The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons

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. 
For the 2020 election, electors are scheduled to meet and vote on Dec. 14, and deliver the results
on Dec. 23. A Sep. 2020 Gallup poll found 61% of Americans were in favor of abolishing the
Electoral College, up 12 points from 2016. 
Should the United States Use the Electoral College in Presidential Elections?
Pro 1 Con 1
The Founding Fathers enshrined the The reasons the Founding Fathers created
Electoral College in the US Constitution the Electoral College are no longer relevant.
because they thought it was the best method Modern technology and political parties allows
to choose the president. voters to get necessary information to make
Using electors instead of the popular vote was informed decisions in a way that could not
intended to safeguard against uninformed or have been foreseen by the Founding Fathers. 
uneducated voters by putting the final decision
in the hands of electors most likely to possess While Alexander Hamilton in 1788 saw the
the information necessary to make the best electors as being “free from any sinister bias,”
decision; to prevent states with larger members of the Electoral College are now
populations from having undue influence; and selected by the political parties and they are
to compromise between electing the president expected to vote along party lines regardless of
by popular vote and letting Congress choose their own opinions about the candidates. 
the president. 
Just as several voting laws that limited direct
According to Alexander Hamilton, the democracy in the Constitution have been
Electoral College is if “not perfect, it is at least
modified or discarded throughout history, so
excellent,” because it ensured “that the officeshould the Electoral College. As a result of
of President will never fall to the lot of any Constitutional amendments, women and
man who is not in an eminent degree endowed former slaves were given the right to vote, and
with the requisite qualifications.”  Senators, once appointed by state legislatures,
are now elected directly by popular vote. The
The Founders wanted to balance the will of the vice presidency was once awarded to the
populace against the risk of “tyranny of the runner up in electoral votes, but the procedure
majority,” in which the voices of the masses was changed over time to reflect the reality of
can drown out minority interests.  elections. 
Pro 2 Con 2
The Electoral College ensures that all parts of The Electoral College gives too much power
the country are involved in selecting the to "swing states" and allows the presidential
President of the United States. election to be decided by a handful of states.
If the election depended solely on the popular The two main political parties can count on
vote, then candidates could limit campaigning winning the electoral votes in certain states,
to heavily-populated areas or specific regions. such as California for the Democratic Party
To win the election, presidential candidates and Indiana for the Republican Party, without
need electoral votes from multiple regions and worrying about the actual popular vote totals.
therefore they build campaign platforms with a Because of the Electoral College, presidential
national focus, meaning that the winner will candidates only need to pay attention to a
actually be serving the needs of the entire limited number of states that can swing one
country. way or the other. 

Without the electoral college, groups such as A Nov. 6, 2016 episode of PBS
Iowa farmers and Ohio factory workers would NewsHour revealed that “Donald Trump and
be ignored in favor of pandering to Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of
metropolitan areas with higher population their campaign stops in just 11 so-called
densities, leaving rural areas and small towns battleground states. Of those visits, nearly two-
marginalized.  thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with
the most electoral votes — Florida,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina.” 
Pro 3 Con 3
The Electoral College guarantees certainty to The Electoral College ignores the will of the
the outcome of the presidential election. people.
If the election were based on popular vote, it There are over 300 million people in the
would be possible for a candidate to receive the United States, but just 538 people decide who
highest number of popular votes without will be president. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won
actually obtaining a majority.  the popular vote by more than one million
votes, yet still lost the election on electoral
This happened with President Nixon in 1968 votes. 
and President Clinton in 1992, when both men
won the most electoral votes while receiving Even President Donald Trump, who benefitted
just 43% of the popular vote. The existence of from the system, stated after the 2016 election
the Electoral College precluded calls for that he believes presidents should be chosen by
recounts or demands for run-off elections. popular vote: “I would rather see it where you
went with simple votes. You know, you get
The electoral process can also create a larger 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90
mandate to give the president more credibility; million votes and you win.” 
for example, President Obama received 51.3%
of the popular vote in 2012 but 61.7% of the Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush received
electoral votes.  In 227 years, the winner of the fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore,
popular vote has lost the electoral vote only Donald Trump will serve as the President of
five times. This proves the system is working. the United States despite being supported by
fewer Americans than his opponent. 

Proposed Solution:

Proportional Allocation of Seats

One solution to the stalemate could be to implement changes at the state level because the U.S.
Constitution does not specify how individual states must allocate their electoral votes. By
creating their own laws and statutes, the states could reform the system at the state level without
having to go through the political conflict and difficulty of amending the federal Constitution to
remove the Electoral College.

With these types of reforms, states could embrace several alternative options, including a popular
concept based around the proportional allocation of Electoral College votes.
Proportional allocation would allow a district leaning toward a state’s minority party to win a
percentage of an Electoral College vote. It “would allow for urban areas with higher populations
to have greater (political) weight versus rural areas of a state, as the American population
becomes more urban and less rural”. “It seems feasible that if there would be some way of
distributing urban population votes in Missouri, the areas would have a greater say in the
(Electoral College vote) distribution system, so they would actually matter for the purposes of
who becomes president.”