes are not distributed according to population. Every state gets one electoral vote for each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives (this by itself would be a rough measure of its population) and each state also gets two "bonus" electors representing its two senators.

This causes significant overrepresentation of small states in the "College." In the most extreme case, using 2010 Census figures and the new distribution of House seats based on that census, an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an individual in California. Yes, you read that right. In fact, it's closer to quadruple than triple. Can this be a good thing?

If we could do nothing more than allocate the electoral votes on a population basis, it would make the system substantially more democratic. But we can't do that, at least not without amending the Constitution, because the apportionment formula is embedded in the Constitution as one more inducements that the Framers felt was necessary to attract support of small states for ratification.

Problem No. 6

The Electoral College creates the possibility of a 269-269 tie vote, and in almost every recent election there has been a relatively credible scenario for such an outcome. ( Here's a recent CNN piece going over the ways that we could end up there this year and a Nate Silver article on the same subject.) The rules of the Electoral College system for dealing with a tie are bizarre and scary and create a fairly plausible scenario by which no one would be elected president in time for Inauguration Day.

The only tie in Electoral College history was in 1800, a totally bizarre situation, in the days before formal tickets, and back in the days when several states still did not even hold a popular vote in the presidential selection process. (The Constitution did not and still does not require that any popular vote be conducted for president.) In that 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson tied with his own running mate Aaron Burr. Better not try to cram that whole saga in here right now. It led to the 12 th amendment (ratified 1804), which changed the Framers' original language so that each elector could indicate which candidate they supported for president and which for vice president, thereby eliminating the possibility that any presidential candidate will end up in a tie with his own running mate. But that didn't solve the serious problems inherent in the tie scenario.

Problem No. 7

Although our system, as evolved, makes it very hard for third parties to win elections and almost impossible for a third party to win the presidency, the Electoral College system makes it quite possible for a small third-party showing in a single state or two to change the outcome of the whole national election.

This happened in 2000, when Ralph Nader, running as the Green Party nominee, finished third in the popular vote with just 2.74 percent, and received just 1.6 percent in Florida, but those votes (plus a number of other weird factors about which some people are still arguing) probably shifted the state from Democratic nominee Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush. And, because of winner-take-all, that one state also tipped the outcome of the national election.

In most recent cycles, there has been at least one halfway credible scenario under which a small third party can tip a key state and perhaps the whole election. Here's a Fox News piece about the possibility that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson could play that role in 2012. Johnson, by the way, will be on the ballot in 48 states. (According to this New York Times piece, Republican state officials in Michigan "blocked Mr. Johnson from the ballot after he filed proper paperwork three minutes after his filing deadline, and Romney campaign aides participated in unsuccessful efforts to keep him off the ballot in other states as well.)

There's an even weirder scenario in which former Congressman Virgil Goode, the nominee of the tiny, right-wing Constitution Party, costs Mitt Romney the presidency by drawing votes in Virginia (which happens to be the state Goode represented in Congress, so he has a name there). Although the Constitution Party doesn't even show up in national polls, when Goode's name is included in Virginia polls this year, he has scored as much as 9 percent. I doubt he'll get anywhere near 9, but Virginia is considered very close and has been designated a key swing state worth 13 winner-take-all electoral votes. Maybe that's why a couple of lefty parties helped Goode get the signatures he needed to get on the ballot in Virginia.

Of course, even in a pure popular vote system (unless you have ranked choice voting) minor parties have the potential to change the outcome. But the Electoral College, paired with the winner-take-all aspect, greatly increases the leverage. I'm not predicting that any of these scenarios will come true in 2012, but the Electoral College system makes such shenanigans possible, and they happen more often that you might realize. (And by the way, if the name Virgil Goode rang a bell but you can't place it, Goode was the congressman who made the biggest fool of himself objecting to both the election of Minnesota U.S. Rep Keith Ellison - first Muslim ever in Congress - and to Ellison's decision to take his oath of office on a Qu'ran. The Qu'ran, by the way, had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.)

Problem No. 8

The Electoral College system prevented Dick Cheney from becoming vice president. Well, no, it actually didn't, but it would have if we had taken the letter and the intention behind the words in the Constitution seriously.

The Constitution says that an elector cannot vote for a presidential and vice presidential candidate both of whom come from the same state as him/herself (the elector, that is). This rule actually made sense when the Framers put it in there but stopped making sense almost immediately. (To explain this, we'll eventually have to get to the story of how the Framers thought this contraption was going to work.) But it's still in there. George W. Bush was a Texan. In 2000, when he became Bush's running mate, Cheney had been living and voting and paying taxes for five years in Texas where he eked out a living as CEO of Halliburton.

If you had to say which state he "inhabited," at that point in his life, you could not say anything other than "Texas." This became awkward when the Bush-Cheney ticket carried Texas. The Constitution (in both the original and as changed by Amendment XII) technically prohibit the Texas electors from voting for both Bush and Cheney. And the electoral vote was so close that without the Texas votes, Cheney would not have had a majority.

It's true that shortly before the election, Cheney obtained a Wyoming driver's license and put his Dallas home on the market (he had a vacation home in Wyoming, which is the state he used to represent in Congress). And the courts decided that was good enough to make him a non-Texan for electoral vote purposes. It would have been silly to disqualify Cheney over this, but the issue is at least one more bizarre legacy of the Framers' contraption and the fact that we are still (wink, wink, nod, nod) bound by the rules ratified in 1789 and 1804.

Problem No. 9

In case of a tie, or if no candidate receives a majority of all electoral votes cast for president, the choice of president is thrown in the House of Representatives but the election is conducted on a one-state one-vote basis. (Yes, Wyoming - population 563,000 in the 2010 census - would have equal say in the selection of the president with California - 37 million.) And to win, a candidate must receive the support of an absolute majority of states.

But states that have an even number of House members may deadlock. (Minnesota, with its current delegation of four Democrats and four Republicans, would be a good candidate for this fate.) A deadlocked state cannot vote at all for a presidential candidate. But, to produce a winner, one candidate would still have to win 26 states, even though several states would presumably be deadlocked.

If no presidential candidate can get to 26, there is no constitutional mechanism for producing a winner. The vice president (whose selection in this scenario would be thrown into the Senate) could serve indefinitely as acting president. This has never happened, although it has come close. If we wait long enough, it will happen someday.

Problem No. 10

And here's a really crazy part, which sort of underscores the craziness of our practice of abiding by the Framers' language. When the Framers put that crazy structure, where the presidential election would be thrown from the Electoral College into the House for a one-state one-vote choice of the next president, they believed this would actually happen on a regular basis. Which is why you need to come back here tomorrow for the installment on what the Framers thought they were doing when they came up with the Electoral College system (which, as I've already mentioned, had pretty much nothing to do with how it has turned out).

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10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem | MinnPost

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Here's a quick list of the problems and potential problems.

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The electoral college misrepresents every state, but not as much as you may think

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The electoral college misrepresents every state, but not as much as you may think

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Hillary Clinton surpassed Donald Trump by more than 2 million votes, but lost the electoral college 306 to 232. In raw votes, it was the largest popular-vote lead in history for a candidate who lost the election. The nature of the results has again stirred up debate about the merits of using the electoral college system.

A state's electoral votes are equal to the number of representatives and senators the state has in Congress. House seat apportionments are based on population and are reapportioned every decade after the census. Every state is guaranteed at least one seat in the House and two in the Senate.

The electoral college is supposed to guarantee that populous states can't dominate an election, but it also sets up a disparity in representation. While California has one electoral vote per 712,000 people, Wyoming - the least populous state in the country - has one electoral vote per 195,000 people.

Population very underrepresented in 2016

Population slightly underrepresented

Population slightly overrepresented

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

Population very

underrepresented in 2016

Population slightly

underrepresented

Population slightly

overrepresented

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

TX

FL

HI

AK

[ Hate our electoral system? Here's who could have been president under other setups]

How representation has changed over time

These charts show the difference between each state's share of the national population and its share of votes in the electoral college since 1960. If the bars are above the line, the state has a greater share of electoral votes than it does population, meaning it is overrepresented. If the bars are below the line, the state is underrepresented.

With only 538 electoral votes to distribute, a perfect balance is difficult to achieve, but the closer the bars are to the center, the more accurately represented a state is.

OVERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral seats is

greater than share of population

1960

2016

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of population is greater

than share of electoral seats

ME

VT

NH

WI

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

OVERREPRESENTATION

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral seats is

greater than share of population

Share of population is greater

than share of electoral seats

1960

2016

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

Less populous states are overrepresented.

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

The most populous state, California is underrepresented.

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

OVERREPRESENTATION

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral seats is

greater than share of population

Share of population is greater

than share of electoral seats

ME

1960

2016

VT

NH

WI

Less populous states are overrepresented.

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

The most populous state, California is underrepresented.

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

[ How the electoral college works]

In 2016, California was the most misrepresented in the electoral college. The state is home to 12 percent of Americans, but holds only 10 percent of electoral votes. Its share of the total U.S. population is 2 percentage points more than its share of electoral votes.

A similar pattern repeats in the country's largest states.

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of population is greater

than share of electoral votes

California

Florida

Texas

New York

1960

2016

0

1

2

3 percentage points

California

Florida

Texas

New York

1960

2016

0

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of population is greater

than share of electoral votes

1

2

3 percentage points

California

Florida

Texas

New York

1960

2016

0

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of population

is greater than

share of electoral votes

1

2

3 percentage points

Since 1960, California has gained 23 electoral votes, the most of any state in this period. Even though the state's population is still the most proportionately underrepresented in the electoral college, the state's gain of electoral votes has kept the gap from growing much larger.

On the contrary, because each state must have at least three electoral votes, less populous states are overrepresented.

OVERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral votes is

greater than share of population

Wyoming

North Dakota

Alaska

D.C.

0.4 percentage points

0

1960

2016

OVERREPRESENTATION

Wyoming

North Dakota

Alaska

D.C.

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

0.4 percentage points

0

1960

2016

Wyoming

North Dakota

Alaska

District of Columbia

OVERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

0.4 percentage points

0

1960

2016

However, smaller states are still not as misrepresented as larger states.

But, population is not the same as votes cast

While the electoral college is based on population, only a fraction of that population is eligible to vote - and even a smaller portion actually votes.

Votes cast very underrepresented in 2016

Votes cast slightly underrepresented

Votes cast slightly overrepresented

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

Votes cast very

underrepresented in 2016

Votes cast slightly

underrepresented

Votes cast slightly

overrepresented

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

DC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

TX

FL

HI

AK

In some states, the gap between the share of total votes cast and the share of total electoral votes presents an interesting pattern, particularly in Southern states.

Historically, votes cast in Southern states are more overrepresented than their populations.

Before the Voting Rights Act in 1965, voter turnout was low because black voters were systematically disenfranchised. Therefore, the number of votes cast in those states represented a smaller proportion of the populations compared with other states. In 1960, less than 14 percent of Mississippi's population voted, compared with Minnesota, where 45 percent of the state's population voted.

Mississippi

OVERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of votes cast

Drop in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

1 percentage point

0.5

0

1960

2016

1960

2016

0.5

Minnesota

OVERREPRESENTATION

UNDERREPRESENTATION

Share of votes cast

is greater than

share of electoral votes

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

No change in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

1 percentage point

0.5

1960

2016

0

1960

2016

0.5

Mississippi

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of votes cast

Drop in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

1 percentage point

0.5

OVERREPRESENTATION

0

1960

2016

1960

2016

0.5

Minnesota

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

Share of votes cast

is greater than

share of electoral votes

No change in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

1 percentage point

0.5

OVERREPRESENTATION

1960

2016

0

1960

2016

UNDERREPRESENTATION

0.5

Mississippi

Minnesota

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of votes cast

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of population

Share of votes cast

is greater than

share of electoral votes

Drop in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

No change in

misrepresentation of votes cast after

Voting Rights Act

1 percentage point

0.5

OVERREPRESENTATION

0

1960

2016

1960

2016

UNDERREPRESENTATION

0.5

In Texas and Georgia, the population is underrepresented in the electoral college, yet votes cast are overrepresented.

Votes cast in Texas were the least representative of the state's population from 2004 to 2012 compared with other states. This year, the state's voting-eligible population was 64 percent of its total population, the lowest in the nation. Yet, Texas still has 38 electoral votes, the second most in the nation.

Texas

UNDERREPRESENTATION

OVERREPRESENTATION

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of votes cast

Share of population

is greater than

share of electoral votes

1 percentage point

1960

2016

0

1960

2016

1

Texas

Share of population

is greater than

share of electoral votes

Share of electoral votes

is greater than

share of votes cast

1 percentage point

OVERREPRESENTATION

1960

2016

0

1960

2016

UNDERREPRESENTATION

1

In April, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that drawing districts based on total population (as opposed to population of eligible voters) satisfied the "one person, one vote" principle in the Equal Protection Clause. The ruling left open the possibility that other methods of district apportionment not based on total population might be constitutional.

The electoral college isn't a perfect system, and with two of the past five presidential elections going to the candidate who didn't win the popular vote, calls to abolish the centuries-old system may get louder.

Sources: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, U.S. Census Bureau, secretary of state sites and state board of election sites and United States Elections Project. 2016 population numbers are based on 2015 estimates. 2016 votes cast numbers are as of Dec. 1.

More stories

How the electoral college works

A candidate needs to win a majority of 538 electoral votes - 270 - to be elected president.

Hate our electoral system? Here's who could have been president under other setups

We explored what would happen under different electoral systems - and found that adjusted rules could have changed the outcome in half of the presidential elections since 2000.

How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states

Only 107,000 votes in three states decided the election.

How Trump redrew the electoral map, from sea to shining sea

America's political geography follows the contours of its physical geography. The coasts are home to urban Democratic havens, while Republicans count on the vast and less densely populated areas that almost always support the ticket.

More coverage

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The electoral college misrepresents every state, but not as much as you may think.

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A majority of Americans continue to favor replacing Electoral College with a nationwide popular vote

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A majority of Americans continue to favor replacing Electoral College with a nationwide popular vote

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Note: A version of this post with more recent data can be found here.
A majority of U.S. adults (58%) say the Constitution should be amended so the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins, while 40% prefer to keep the current system in which the candidate who receives the most Electoral College votes wins the election.

Support for amending the Constitution has increased slightly since the period immediately following the 2016 election. In a November 2016 CNN/ORC survey, roughly half of adults (51%) favored amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College. And in a March 2018 Pew Research Center survey, 55% favored taking this step.

The current level of support for eliminating the Electoral College is nearly the same as in 2011, when 62% favored amending the Constitution. However, partisans' attitudes on this question have grown further apart since the 2016 election, with Republicans becoming more supportive of the current system.

In two of the five most recent U.S. presidential elections, the winner of the popular vote has lost the election after receiving fewer votes in the Electoral College. In order to continue tracking how the public views our system of deciding presidential elections in the lead-up to the 2020 election, we surveyed 12,638 U.S. adults in January 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.

In 2011, about half of Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (51%) said the Constitution should be amended. Today, nearly two-thirds prefer to keep the current system, a figure that is essentially unchanged over the past two years.

Trump's victory another example of how Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones

Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 81% now say the Constitution should be amended, modestly higher than in other recent years.

Women and younger adults are more likely than men or older adults to support amending the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most votes wins the presidency. About six-in-ten women (63%) say the Constitution should be amended so the candidate with the most votes wins the presidency, compared with 52% of men. And while 65% of those ages 18 to 29 support having the popular vote winner become president, the share falls to 51% among those ages 65 and older.

Gender and age differences in these views are more pronounced among Republicans than Democrats. For example, 41% of Republican women favor amending the Constitution so the winner of the popular vote becomes president, compared with 24% of GOP men.

Among Republicans, those who do not have a college degree (36%) are more likely than college graduates (23%) to favor deciding the election with the popular vote. By contrast, Democrats who have not completed college (78%) are somewhat less supportive than Democratic college graduates (86%) of amending the Constitution so the popular vote winner becomes president.

Views of parties' commitment to fair elections

In addition to having starkly different views about how presidential elections should be conducted, Republicans and Democrats both express low levels of confidence in the other party's commitment to ensuring fair and accurate elections in the United States.

Overall, 52% of adults say the Republican Party is somewhat or very committed to fair and accurate elections, but just 22% say the GOP is very committed to this goal.

A similar proportion of adults (55%) say the Democratic Party is very or somewhat committed to fair elections, with only 20% saying the party is very committed.

Large majorities of both Republicans (87%) and Democrats (83%) have confidence that their own party is committed to fair elections. And equally small shares - 23% in each party - are confident that the opposing party shares this commitment.

Results for this report are from a survey conducted through Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel - a probability-based, nationally representative panel of U.S. adults administered online. The question regarding the Electoral College on this survey has been included on telephone surveys in the past.

Results from self-administered (online) and interviewer-administered (telephone) surveys are sometimes different even when the questions are worded the same. This difference is called a mode effect.

To assess possible mode effects, this question was included on a recent telephone survey in addition to this wave of the American Trends Panel. The two surveys produced similar estimates for attitudes about the Electoral College. Results for both surveys are shown in the topline.

Charts in the report that draw upon trend data from telephone surveys include footnotes indicating the mode of data collection. For more information about mode effects, click here.
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.

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A majority of Americans continue to favor replacing Electoral College with a nationwide popular vote

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40% of U.S. adults prefer to keep the current system in which the candidate who receives the most Electoral College vote wins the election.

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The Daily: A Peculiar Way to Pick a President

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The Daily: A Peculiar Way to Pick a President

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What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College...

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The Electoral College | Homework Help from the Bill of Rights Institute

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The Electoral College | Homework Help from the Bill of Rights Institute

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The Electoral College | Homework Help from the Bill of Rights Institute

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The National Popular Vote v. the Electoral College

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The National Popular Vote v. the Electoral College

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The National Popular Vote v. the Electoral College [POLICYbrief]

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Do you remember voting for the president in a mock election in elementary school or junior high? Maybe you selected your candidate at random because you didn't really know the difference between the two (or care). Well, now you're older and wiser and know that who you vote for does make a difference. Or does it?

Take the Electoral College, for instance. Every four years, on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, millions of U.S. citizens go to local voting booths to cast a vote for the next president and vice president of their country. Their votes are recorded and counted, and the winner is declared - unless the majority of Electoral College members vote for another candidate, of course [source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration].

Truth is, the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand because the presidential election is really decided by the votes of the Electoral College. Although this could feel as though your vote is about as decisive as those of an elementary school election, the Electoral College process was actually put in place to ensure a nationwide system of fairness. When you cast your vote for president, you also vote for an often-unnamed elector who will cast a ballot in a separate election that ultimately will choose the president.

For some of us, the Electoral College process (and its outcome) may seem a bit shocking. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, for example, more Americans voted for Gore, but Bush actually won the presidency because he was awarded the majority of Electoral College votes. It's a political upset that's occurred several times since the first U.S. presidential election; five presidents have been elected by the Electoral College after losing the popular vote.

By now you're probably wondering how - and why - the Electoral College began. We'll explore its historic start in the next section.

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Do you remember voting for the president in a mock election in elementary school or junior high? Maybe you selected your candidate at random because you didn't really know the difference between the two (or care). Well, now you're older and wiser and know that who you vote for does make a difference.

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Sal Teaches Grover About the Electoral College

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Sal Teaches Grover About the Electoral College

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- Vote for me. Vote for cute and adorable Grover. I am pro-ABCs and for one, two, threes. Plus I promise I have no skeletons in my closet. I do not even have one in my body. - Hey, Grover, what are you doing? - Oh, hello there, Sal Khan. I am just running for president of the United States of America. I heard there was an upcoming election, so I figured, ah, why not? - Well, that's great, Grover. - Yeah! - Maybe we can help more people vote. - Oh, that would be terrific. So exactly how many votes do I need to win? - Well, you know about the electoral college, right? - Of course, Sal, baby. - I know exactly what the electrical-- - Electoral. - Electoral college is. - Great, so why don't we explain it together for those who don't know? - Oh, why certainly. What a brilliant idea. - Umm. Why don't you start us off? - Sure. In a direct democracy, I as a citizen will vote for a candidate. And whichever candidate has the most popular votes in the country, they will become president. But we do not have a direct democracy. We have an indirect democracy. So what happens is, is I vote in my state. I live in California. And whichever candidate gets the most votes in California will get all of California's 55 electoral votes. And that's true in most states. Whoever gets the most votes in that state gets all of the votes for that state. And that number comes from the number of Congresspeople California has. - Um, dah, I am not following you. - So how can I explain it in a way that you might understand? - Chickens. (chickens clucking) I know chickens. Chickens, they are my biggest demo. (chickens clucking) - OK, chickens. So instead of electors, we'll say chickens. Instead of the electoral college, I'll say chicken college. - OK, that I can follow. - OK. The number of chicken votes for each state is equal to the number of Congresspeople for that state. - [Grover] In every state? (chicken clucks) - [Sal] Yes, Grover. - From California to the New York island? From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. - Yes. The 50 states. (Grover laughs) And so there are a total of 538 chicken votes in the chicken college. For example, Florida has 29 chicken votes. (chicken clucks) And that's the same as the 29 Congresspeople that they have, two senators and 27 representatives. - [Grover] Oh, hello there, chickens. (chickens clucking) OK, then, so how do I, candidate Grover, win the presidency? - Well, since there are 538 chicken votes in total, you just have to get more than half of those. - More than half. Hmm, let me see here. (trumpets play line from "Stars and Stripes Forever") One, carry the two, divided by eight. - Grover, we, we know the actual number. You just have to get at least 270 chicken votes in the chicken college. - Just 270 chickens? I could do that. 300 chickens just crossed the road to hear me speak at the rally. (chickens clucking) - Oh, great, do you have your speech? - Oh, yeah, it's just right here, yeah. Where did I put it, it? Ah, I'll just wing it. Bye, Sal. - Bye, Grover. Now get out there and vote. (chickens cluck) (violins play "Hail to the Chief")

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Sal teaches Grover about the electoral college (video) | Khan Academy

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Vote for me. Vote for cute and adorable Grover. I am pro-ABCs and for one, two, threes. Plus I promise I have no skeletons in my closet. I do not even have one in my body. - Hey, Grover, what are you doing? - Oh, hello there, Sal Khan.

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Do You Understand the Electoral College?

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Do You Understand the Electoral College?

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Do You Understand the Electoral College?

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The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

What is the process?

The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

How many electors are there? How are they distributed among the States?

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your State has the same number of electors as it does Members in its Congressional delegation: one for each Member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.

The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word "State" also refers to the District of Columbia and "Governor" to the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

How are my electors chosen? What are their qualifications? How do they decide who to vote for?

Each candidate running for President in your State has his or her own group of electors (known as a slate). The slates are generally chosen by the candidate's political party in your State, but State laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the electors and restrictions on who the electors may vote for.

What happens in the general election? Why should I vote?

The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors. Learn more about voting for the electors.

Most States have a "winner-take-all" system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the State's popular vote. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of "proportional representation." Read more about the allocation of electors among the States.

What happens after the general election?

After the general election, your Governor prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment listing the names of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. The Certificate of Ascertainment also lists the number of votes each individual received and shows which individuals were appointed as your State's electors. Your State's Certificate of Ascertainment is sent to NARA as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The electors meet in their respective States, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots. Your State's electors' votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is prepared at the meeting by the electors. Your State's Certificate of Vote is sent to Congress, where the votes are counted, and NARA, as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

Each State's electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official count of electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

The President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the general election.

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The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. Make sure to update your bookmarks! The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

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Electoral College, the system by which the president and vice president of the United States are chosen. It was devised by the framers of the United States Constitution to provide a method of election that was feasible, desirable, and consistent with a republican form of government. For the results of U.S. presidential elections, see the table.

History and operation

During most of the Constitutional Convention, presidential selection was vested in the legislature. The Electoral College was proposed near the end of the convention by the Committee on Unfinished Parts, chaired by David Brearley of New Jersey, to provide a system that would select the most qualified president and vice president. Historians have suggested a variety of reasons for the adoption of the Electoral College, including concerns about the separation of powers and the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, the balance between small and large states, slavery, and the perceived dangers of direct democracy. One supporter of the Electoral College, Alexander Hamilton, argued that while it might not be perfect, it was "at least excellent."

Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution stipulated that states could select electors in any manner they desired and in a number equal to their congressional representation (senators plus representatives). (The Twenty-Third Amendment, adopted in 1961, provided Electoral College representation for Washington, D.C.) The electors would then meet and vote for two people, at least one of whom could not be an inhabitant of their state. Under the original plan, the person receiving the largest number of votes, provided it was a majority of the number of electors, would be elected president, and the person with the second largest number of votes would become vice president. If no one received a majority, the presidency of the United States would be decided by the House of Representatives, voting by states and choosing from among the top five candidates in the electoral vote. A tie for vice president would be broken by the Senate. Despite the Convention's rejection of a direct popular vote as unwise and unworkable, the initial public reaction to the Electoral College system was favorable. The major issue of concern regarding the presidency during the debate over ratification of the Constitution was not the method of selection but the president's unlimited eligibility for reelection.

The development of national political parties toward the end of the 18th century provided the new system with its first major challenge. Informal congressional caucuses, organized along party lines, selected presidential nominees. Electors, chosen by state legislatures mostly on the basis of partisan inclination, were not expected to exercise independent judgment when voting. So strong were partisan loyalties in 1800 that all the Democratic-Republican electors voted for their party's candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Since the framers had not anticipated party-line voting and there was no mechanism for indicating a separate choice for president and vice president, the tie had to be broken by the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives. The election of Jefferson after 36 ballots led to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, which specified separate ballots for president and vice president and reduced the number of candidates from which the House could choose from five to three.

The development of political parties coincided with the expansion of popular choice. By 1836 all states selected their electors by direct popular vote except South Carolina, which did so only after the American Civil War. In choosing electors, most states adopted a general-ticket system in which slates of partisan electors were selected on the basis of a statewide vote. Thus, the winner of a state's popular vote would win its entire electoral vote. Only Maine and Nebraska have chosen to deviate from this method, instead allocating electoral votes to the victor in each House district and a two-electoral-vote bonus to the statewide winner. The winner-take-all system generally favored major parties over minor parties, large states over small states, and cohesive voting groups concentrated in large states over those that were more diffusely dispersed across the country.

Arguments for and against the Electoral College

One of the most troubling aspects of the Electoral College system is the possibility that the winner might not be the candidate with the most popular votes. Four presidents- Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, George W. Bush in 2000, and Donald Trump in 2016-were elected with fewer popular votes than their opponents, and Andrew Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives after winning a plurality of the popular and electoral vote in 1824. In 18 elections between 1824 and 2000, presidents were elected without popular majorities-including Abraham Lincoln, who won election in 1860 with under 40 percent of the national vote. During much of the 20th century, however, the effect of the general ticket system was to exaggerate the popular vote, not reverse it. For example, in 1980 Ronald Reagan won just over 50 percent of the popular vote and 91 percent of the electoral vote; in 1988 George Bush received 53 percent of the popular vote and 79 percent of the electoral vote; and in 1992 and 1996 William J. Clinton won 43 and 49 percent of the popular vote, respectively, and 69 and 70 percent of the electoral vote. Third-party candidates with broad national support are generally penalized in the Electoral College-as was Ross Perot, who won 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992 and no electoral votes-though candidates with geographically concentrated support-such as Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, who won 39 electoral votes in 1948 with just over 2 percent of the national vote-are occasionally able to win electoral votes.

The divergence between popular and electoral votes indicates some of the principal advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College system. Many who favor the system maintain that it provides presidents with a special federative majority and a broad national mandate for governing, unifying the two major parties across the country and requiring broad geographic support to win the presidency. In addition, they argue that the Electoral College protects the interests of small states and sparsely populated areas, which they claim would be ignored if the president was directly elected. Opponents, however, argue that the potential for an undemocratic outcome-in which the winner of the popular vote loses the electoral vote-the bias against third parties and independent candidates, the disincentive for voter turnout in states where one of the parties is clearly dominant, and the possibility of a "faithless" elector who votes for a candidate other than the one to whom he is pledged make the Electoral College outmoded and undesirable. Many opponents advocate eliminating the Electoral College altogether and replacing it with a direct popular vote. Their position has been buttressed by public opinion polls, which regularly show that Americans prefer a popular vote to the Electoral College system. Other possible reforms include a district plan, similar to those used in Maine and Nebraska, which would allocate electoral votes by legislative district rather than at the statewide level; and a proportional plan, which would assign electoral votes on the basis of the percentage of popular votes a candidate received. Supporters of the Electoral College contend that its longevity has proven its merit and that previous attempts to reform the system have been unsuccessful.

In 2000 George W. Bush's narrow 271-266 Electoral College victory over Al Gore, who won the nationwide popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, prompted renewed calls for the abolition of the Electoral College, as did Donald Trump's 304-227 Electoral College victory in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, who won the nationwide popular vote by nearly three million votes. Doing so, however, would require adopting a constitutional amendment by a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. Because many smaller states fear that eliminating the Electoral College would reduce their electoral influence, adoption of such an amendment is considered difficult and unlikely.
Stephen Wayne
Some advocates of reform, recognizing the enormous constitutional hurdle, instead focused their efforts on passing a so-called National Popular Vote (NPV) bill through state legislatures. State legislatures that enacted the NPV would agree that their state's electoral votes would be cast for the winner of the national popular vote-even if that person was not the winner of the state's popular vote; language in the bill stipulated that it would not take effect until the NPV was passed by states possessing enough electoral votes to determine the winner of the presidential election. By 2010 several states-including Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey-had adopted the NPV, and it had been passed in at least one legislative house in more than a dozen other states.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Electoral College | Definition, Map, History, Votes, & Facts

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The Electoral College is the system by which the president and the vice president of the United States are chosen.

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Don't Believe the Myths About National Popular Vote 

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Don't Believe the Myths About National Popular Vote 

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Getty Images

Now that the Connecticut Senate has passed , in bipartisan fashion, the National Popular Vote bill, I'd like to address some of the more common myths surrounding the bill that arose during the floor debate - and the likely outcomes of reforming the current state-based system. Some of these myths I have recently published as opinion here at The Hill.

First, this bill is not unconstitutional and it is not an end-run around the Constitution. The state-based, winner-take-all-laws that the National Popular Vote bill replaces were never debated at the Constitutional Convention and never mentioned in " The Federalist Papers ." In fact, a majority of states did not have state-based, winner-take-all laws until the eleventh presidential election, generations after the Founding Fathers were dead. So, if you are defending the current system as "the Founders' system," honesty and history demand that you stop doing so.

{mosads}Second, the idea that the current system is designed to protect small states is just plain silly. It is not. In fact, the five smallest states have not received a general election campaign event in more than 20 years. Small-state interests routinely get ignored under the current system, in favor of the parochial interests of a few battleground states. It is obvious that a lack of small-state influence is a shortcoming of the system. National Popular Vote , when it takes effect, will ensure that a voter in Bismarck, North Dakota, for example, is as relevant as a voter in Boca Raton, Florida.

Those who claim that campaigns will simply focus on California in a national popular vote election are completely misguided. Remember, California will represent only 12 percent of the voting population in such a vote for president. Even in the worst years, Republicans earn four out of every 10 votes in California - without running earnest campaigns there. So the math discredits the argument that California will control presidential elections. It is a red herring, at best.

There are some who argue that a state such as Connecticut will lose its "voice" under a national popular vote for president. Quite the contrary, under the bill, all Connecticut voters will be counted in determining which presidential candidate received the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The votes of Connecticut Republicans will be added to the votes of other Republicans in other states, and similarly among Democrats. The president-elect will be the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and D.C. Connecticut's seven electoral votes will be cast for the national popular vote winner.

If those electoral votes were cast for a candidate who did not win the plurality inside Connecticut, it simply means that most Connecticut voters did not vote for the national popular vote winner. It would be clearly far worse to deny the presidency to the person supported by the most voters nationwide than to deny the seven persons filling temporary, honorary positions of presidential elector in Connecticut.

At times, my conservative friends raise the issue of voter fraud as the bogeyman of a national popular vote system for electing the president - even though it is obvious the current system poses the bigger threat. During the 2000 presidential election , 528 fraudulent votes in Florida would have flipped the critical swing state and overturned the entire election result through minimal action.

I understand the burden of proof is on the proponents of change, but Whac-A-Mole objections from closed-minded opponents ignore one critical fact: the system is badly broken. It must be fixed.

Four out of five states routinely are ignored as candidates seek the American presidency. Battleground-state voters have vastly more political influence with candidates for president under the current system than flyover-state voters. Our presidents side with parochial swing state voters on their issues. Meanwhile, divergent elections lead to false claims of illegitimacy for the sitting president of the United States.

These problems can be easily addressed through constitutionally appropriate state-based action.

The National Popular Vote interstate compact would not take effect until enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes - that is, enough to elect a president (270 of 538). Under the compact, the winner would be the candidate who receives the most popular votes from on election day.

As for Republicans not being able to win a national popular vote election, as a former state party GOP chairman who twice ran for national chairman, I believe in the power of our ideas. I believe a national popular vote will set up a fair election between all candidates for president. Under this new system, the candidate with the best ideas - ideas that resonate with the most American voters - will be elected president of the United States.

I say, let's line up and beat them.
Saul Anuzis is a senior consultant to National Popular Vote. He is a former Republican Party chair of Michigan and member of the Republican National Committee.

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Don't believe the myths about a national popular vote

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Now that the Connecticut Senate has passed , in bipartisan fashion, the National Popular Vote bill, I'd like to address some of the more common myths surrounding the bill that arose during the floor debate - and the likely outcomes of reforming the current state-based system.

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2020 Presidential Election Map Simulator

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2020 Presidential Election Map Simulator

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This isn't a popularity contest™

It will take 270 electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election. Click states on this interactive map to create your own 2024 election forecast. Create a specific match-up by clicking the party and/or names near the electoral vote counter. Use the buttons below the map to share your forecast or embed it into a web page.

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270toWin - 2024 Presidential Election Interactive Map

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Create your own forecast for the 2024 presidential election

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TED-ED: Does your vote count? The Electoral College explained...

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TED-ED: Does your vote count? The Electoral College explained...

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Does your vote count? The Electoral College explained - Christina Greer

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Keep the Electoral College, Because States Matter

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Keep the Electoral College, Because States Matter

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Keep the Electoral College, Because States Matter | National Review

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States have unique geographic and political interests that should be reflected in the agenda of the nation's executive.

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Poll: Democrats want to abolish Electoral College, Republicans want to keep it

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Poll: Democrats want to abolish Electoral College, Republicans want to keep it

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Americans are deeply divided along partisan lines over whether the Electoral College, the state-by-state voting mechanism set up by the U.S. Constitution to choose the president, should be abolished.

In a Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday of 1,000 registered voters, 44 percent of respondents said that they wanted to get rid of the Electoral College while 37 percent said they wanted to keep it. Nineteen percent of respondents said they were unsure what to do.

A majority of Democratic voters, 60 percent, said they supported abolishing the Electoral College and allowing whoever receives the most votes nationwide to become president. Just 20 percent said they wanted to keep the current system. Twenty-one percent were unsure.

The voting system has become a hot-button issue among some Democratic activists in recent years after Trump became the second Republican to become president after losing the national popular vote in 2016. George W. Bush won the 2000 election despite receiving fewer votes nationwide than his opponent, Al Gore.

Several 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls have recently gotten behind proposals to eliminate the Electoral College, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas).

In the survey, Republicans overwhelmingly favored keeping the voting method with 64 percent of respondents saying they wanted to retain it but only 25 percent in favor of eliminating it. Eleven percent of GOP respondents were unsure.

Independents were more in favor of switching to a national popular vote but less than a majority, 46 percent, had this opinion. Thirty-two percent wanted to retain the current method of allocating presidential votes according to each state's total number of U.S. senators and representatives. Twenty-two percent were unsure.

Surveys conducted by Gallup have shown a partisan divergence in recent years about the Electoral College. In 2012, 54 percent of Republican-leaning adults said that they wanted to amend the Constitution to allow the candidate with the most votes nationwide to become president. But in 2016, following Trump's election, GOP support for the idea dropped to just 19 percent.

Republicans' change of opinion in the Gallup surveys appears to have been driven by awareness that Trump did not win the national popular vote. Fifty-six percent of GOP respondents correctly said that the president's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, had won more votes nationwide.

Trump has given conflicting statements about the Electoral College. Although it enabled him to become president, in 2018, he called for switching away from the voting system on the basis that "it's much easier to win the popular vote."

Last week, however, Trump signaled support for the Electoral College, saying that "cities would end up running the country" if the U.S. were to switch to a popular-vote presidential voting method, an argument that several conservative commentators have made.

While Democratic-leaning activists have become much more interested in changing America's method of electing presidents, the issue is not likely to prove a significant mobilizing issue for the party, pollster Mallory Newall said on Tueday's broadcast of "What America's Thinking."

"It is probably not the number-one or number-two issue that's going to drive people to the polls. But it is something that has more traction among Democrats, particularly after 2016," she told host Jamal Simmons.

Eliminating the Electoral College has been tried several times in Congress. The last time it gained significant support was between 1969 and 1971 when a constitutional amendment to switch to a popular vote passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives but failed to overcome a Senate filibuster.
-Matthew Sheffield

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Poll: Democrats want to abolish Electoral College, Republicans want to keep it

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Americans are deeply divided along partisan lines over whether the Electoral College, the state-by-state voting mechanism set up by the U.S. Constitution to choose the president, should be abolished. In a Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday of 1,000 registered voters, 44 percent of respondents said that they wanted to get rid of the Electoral College while 37 percent said they wanted to keep it.

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Don't like the result...change the rules

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Don't like the results? Change the rules!

Background: The Constitution does not specify how individual states must allocate their electoral votes. That is why Maine & Nebraska can deviate from the winner take all method used in the other 48 states + DC. The ME/NE approach, as well as several other alternative methods have been considered by state legislatures in recent years. While often couched as fairer, the proposals are almost always partisan in nature, meant to benefit the electoral college fortunes of the party that introduces the bill. All the methods reviewed on this page have been proposed by one or more states since 2004, although none have succeeded in becoming law.

Directions: Use the interactive map below to see how alternative electoral vote allocation methods would have affected the results had they been in place for the 2012 or 2016 presidential election. Select a View to see the impact of one method (or the optimal method*) in each state. Select any individual state to rotate its method. Hover over a state to see the results for that state with all methods.

The map below displays the proportional allocation of electoral votes in each state, based on the methods you've chosen in the top map. Hover over any state to see the numerical impact of any changes.

Methodologies

Winner Take All (WTA) awards all electoral votes to the popular vote winner of the state. This is the current methodology in all but Maine and Nebraska.

Congressional District - Popular (CDP) awards two electoral votes to the popular vote winner of the state, with one each allocated to the popular vote winner in each individual Congressional District (CD). This approach is used by Maine and Nebraska.

Congressional District - Majority (CDM) awards two electoral votes to the party winning the popular vote in a majority of the CD, with one each allocated to the popular vote winner in each individual CD.

Proportional Popular - Popular (PPV) awards two electoral votes to the popular vote winner, with the remainder allocated based on the percentage of popular vote earned.

Popular Vote by State (PVS) is the same as PPV, except all a state's electoral votes are allocated by popular vote.

Unintended Consequences

One reason these alternatives have not had more legislative success is a recognition that things can change. For example, in 2013, Pennsylvania Republican State Senator Dominic Pileggi introduced a bill that would change the state's allocation to roughly reflect the popular vote. This proposal was clearly meant to benefit his party, which had just lost its 6th consecutive presidential election. Mitt Romney would have won 8 of the state's 20 electoral votes under Pileggi's plan. Fast forward to 2016, the first election the new rules would have been in place. Donald Trump broke the Democratic winning streak. This legislation would have cost him 9 electoral votes.

Playing by the Rules

It is important to note that the actual results of a real-world election might be significantly different than how the numbers look applying new methodologies after-the-fact. Campaigns make strategic and tactical decisions based on the rules in place. For example, the Obama campaign expended resources in an ultimately successful bid to win one of Nebraska's electoral votes in 2008. They would not have made the effort except for the allocation method used there. Additionally, voter turnout could shift in response to where battlegrounds might be with new rules.

2016 Recap

Winner Take All: Trump won an electoral vote in Maine, which he would not have won if Maine used winner take all.

Congressional District (CD): In 2012, Romney would have gained 68 electoral votes from the 206 he won, putting him in the White House with 274. This year, Trump would have lost 16, giving him 290. Trump won a number of states that Romney lost, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, with a large portion of conservative districts. As a result, in these states, the congressional district method would be less beneficial to Trump than winner take all.

There aren't that many battleground congressional districts in 2010's-era America. This makes the congressional district method much more stable than winner take all. Trump won 230 congressional districts, little changed from the 226 won by Romney in 2012. He also won 6 states that Romney lost. So, while those six states gave Trump 99 more electoral votes than Romney (excl. Maine district), he only improved on Romney's 274 by 16 (6 states @2 each, 4 districts @1 each) with this allocation methodology applied nationwide.

During January, 2017, Republicans in Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia introduced legislation to adopt the congressional district method. These are all states that were won by Clinton in 2016 and have not voted Republican since 2004 or earlier." In 2016, Trump would have won 12 of 27 electoral votes in these three states had this method been in place.

CD Majority: This method will only yield different results than the other CD method when the state popular vote winner doesn't also win the majority of districts. That was infrequent in the 2016 election. Clinton won two states (Minnesota, Virginia), where Trump won a majority of the districts. She also won three states, where the two split the districts. (We split the electoral vote in these cases). As a result, Trump did seven better (297 to 290) with this variation of the congressional district method.

Popular Vote Methods: Since Clinton won the popular vote nationally, we would expect these results to be close, and indeed they are. Trump still wins with Proportional Popular - Popular because he won many more states (30) than Clinton (20+DC). That fact still benefits him - although less so - in Proportional Popular because the allocation is done state-by-state. Due to the relative success of third party candidates in 2016, neither Trump nor Clinton would have achieved 270 electoral votes (see map below) with this second popular vote allocation, throwing the election to the House of Representatives.

* Where there is a tie, we prioritize based on the order the methods are listed in the Select a View dropdown. This is a completely arbitrary ordering.

Data on winners by Congressional District courtesy of Daily Kos. Our use does not imply an endorsement of that site's political point of view. The 3 electoral votes for Washington DC are awarded to the Democrats in all 5 methodologies.

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Don't like the results? Change the rules! Background: The Constitution does not specify how individual states must allocate their electoral votes. That is why Maine & Nebraska can deviate from the winner take all method used in the other 48 states + DC.

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A Crazy But Rational Solution To Our Electoral College Problem

# data[].attributes.subject
A Crazy But Rational Solution To Our Electoral College Problem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Crazy But Rational Solution To Our Electoral College Problem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On three different occasions, the candidate with the most votes didn’t become president of the United States. We call this “The Electoral College Problem.” Here a solution. Simple. Mathematical. Rational. (With one small “but ...”)

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FairVote Executive Director Advocates For Electoral College Reform

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FairVote Executive Director Advocates For Electoral College Reform

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast

The electors of the Electoral College will vote Monday to officially name the nation's president. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie, who is proposing to change the Electoral College in favor of the candidate who wins the popular vote.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

The fact that Donald Trump is elected by the Electoral College despite having lost the popular vote has amplified calls for electoral reform, and we're going to hear from a reform advocate now. Rob Richie is the executive director of the nonpartisan group FairVote, and he joins us from New York. Welcome to the program.

ROB RICHIE: Thank you, Robert.

SIEGEL: You support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a proposed reform. Can you describe what that is?

RICHIE: Yes. It's a really intriguing, exciting reform that is grounded in the fact that it's states that really control what happens with the Electoral College. It's not Congress under the Constitution. So using that power, states are entering one by one by passing a law an interstate compact to make an agreement. And the goal is to have the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and D.C. always win the election.

And the mechanism is for all these compacting states that participate in it to agree to give all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote and to wait until they do it until they control the Electoral College by having a majority. And at that point, all of those states will give all their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in every election. And so whoever gets the most votes on election night will win the election.

SIEGEL: And you wouldn't actually need all of the states in the union to participate for that result to take place.

RICHIE: That's right. It's just states representing a majority. Ten states and D.C. have done so, so it has 165 electoral votes in the compact. And we're waiting to get up to 270 before it kicks in.

SIEGEL: Since you are an opponent of the Electoral College obviously, how do you answer the argument that if we relied on the popular vote, presidential campaigns, instead of obsessing over Florida, Ohio and a few battleground states, would obsess over California, New York and a few other major media markets instead?

RICHIE: Well, the way we can know that's not true is that popular vote elections are really not a mystery. We use them for everything else. And if you talk to candidates that win governors races and congressional races where the popular vote determines the outcome, they don't ignore voters. Every votes in play, and if it's close, you're foolish to not aggressively try to get people to participate wherever they are.

SIEGEL: There's an argument in favor of the Electoral College that goes this way. A given state or region might run elections that are corrupt the way old big city political machines famously did or undemocratic the way the Jim Crow South did for many years. But the state-by-state system at least limits the damage that any particular abusive system can do to the boundaries of that state. How do you answer that?

RICHIE: One, it's pretty low-bar. Let's hope that we can run elections that are fair for everything 'cause we care about the results for Senate and House and everything else, too. I think that the current system in fact makes that quite a problem because the result can come down to one or two states. And if you distrust what's happened in one or two states, that really is magnified to affect the whole country.

Popular vote margins tend to be quite big. In fact there's only one that's been less than half a million for more than a hundred years. And so that's a lot of votes to expect to be sort of fraudulently cast. But if it's only 500 or so votes in Florida that decides the election, people might have distrusted the outcome a lot more than what the popular vote margin was.

SIEGEL: Now, you say the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - to be a plausible system for the next presidential race, I guess you need about 110 more electoral votes.

RICHIE: Yeah - 106 to be precise. You know, it's in play. This election has create a lot of passion, you'll be able to recognize. And I think the underlying problem happens in every election, which is that the candidates spend all their time, all their money, all their attention and polling on just a dozen states and really doing nothing in 38 states. And I think that's the problem that ultimately will be the reason that we go to a popular vote plan.

SIEGEL: Among the states that have approved it, are - and the District of Columbia - are any of them Republican states?

RICHIE: There have been Republican chambers that have passed it. It passed the Arizona House this year. It didn't go all the way, but it did pass the Arizona House. It's passed the Oklahoma Senate a couple years ago. We'll have to see the implications of this election, but we have seen a - kind of a growing cohesion where people of both parties were able to support it. And we'll just have to see what this election has done for that.

SIEGEL: Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote and supporter of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, thanks for talking with us.

RICHIE: Thanks so much, Robert.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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FairVote Executive Director Advocates For Electoral College Reform

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The electors of the Electoral College will vote Monday to officially name the nation's president. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to FairVote Executive Director Rob Richie, who is proposing to change the Electoral College in favor of the candidate who wins the popular vote.

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Democrats Call For Abolishment Of Electoral College. But That Could Get Complicated.

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Democrats Call For Abolishment Of Electoral College. But That Could Get Complicated.

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Six Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have recently expressed support for abolishing the Electoral College. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a recent Mississippi town hall that "everybody ought to have to come and ask for your vote," and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg pushed for the college's elimination on the first day of his presidential exploratory campaign.

The electoral college is unique - no other democratic country elects their head of state quite like the U.S. does. Every four years when citizens vote in the presidential election, they are actually casting ballots for electors. And in recent years, the system's been contentious. President Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a 2 percent margin, but won the election by 77 electoral votes. In 2000, President George W. Bush also lost the popular vote, to Al Gore by a 0.51 percent margin, but won the election by five electoral votes.

Ditching the system, though, which has allowed four presidents to take office despite losing the popular vote, could be more complicated than it may seem. The change would have to come through either a constitutional amendment or a national compact, according to NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow.

Under a national compact, states sign laws pledging to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. "This will kick in as soon as they have 270 electoral votes in their compact," Detrow (@scottdetrow) explains to Here & Now 's Jeremy Hobson.

The idea has gained more traction recently, with Colorado and Delaware signing laws joining the compact, and it's now up to 184 electoral votes, says Detrow.

"I think that would happen quicker than a constitutional amendment, given how fractured our current government is to get most basic things done," he says, "let alone amending the Constitution with the amount of support that that would mean."
On the history of the electoral college
"The thing that we often forget is that the idea of direct democracy and popular voting really wasn't baked into the United States at the early-on: We were a republic, but the idea that people would go to the polls - let alone the entire country would go to the polls - to select a president just really wasn't on most of the founders' minds. ... The idea of the popular vote playing a big role in determining the president really wasn't something that kicked in until over the course of the 19th century in waves that really became the norm going forward."

"Certainly the way that people run for president would change if this kicked in. But I think right now, this is something that people are talking about. I think there's several more steps that need to happen for this to become close to reality."
Scott Detrow

On presidents who lost the popular vote, but won the electoral vote, and whether the Electoral College is working the way it's intended
"The fact that it's happened two times in recent memory - and both times, the Democrats have been on the losing side of that split - has certainly made Democrats a lot more fired up about this issue than Republicans. Though, if you look at the polls, the idea of getting rid of the Electoral College is broadly popular.

"I think by and large, people view themselves as Americans and all living under the same government, so I think the idea of reassessing this is something that's picked up some steam."
On the argument that abolishing the Electoral College would give population centers, like Chicago and New York, all the political power in elections
"I'm not sure how much that holds up, because if you go state by state, each state has its own population centers as well, right. We're spread out in disproportionate numbers, and sometimes we're in clumps, and sometimes we're not, and no matter where you're running, you're going to go focus where the bulk of the votes are.

"Certainly the way that people run for president would change if this kicked in. But I think right now, this is something that people are talking about. I think there's several more steps that need to happen for this to become close to reality."
On what eliminating the Electoral College would mean for future elections
"Reporters like me would spend a lot less time in Iowa and North Carolina and some of the key states. I mean, let's look at 2020, right. I think four or five states are going to determine it - Arizona maybe, North Carolina maybe, certainly Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. A Democrat especially is going to be in those states all the time. I think this would have an effect on local TV ads. I think this would have an effect on travel. But in terms of the message of the campaign, I don't think that would change too much. Because now that every event is live-streamed online as well as [on] TV, it's not like candidates are tailoring their message in different ways as they campaign in different places in the general election."
Savannah Maher produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Jackson Cote adapted it for the web.

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Democrats Call For Abolishment Of Electoral College. But That Could Get Complicated.

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Six Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have recently expressed support for abolishing the Electoral College. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a recent Mississippi town hall that "everybody ought to have to come and ask for your vote," and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg pushed for the college's elimination on the first day of his presidential exploratory campaign.

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Hate our electoral system?Here’s who could have been president under other setups

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Hate our electoral system?Here’s who could have been president under other setups

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Current

Popular vote

Proportional

Parliamentary

Contingent

Hillary Clinton, Al Gore or Mitt Romney could easily have been president depending on how ballots are counted. Primary voters and candidates complained about various state-by-state rules that created different outcomes, raising claims "rigged" schemes. Our elections can be complicated (to say the least). We explored what would happen under different electoral systems - and found that adjusted rules could have changed the outcome in more than half of the presidential elections since 2000.

Current U.S. system for picking the president

Complicated and unequal

You've probably never met a presidential elector - the people who voted Dec. 19 to pick the president of the United States. There are only 538 of them for a country of almost 325 million people. That's because the white guys who wrote the rules (the Constitution and amendments) did not trust regular people and wanted to give slave-holding states more votes without letting blacks vote. So they created "indirect" elections, where voters get to pick some people, and then those people get to vote for president. The system is further complicated because a voter in a small state gets more say in picking electors than a voter in a big state. And states have different rules. Almost all states assign their electoral votes as winner-take-all, but Maine and Nebraska award electors by congressional districts. And a lurking mystery is whether electors really have to do what voters in the state said, anyway. Most states have laws "binding" the delegates, but legal scholars have debated whether the electors could still go rogue and vote their conscience.

These are the states each candidate won weighted using electoral votes.

2000

One of the

delegates from

the District of

Columbia

abstained.

270 to win

266

271

George W. Bush

Al Gore

2004

270 to win

252

286

John Kerry

George W. Bush

2008

Obama got one of

Nebraska's districts

270 to win

365

173

Barack Obama

John McCain

2012

270 to win

332

206

Barack Obama

Mitt Romney

2016

270 to win

227

304

Hillary

Clinton

Donald

Trump

... creating these results.

These are the states each candidate won ....

... which won this

many electoral votes ...

2000

266

Al Gore

271

George

W. Bush

One of the delegates from

the District of Columbia abstained.

2004

252

John

Kerry

286

George

W. Bush

2008

Obama got one of

Nebraska's districts

365

Barack

Obama

173

John

McCain

2012

332

Barack

Obama

206

Mitt

Romney

Four Washington

electors voted for

someone other

than Clinton

2016

227

Hillary

Clinton

304

Donald

Trump

These are the states each candidate won ....

2016

Wash.

Maine

Trump picked the

electoral vote

from Maine's

second district.

Mont.

N.D.

Minn.

Ore.

Idaho

Wis.

S.D.

N.Y.

Wyo.

Mich.

Pa.

Iowa

Nev.

Neb.

Ohio

Ind.

Ill.

Utah

Colo.

Va.

Calif.

Kan.

Mo.

Ky.

N.C.

Tenn.

Ariz.

Okla.

Ark.

S.C.

N.M.

Miss.

Ala.

Ga.

La.

Donald Trump

carried six states

that voted for Obama

in 2012.

Texas

Alaska

Hawaii

Fla.

2000

2004

2008

2012

... which won this many electoral votes ...

A democratic elector tried to vote

for Bernie Sanders, but state officials

ruled that the vote was improper and

ordered a revote. The elector voted

then for Hillary Clinton.

Four Washington electors voted for

someone other than Clinton.

Colin Powell got three votes.

Teh other was for Faith

Spotted Eagle.

N.Y.

Mass.

Wis.

Mich.

R.I.

Conn.

Wash.

Pa.

Ore.

Minn.

Ohio

Neb.

Ill.

Nev.

N.J.

Ind.

W.Va.

Iowa

Colo.

Utah

Ky.

Md.

Kan.

Calif.

Ariz.

Mo.

N.M.

Tenn.

Va.

Ark.

N.C.

Texas

Ala.

Miss.

Ga.

Two electors in Texas

voted for John Kasich

and Ron Paul.

La.

S.C.

Bernie Sanders

received one vote

in Hawaii.

Fla.

270 to win

227

304

Hillary

Clinton

Donald

Trump

2000

2004

2008

2012

Obama got one of

Nebraska's districts

One of the

delegates from

the District of

Columbia

abstained.

270 to win

270 to win

270 to win

270 to win

266

271

252

286

365

173

332

206

Al

Gore

George W.

Bush

John

Kerry

George W.

Bush

Barack

Obama

John

McCain

Barack

Obama

Mitt

Romney

Popular vote

President Gore and other drastic changes

The simplest system could yield some of the greatest change in American politics. Direct election by pure vote total would have made Hillary Clinton and Al Gore presidents in 2000 and 2016. Under that system, campaigns would most likely focus on the densest collection of votes - big cities and their suburbs. Rural areas and small cities may be ignored. Candidates have won the popular vote but lost the election five times. Clinton won this year by more than 2.8 million votes, according to Dave Leip's collection of certified state results.

2000

CHANGE

Al Gore

50,996,582 votes

50,456,062

George W. Bush

Gore

Bush

2004

John Kerry

57,355,978

60,693,281

George W. Bush

Kerry

Bush

2008

Barack Obama

69,297,997

59,597,520

John McCain

Obama

McCain

2012

Barack Obama

65,444,241

60,587,978

Mitt Romney

Obama

Romney

2016

Hillary Clinton

65,844,610

62,979,636

Donald Trump

Clinton

Trump

2000

2004

CHANGE

Al Gore

John Kerry

50,996,582 votes

57,355,978

50,456,062

60,693,281

George W. Bush

George W. Bush

Gore

Bush

Kerry

Bush

2008

2012

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

69,297,997

65,444,241

59,597,520

60,587,978

John McCain

Mitt Romney

Obama

Obama

Romney

McCain

2016

CHANGE

Hillary Clinton

65,844,610

Donald Trump

62,979,636

Clinton

Trump

2016

CHANGE

Hillary Clinton

65,844,610 votes

Donald Trump

62,979,636

Clinton

Trump

2000

2004

2008

2012

CHANGE

Al Gore

John Kerry

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

50,996,582 votes

57,355,978

69,297,997

65,444,241

50,456,062

60,693,281

59,597,520

60,587,978

George W. Bush

George W. Bush

John McCain

Mitt Romney

Gore

Bush

Obama

Obama

Bush

Kerry

McCain

Romney

Proportional by state

Drop winner-take-all and learn to share

Another seemingly simple concept, used in many states for the presidential primaries, is to assign electors according to the share of votes each candidate got. As with pure popular vote, this would encourage candidates to pursue votes in every state, not just those they can win outright. Proportional results are less decisive than winner-take-all so there's less chance of a clear winner with a mandate to lead. In both 2000 and 2016, no candidate would have won a majority, so some combination of parties would have to form a coalition to get 270 electoral votes, or the country could have a do-over election.

2000

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

HI

ID

IL

IN

IA

KY

KS

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

MT

NJ

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MO

NC

ND

NY

OH

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

PA

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

WV

WY

WI

CHANGE

50%

Gore

Bush

Nader

262

263

13

Bush would get one electoral vote more than Gore, but a coalition would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote.

2004

50%

600

Nader

Kerry

Bush

1

259

278

Nader would have picked up his only vote from New York.

2008

50%

100

200

300

400

500

Obama

McCain

287

251

No third-party candidate would have earned a single electoral vote.

2012

50%

600

Johnson

Romney

Obama

2

258

278

Gary Johnson would have received electoral votes in California and Texas.

2016

CHANGE

50%

Clinton

Johnson

McMullin

Trump

268

2

1

267

Clinton would be the candidate with more votes, but a coalition with Johnson would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote. Trump would need to get together with both Johnson and McMullin to reach a majority.

2000

2004

CHANGE

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

HI

ID

IL

IN

IA

KY

HI

ID

KS

IL

IN

IA

KY

KS

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

MT

NJ

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MO

MT

NJ

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MO

NC

ND

NY

OH

NC

ND

NY

OH

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

PA

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

PA

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

WV

WY

WI

WV

WY

WI

50%

50%

Kerry

Bush

Gore

Nader

Nader

Bush

259

278

262

13

1

263

Bush would get one electoral vote more than Gore, but a coalition would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote.

Nader would have picked up his only vote from New York.

2008

2012

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

HI

ID

IL

IN

IA

KY

KS

HI

ID

IL

IN

IA

KY

KS

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

MT

NJ

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MO

MT

NJ

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MO

NC

ND

NY

OH

NC

ND

NY

OH

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

PA

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

PA

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

WV

WY

WI

WV

WY

WI

50%

50%

Obama

McCain

Obama

Romney

Johnson

287

251

278

258

2

No third-party candidate would have earned a single electoral vote.

Gary Johnson would have received electoral votes in California and Texas.

2016

CHANGE

CO

CT

DC

AL

AZ

AR

CA

DE

FL

AK

ID

HI

GA

IL

KY

IA

KS

IN

LA

ME

MD

MA

NH

MI

MN

NJ

NE

NM

MO

MT

MS

NV

NY

NC

OH

ND

OK

OR

SC

RI

SD

TN

PA

WV

TX

VT

WY

VA

WA

WI

UT

50%

Clinton

Johnson

McMullin

Trump

268

2

1

267

Clinton would be the candidate with more votes, but a coalition with Johnson would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote. Trump would need to get together with both Johnson and McMullin to reach a majority.

2016

CHANGE

ID

HI

CO

CT

DC

GA

AL

AZ

AR

CA

DE

FL

AK

IL

KY

IA

KS

IN

LA

ME

NH

NC

MD

MA

MI

MN

NJ

OH

NE

NM

MO

MT

ND

MS

NV

NY

OK

OR

WV

SC

RI

TX

SD

VT

WY

VA

WA

WI

TN

PA

UT

50%

Clinton

Johnson

McMullin

Trump

268

2

1

267

Clinton would be the candidate with more votes, but a coalition with Johnson would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote. Trump would need to get together with both Johnson and McMullin to reach a majority.

CHANGE

2000

2004

2008

2012

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

AL

AK

AZ

AR

CA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

CO

CT

DE

DC

FL

GA

HI

ID

HI

ID

HI

ID

HI

ID

IL

IN

IA

IL

IN

IA

IL

IN

IA

IL

IN

IA

KY

KY

KY

KY

KS

KS

KS

KS

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

ME

MD

MA

MI

MN

LA

LA

LA

LA

MT

NJ

MT

NJ

MT

NJ

MT

NJ

NV

NH

NV

NH

NV

NH

NV

NH

MS

NE

NM

MS

NE

NM

MS

NE

NM

MS

NE

NM

MO

MO

MO

MO

NC

NC

NC

NC

ND

ND

ND

ND

NY

OH

NY

OH

NY

OH

NY

OH

OK

OR

RI

SC

OK

OR

RI

SC

OK

OR

RI

SC

OK

OR

RI

SC

SD

TN

SD

TN

SD

TN

SD

TN

PA

PA

PA

PA

TX

UT

VT

TX

UT

VT

TX

UT

VT

TX

UT

VT

VA

WA

VA

WA

VA

WA

VA

WA

WV

WV

WV

WV

WY

WY

WY

WY

WI

WI

WI

WI

50%

50%

50%

50%

Obama

McCain

Gore

Nader

Kerry

Nader

Bush

Bush

Johnson

Romney

Obama

287

251

262

259

1

278

13

2

258

263

278

Bush would get one electoral vote more than Gore, but a coalition would be needed to get over 50 percent of the vote.

Nader would have picked up his only vote from New York.

No third-party candidate would have earned a single electoral vote.

Gary Johnson would have received electoral votes in California and Texas.

Parliamentary democracy

Romney is president, using the speaker of the House system

Data for congressional-district-level results of the 2016 presidential election are not yet available.

Countries like Britain have voters in every district choose a party, and the party that wins the most districts gets to pick the top leader, which they call the prime minister. That's very similar to picking U.S. House representatives, who then pick the speaker of the House. This system has the advantage of giving voters everywhere relatively equal weight in picking the leader. Because Republican state legislatures effectively redrew congressional district lines after the 2010 census, Democrats got more votes for Congress in 2012 but Republicans won 33 more seats. These maps show which presidential candidate won each congressional district (special results created by Polidata). Using this system, Romney would have won.

2000

50%

240

195

Gore

Bush

2004

50%

256

179

Kerry

Bush

2008

50%

242

193

Obama

McCain

2012

CHANGE

50%

209

226

Obama

Romney

2000

2004

50%

50%

256

195

240

179

Bush

Bush

Gore

Kerry

2012

2008

CHANGE

50%

50%

226

209

193

242

Obama

Romney

Obama

McCain

2012

2000

2004

2008

CHANGE

50%

50%

50%

50%

195

240

179

256

242

193

209

226

Bush

Gore

Kerry

Bush

Obama

McCain

Obama

Romney

Contingent elections

Using the tiebreaker, once again Romney and Trump are presidents

Currently, if the electors are deadlocked, the presidential election goes to the House of Representatives. The House has picked three presidents. The twist in this indirect form of election is that each representative does not get a vote. Instead, each state delegation has to agree on a vote. States with a mix of Democratic and Republican representatives might not agree on the presidential pick. The 2012 election yielded 30 states with a Republican-majority House delegation, so Romney would probably have been president under that system. And again in 2016, Republicans control 32 state delegations, so a decision by the House would probably favor Trump.

2000

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

28

18

0

100

200

300

500

400

Gore

Bush

2004

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

17

30

600

Bush

Kerry

2008

ME

VT

NH

WI

ID

WA

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

RI

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

16

33

0

100

200

300

400

500

McCain

Obama

2012

CHANGE

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

WY

SD

IN

OH

PA

CT

RI

NV

IA

NJ

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

30

17

600

Romney

Obama

2016

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

17

32

Clinton

Trump

2000

2004

ME

ME

WI

VT

NH

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

HI

AK

TX

FL

TX

FL

50%

50%

30

18

28

17

Bush

Bush

Kerry

Gore

2008

2012

CHANGE

ME

ME

VT

NH

WI

VT

NH

WI

ID

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

WA

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

RI

OR

WY

SD

IN

OH

PA

CT

RI

NV

IA

NJ

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

TX

FL

50%

50%

30

33

16

17

Obama

McCain

Romney

Obama

2016

ME

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

50%

17

32

Clinton

Trump

2016

114th Congress

ME

50%

WI

VT

NH

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

17

32

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

Clinton

Trump

2000

2004

2008

2012

107th Congress

109th Congress

111th Congress

113th Congress

CHANGE

ME

ME

ME

ME

WI

VT

NH

WI

VT

NH

VT

NH

WI

VT

NH

WI

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

ID

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

WA

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

NY

MA

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

RI

RI

OR

WY

SD

IN

OH

PA

CT

RI

NV

IA

NJ

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

PA

NJ

CT

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

VA

MD

DE

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

HI

AK

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

OK

LA

MS

AL

GA

HI

AK

TX

FL

TX

FL

TX

FL

TX

FL

50%

50%

50%

50%

17

30

16

17

33

28

18

30

Bush

Obama

McCain

Romney

Gore

Bush

Kerry

Obama

Source: United States House of Representatives, Mathematical Association of America, UK Parliament, U.S. Election Assistance Commission, National Archives, United States Census Bureau, Associated Press, Polidata Federal Election Commission, Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. presidential election.

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Hate our electoral system? Here's who could have been president under other setups

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We explored what would happen under different electoral systems - and found that adjusted rules could have changed the outcome in half of the presidential elections since 2000.

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Why a National Popular Vote Movement is Unconstitutional

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Why a National Popular Vote Movement is Unconstitutional

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NATELSON: Why A National Popular Vote Is Unconstitutional

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The U.S. Supreme Court says each state legislature has "plenary" (complete) power to decide how its state's presidential electors are chosen. But suppose a state legislature decided to raise cash by selling its electors to the highest bidder. Do you think the Supreme Court would uphold such a measure?

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The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia ( Explanation). It has been enacted into law by 15 states and DC with 195 electoral votes ( Map of states). It needs an additional 75 electoral votes to go into effect.

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State status: AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV WY The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (Explanation).

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Three Reasons Why We Need the Electoral College

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Three Reasons Why We Need the Electoral College

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Three Reasons Why We Need the Electoral College

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Petition Asks Electoral College to Elect Hillary Clinton: Faithless Electors Explained

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PostEverything: In defense of the electoral college

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PostEverything: In defense of the electoral college

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The debate over the continued use of the Electoral College resurfaced during the 2016 presidential election, when Donald Trump lost the general election to Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes and won the Electoral College by 74 votes. The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes).

Prior to the 2016 election, there were four times in US history when a candidate won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: 1824 ( John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson), 1876 ( Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden), 1888 ( Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland), and 2000 ( George W. Bush over Al Gore).

The Electoral College was established in 1788 by Article II of the US Constitution, which also established the executive branch of the US government, and was revised by the Twelfth Amendment (ratified June 15, 1804), the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified July 1868), and the Twenty-Third Amendment (ratified Mar. 29, 1961). Because the procedure for electing the president is part of the Constitution, a Constitutional Amendment (which requires two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress plus approval by 38 states) would be required to abolish the Electoral College.

The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College as a compromise between electing the president via a vote in Congress only or via a popular vote only. The Electoral College comprises 538 electors; each state is allowed one elector for each Representative and Senator (DC is allowed 3 electors as established by the Twenty-Third Amendment).

In each state, a group of electors is chosen by each political party. On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. Most states use the "winner-take-all" method, in which all electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the popular vote in that state. In Nebraska and Maine, the candidate that wins the state's overall popular vote receives two electors, and one elector from each congressional district is apportioned to the popular vote winner in that district. For a candidate to win the presidency, he or she must win at least 270 Electoral College votes.

At least 700 amendments have been proposed to modify or abolish the Electoral College.

On Monday Dec. 19, 2016, the electors in each state met to vote for President and Vice President of the United States. Of the 538 Electoral College votes available, Donald J. Trump received 304 votes, Hillary Clinton received 227 votes, and seven votes went to others: three for Colin Powell, one for Faith Spotted Eagle, one for John Kasich, one for Ron Paul, and one for Bernie Sanders). On Dec. 22, 2016, the results were certified in all 50 states. On Jan. 6, 2017, a joint session of the US Congress met to certify the election results and Vice President Joe Biden, presiding as President of the Senate, read the certified vote tally.

A Sep. 2020 Gallup poll found 61% of Americans were in favor of abolishing the Electoral College, up 12 points from 2016.

For the 2020 election, electors voted on Dec. 14, and delivered the results on Dec. 23. On Jan. 6, 2021, Congress held a joint session to certify the electoral college votes during which several Republican lawmakers objected to the results and pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol sending Vice President Pence, lawmakers and staff to secure locations. The votes were certified in the early hours of Jan. 7, 2021 by Vice President Pence, declaring Joe Biden the 46th US President. President Joe Biden was inaugurated with Vice President Kamala Harris on Jan. 20, 2021.

Should the United States Use the Electoral College in Presidential Elections?

Pro 1

The Electoral College ensures that that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the President of the United States.

If the election depended solely on the popular vote, then candidates could limit campaigning to heavily-populated areas or specific regions. To win the election, presidential candidates need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire country.

Without the electoral college, groups such as Iowa farmers and Ohio factory workers would be ignored in favor of pandering to metropolitan areas with higher population densities, leaving rural areas and small towns marginalized.

Tina Mulally, South Dakota Representative, stated that the Electoral College protects small state and minority interests and that a national popular vote would be ""like two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Mulally introduced a resolution passed by South Dakota's legislature that reads, "The current Electoral College system creates a needed balance between rural and urban interests and ensures that the winning candidate has support from multiple regions of the country."
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Pro 2

The Electoral College was created to protect the voices of the minority from being overwhelmed by the will of the majority.

The Founding Fathers wanted to balance the will of the populace against the risk of "tyranny of the majority," in which the voices of the masses can drown out minority interests.

Using electors instead of the popular vote was intended to safeguard the presidential election against uninformed or uneducated voters by putting the final decision in the hands of electors who were most likely to possess the information necessary to make the best decision in a time when news was not widely disseminated.

The Electoral College was also intended to prevent states with larger populations from having undue influence, and to compromise between electing the president by popular vote and letting Congress choose the president.

According to Alexander Hamilton, the Electoral College is if "not perfect, it is at least excellent," because it ensured "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications."

Democratic Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak vetoed a measure in 2019 that would add the state to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would have obligated the state's electors to vote for the popular vote winner. Governor Sisolak stated, the compact "could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada's electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose."

Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner for the FEC, explained, "The Framers' fears of a 'tyranny of the majority' is still very relevant today. One can see its importance in the fact that despite Hillary Clinton's national popular vote total, she won only about a sixth of the counties nationwide, with her support limited mostly to urban areas on both coasts."
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Pro 3

The Electoral College can preclude calls for recounts or demands for run-off elections, giving certainty to presidential elections.

If the election were based on popular vote, it would be possible for a candidate to receive the highest number of popular votes without actually obtaining a majority.

This happened with President Nixon in 1968 and President Clinton in 1992, when both men won the most electoral votes while receiving just 43% of the popular vote. The existence of the Electoral College precluded calls for recounts or demands for run-off elections.

Richard A. Posner, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, further explained, "There is pressure for runoff elections when no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College, which invariably produces a clear winner."

The electoral process can also create a larger mandate to give the president more credibility; for example, President Obama received 51.3% of the popular vote in 2012 but 61.7% of the electoral votes.

In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost the electoral vote only six times. This proves the system is working.
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Con 1

The Electoral College gives too much power to swing states and allows the presidential election to be decided by a handful of states.

The two main political parties can count on winning the electoral votes in certain states, such as California for the Democratic Party and Indiana for the Republican Party, without worrying about the actual popular vote totals. Because of the Electoral College, presidential candidates only need to pay attention to a limited number of states that can swing one way or the other.

A Nov. 6, 2016 episode of PBS NewsHour revealed that "Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. Of those visits, nearly two-thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with the most electoral votes - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina."

Gautam Mukunda, political scientist at Harvard University , explained that states are given electors based on its representation in the House and Senate, so small states get extra votes. Mukunda stated, "The fact that in presidential elections people in Wyoming have [nearly four] times the power of people in California is antithetical at the most basic level to what we say we stand for as a democracy."
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Con 2

The Electoral College is rooted in slavery and racism.

The "minority" interests the Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to protect were those of slaveowners and states with legal slavery. James Madison stated, "There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections."

As Wilfred Wilfred Codrington III, Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School and a fellow at the Brennan Center, explained, "Behind Madison's statement were the stark facts: The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president... With about 93 percent of the country's slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary of the compromise, increasing the size of the South's congressional delegation by 42 percent. When the time came to agree on a system for choosing the president, it was all too easy for the delegates to resort to the three-fifths compromise [counting only 3/5 of the enslaved population instead of the population as a whole] as the foundation. The peculiar system that emerged was the Electoral College."

The racism at the root of the Electoral College persists, suppressing the votes of people of color in favor of voters from largely homogenously white states.
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Con 3

Democracy should function on the will of the people, allowing one vote per adult.

There are over an estimated 332 million people in the United States, with population estimates predicting almost 342 million by 2024, the next presidential election. But just 538 people decide who will be president; that's about 0.000156% of the population deciding the president. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet still lost the election on electoral votes.

Robert Nemanich, math teacher and former elector from Colorado Springs, stated, "Do we really want 538 Bob Nemanichs electing our president? ...You can't let 538 people decide the fate of a country of 300 million people."

Even President Donald Trump, who benefitted from the Electoral College system, stated after the 2016 election that he believes presidents should be chosen by popular vote: "I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win." Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush received fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore, Donald Trump served as the President of the United States despite being supported by fewer Americans than his opponent.

Jesse Wegman, author of Let the People Pick the President, stated, "If anything, representative democracy in the 21st century is about political equality. It's about one person, one vote - everybody's vote counting equally. You're not going to convince a majority of Americans that that's not how you should do it."

John Koza, Chairman of National Popular Vote, warned, "At this point I think changing the system to something better is going to determine whether there's a dictator in this country."
Read More
Discussion Questions
1. Should the Electoral College be abolished? Why or why not?

2. Should the Electoral College be modified? How and why? Or why not?

3. What other voting reforms would you make? Rank choice voting? Voter ID laws? Make a list and offer support for each reform. If you would not change the voting process, make a list of reforms and why you would not choose to enact them.
Take Action
1. Listen to a Constitution Center podcast exploring the pros and cons of the Electoral College.

2. Explore the Electoral College via the US National Archives.

3. Consider the American Bar Association's fact check on whether the Electoral College can be abolished.

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the "other side of the issue" now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives.
Sources

26.

John Wagner, et al., "Pence Declares Biden Winner of the Presidential Election after Congress Finally Counts Electoral Votes," washingtonpost.com, Jan. 7, 2021

33.

Mara Liasson, "A Growing Number of Critics Raise Alarms about the Electoral College," npr.org, June 10, 2021

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Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 16?- Proponents say teens are knowledgeable enough to vote. Opponents say kids aren't mature enough to vote.

Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? - Proponents say an election day holiday will increase voter turnout. Opponents say would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers.

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Electoral College Pros and Cons - Top 3 Arguments For and Against

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The debate over the continued use of the Electoral College resurfaced during the 2016 presidential election, when Donald Trump lost the general election to Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes and won the Electoral College by 74 votes.

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Electoral College 101 | Op-Docs | The New York Times

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Why The Electoral College Ruins Democracy

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Why The Electoral College Ruins Democracy

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Why The Electoral College Ruins Democracy | Adam Ruins Everything