Skau, George H. “A Critical Analysis of the Presidential Election System.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1976): 42–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20556862.

Summary

“A Critical Analysis of the Presidential Election System” is a political article published in the 6th volume of “Presidential Studies Quarterly” by George H. Skau. This article examines the history of the election system in the United States, from all the way back to the founding fathers, and up until the 70s, when the article was written. Skau analyzes the development of the system, touching on notable elections that revealed problematic aspects of the election system. One notable example was the election of 1912 which revealed the discrepancy between electoral and popular votes. Skau argues that even tiny margins in the highly populated states can nullify potentially millions of votes due to a disproportionate win in the electoral college. The article calls for reform, strongly mentioning direct popular vote, mentioning how the current system allows for someone who receives the most amount of votes to still be denied office. He discusses the obvious tension between true democratic principles and need for preserving what works, highlighting how the electoral college was meant to give the less populous states more representation.

Response

I thoroughly enjoyed this source because of how straightforward and chronological it was. It went from the first elections all the way until 1972, which was the last election before this paper was written. Definitely a weakness is the age of the article, even though 1972 is not the longest time ago, there are definitely some notable recent examples that reveal problematic aspects of the election system, such as Gore vs. Bush in 2000. But these modern topics were covered in the other articles so I am not too worried. You really notice similarities between these articles critiquing the electoral system, mainly mentioning the fact that the nation-wide popular vote is essential useless.

Research Notes

I believe this was one of the first sources I found during my research process. JSTOR has been really helpful for finding sources as you can just filter in words than you want / don’t want to include.

Virgin, Sheahan G. “Competing Loyalties in Electoral Reform: An Analysis of the U.S. Electoral College.” Electoral Studies 49 (2017): 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2017.07.003.

Spafford, Duff. “The Electoral System of Canada.” The American Political Science Review 64, no. 1 (1970): 168–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/1955620.

Summary

“The Elecotral System of Canada” is a political article published in the American Political Science Review by the late Duff Spafford, from University of Saskatchewan. Spafford aims to identify the more important factors which determine the seats in the Canadian House of Commons during a general election. He shows the historical relationship between the percentage of vote in an election and the percentage of seats in the house and how inconsistent it can be. Spafford mentions how the party who gains the most votes is rewarded with seats at the expense of the other party. He proves these discrepancies with a table that shows how between the 1930 and 1935 general elections, the Liberal party gained almost double their percentage of seats in the House, even though they gained a smaller percentage of the total vote. Spafford concludes that the effect of the smaller parties have on the seats in the House, explains the discrepancies in the relationship between percentage of vote and percentage of seats.

Response

I chose this source because it explains the Canadian electoral system, and also makes some comparisons to other countries’ systems. A strength of this source is how it compares the Canadian system with the British system and American system. It is helpful to see how someone else makes comparisons, since my research topic is on comparing different systems. Once again, I wished the author talked more about how the system is formatted, instead of delving straight into complex mathematical equations and graphs.

Research Notes

This was another source I found on JSTOR. This was from our Thursday work period, and I happened to stumble across it while browsing through articles.

Fon, Vincy. “Electoral College Alternatives and US Presidential Elections.” Supreme Court Economic Review 12 (2004): 41–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3655317.

Summary

“Electoral College Alternatives and US Presidential Elections” written by Dr. Vincy Fon, is a political article published in the 12th volume of “Supreme Court Economic Review.” In this article, Fon aims to consider alternatives to the current popular vote and ‘winner-take-all’ Electoral College system, and to gain a more in-depth understanding of the already established alternatives within the Electoral College that were presented by the founding fathers. She explains how the current system has two components: the Popular Vote and the Electoral College. She critiques the relationship between the two components, as just winning 51% of a popular vote could result in a landslide victory in electoral votes OR a close victory in electoral votes. She mentions the obvious critique of a candidate becoming president even with a minority of the nation-wide popular vote, due to the Electoral College. For this election system, Fon concludes that this system reflects voter preference within a state, but the electoral vote does not provide any indication of whether the popular vote was close or a landslide. She goes on to explain the Congressional District method of Maine and Nebraska, comparing it with the nation-wide system, and provides historical examples of each system functioning positively / negatively.

Response

I chose this source because of its apparent relevance to my topic. Since I am comparing election systems across two countries, it would be best to actually understand the electoral system in one of the countries. A strength of this source is how straightforward some of the arguments are. For example, Fon says the words “this article aims to…” which makes it a lot easier to follow. On the other hand, a weakness is the accessibility of this source to people who aren’t mathematicians or political theorists or economists. When proposing her own alternatives to the current U.S systems, she throws a million variables at you, and then calculus, and then a bunch of graphs. Making it almost impossible to follow without prior knowledge or a lot of time diving into this source.

Research Notes

I found this source while exploring JSTOR during our in-class meeting with Luis from AFL. The title really caught my eye since it is quite relevant to my topic, and the author is very credible, with a PhD in economics, and is a professor who teaches law and economics courses.

Zadorsky, Justin. “Expert Explainer: How Canadian Federal Elections Work.” Western News, March 26, 2025. accessed March 30, 2025,

Summary

This article is an interview with political science professor Laura Stephenson, published by Justin Zadorsky in the Western University news website. The article serves as a place to watch the interview as a video, as well as a transcript of the questions and responses. Stephenson highlights important factors to know about the upcoming Canadian election, and presents the info in an easily accessible manner so that all Canadians can understand and become knowledgeable for when it is time to vote this April. She explains how Canada does not have direct representation, meaning we do not elect our Prime Minister directly, instead we vote for the Member of Parliament from our riding, who gets a seat in the House, and the leader of the party with the most amount of seats becomes Prime Minister. Stephenson goes on to talk about the Canadian popular vote and contrasting it with the popular vote in the United States, she also mentions the idea of electoral reform, saying that it will always be relevant.

Response

I picked this article because it is from a highly credible Canadian university, and it a very straightforward and simple explanation of how elections work in Canada. In order to understand my topic of election processes, I need to understand each country’s process properly. A weakness of this article is how surface-level some of the responses are, since it is trying to be highly accessible and oversimplified, it leaves out some of the more important details. This article relates to some of the other sources I have chosen, since it also makes comparisons between Canada and the U.S’s way of doing things. This article mentions the idea of the popular vote, and how it doesn’t work the way we think it does, which is also an emphasized concept in my other sources.

Research Notes

I chose this article during the class time we got where we picked our non-scholarly sources. I found it by looking for interviews and internet articles about election processes.

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964)

Summary

This article is a Supreme Court Case from 1964. The Plaintiff is James P. Wesberry, a voter in the 5th congressional district of Georgia at the time. The defendant is Carl Sanders, the former governor of Georgia. Wesberry argued that his district had almost 3x the population of all the other districts in the state, and therefore diluted his vote, since each district still gets only one representative in the House. Wesberry v. Sanders was based on Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. This section relates to how representatives in the House are chosen, and says they must be chosen “by the People of the several States.”

The case is important because it was a part of a series of “Warren Court” cases which brought the idea of “One Person, One Vote” to congressional districts. The court ruled 6-3 in favour of Wesberry, and the decision had major impacts on representation in the House, as many districts had to be redrawn in order to have more equal populations.

Response

I feel like I hit a bit of a jackpot with this court case, since I was just browsing a bunch of Supreme Court cases to see if any related to my topic of elections, and this one absolutely does. The idea of each district having a roughly equal population seems pretty intuitive nowadays but it is interesting to see how that wasn’t always the case. This relates to my paper topic, because although Canada has representation by population, most ridings in PEI have around 30,000 people, but most in Ontario have around 130,000 people, meaning a single PEI vote has a lot more weight than a single Ontario vote. This is the problem addressed in the Wesberry v. Sanders case, which has a context even outside the U.S.

Research Notes

I found this source on the day the bibliography was due, since I was curious about looking for any Supreme Court cases that would relate to my paper, and this one definitely did. I found it just by browsing a list of Supreme Court cases, hoping one would be relevant.