Debating the Electoral College

It has always had the potential for chaos—one that hasn’t been tapped…yet.

Rooted in distrust of ordinary citizens and, like so many other features of American life, in the institution of slavery, the electoral college is a relic of a past the United States should have abandoned long ago.

The Electoral College has been a significant, if poorly comprehended, mechanism for stability, liberty, and legitimacy—all of which democracies can too easily come to undermine.

In close elections, Republicans are favored to win even when they lose the popular vote.

While the disconnect between the electoral and popular votes may be cause for alarm, abolishing the Electoral College poses even greater dangers, particularly for liberals.

Things are going to look much, much worse for the GOP’s chances with the Electoral College if red Texas, along with the battleground state of Florida, move to purple or blue in the coming years.

What would American politics look like without the Electoral College? Changing our current system would unsettle so many of the assumptions and incentives that drive presidential politics that the outcomes could easily be unpredictable.

Electoral College or direct election, conservatives have to convince more people, including in urban areas, that their policies are preferable.

Defenders of the Electoral College argue that it was created to combat majority tyranny and support federalism, and that it continues to serve those purposes. This stance depends on a profound misunderstanding of the history of the institution.

All are practical reasons, not liberal or conservative reasons.

A winner-take-all system within states can produce results counter to the majority for no high-minded reason.

The reason both parties united in support: Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

The Electoral College was built in part to accommodate white, male slave owners who could not have anticipated a two-party system, that slaves would be freed or that black people and women would be able to vote.

As a scholar of presidential democracies around the world, I’ve examined a range of options the U.S. could consider, if it chose to change how the president is elected.

There is a plan that can get the country closer to having a national popular election for president within the current constitutional framework, and without the need for a constitutional amendment.

The way we now elect presidents would horrify the authors of the U.S. electoral system. But the system can be fixed, and the power lies with the states.

The electoral college is hardly the optimal way to choose a national leader, and the case against it deserves serious debate. So does the complexity of devising a better alternative.

The Electoral College is a slippery target. In most political constituencies, opposition to the institution is fluid; with every elimination effort, the battle lines change.

Don’t like the results? Change the rules! Use this interactive map 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.

Everything you ever wanted to know about America’s byzantine system for selecting a president.