Election season is now upon us! The debates are well
under way, and with a little luck we will have a new
president next year! As many of you know, I am a Political
Science graduate and a political junkie. I’d like to use this
column to talk about a subject I have heard brought up a
few times, including at the CSS meetings. That is the
Electoral College.
Here’s a basic idea behind the Electoral College. Each state
has a certain number of Electors which is determined by the
number of members it has in the House, plus the number of
members it has in the Senate, so in Oregon we have seven
Electoral votes. With the Electoral College you must get
enough support in enough states before you can be elected
president. In nearly all states, it’s a “winner takes all”
system. If you win the popular vote within a state you win
that state’s electoral votes. The one with the most electoral
votes wins the election.
The main question I hear is “I don’t even know why we
have the Electoral College in the first place” or “Majority
rules, why bother with the Electoral College?” To be
honest, I am not sure whether the Electoral College is still a
good idea or not, but I think we should take a look at why it
was created in the first place.
When this country was first formed, the founding fathers
set about the arduous task of deciding how to elect a
president. Many ideas were tossed about, including
election by direct popular vote.
The original idea behind the Electoral College was to force
a candidate to campaign and appeal to the less populated
states. As well as force them to get their message out to
ALL states and prove they truly appeal and can represent
all of them. The problem we face is that as this country
aged, technology developed. With the advent of national
news organizations, newspapers, television and the
Internet, we now have a glut of information. It is now very
easy for a candidate to get their message out to everyone,
and with the help of the press it’s spread to all corners of
the country.
So in this modern world, does the Electoral College really
do any good? I honestly don’t know. I still am a little
undecided on the entire issue. I don’t believe that most
Americans understand the Electoral College, let along why
it was created, and I do think that before we quickly
condemn the system we should all understand why it was
created in the first place. In the end, I tend to lean towards
abolishing the system. It was a good idea in the beginning,
but modern technology really makes the Electoral College
rather moot.
The idea behind the Electoral College is to force a candidate
to appeal to the broad based general population. If you
want to be President, you have to appeal to votes not only
in the big cities, but in the rural areas as well. This forces
campaigning all across the country. It would be easy for a
popular candidate from New York to spend all their time
building up support in the northeast where they are
popular. They would eventually win the popular vote and
get elected President, but it was feared that the other states
would resent this and create problems for the new union.
“Direct election was rejected not because the
Framers of the Constitution doubted public
intelligence but rather because they feared that
without sufficient information about candidates
from outside their State, people would naturally
vote for a “favorite son” from their own State or
region. At worst, no president would emerge with a
popular majority sufficient to govern the whole
country. At best, the choice of president would
always be decided by the largest, most populous
States with little regard for the smaller ones.”
— The Electoral College, William C. Kimberling
Deputy Director FEC, Office of Election Administration,
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
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Angela C. Byers
Copyright © 1996 - 2003 Angela C. Byers