Electoral College

The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. 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. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. There have been four presidents to win the presidency without actually winning the popular vote of the nation. The most recent incident of this was the 2000 election of President George W. Bush, and this sparked a new interest in changing the system. There are two states, Nebraska and Maine that currently use their electoral votes a little differently than the other 48 states. They allot two electoral votes to the statewide winner and the rest according to the winner in each congressional district. This is one change to the system that is currently being presented by legislators in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Another possible change is the “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote”, or the NPV compact. It would require electors to vote for the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. An issue with this change is that the president would most likely be elected from votes of more populated areas like big cities that have similar beliefs and the smaller states and rural areas voices’ would be lost due to them being so spread out. One major concern for the NPV compact is that it could lead to corruption of the voting process by candidates being blackmailed with the threat of losing votes if the blackmailer’s demands weren’t met. Also votes could be “bought” by candidates, especially in areas that have people that have fallen on hard economic times. Both concepts preserve the Electoral College and so not require a constitutional amendment since the U.S. Constitution gives sates exclusive control over how to award their electoral votes. Although these changes have their points for change, I believe the current Electoral College is the closest to what our founding fathers’ had in mind. Currently, an urban politician seeking the highest office is forced to travel to rural areas and hear concerns that might otherwise be alien to him. By compelling candidates to mingle at state fairs, speak with coal miners, throw bowling balls, and visit small-town churches, the Electoral College system gives candidates some appreciation of the great diversity of the nation. By contrast, under NPV a candidate might be able to win the presidency by campaigning only in major metropolitan areas. I feel that states should be able to decide on how or even if they would like to change the system they are currently using for their electoral votes, the Constitution of the United States gives the states exclusive control over how to award their electoral votes.