The Electoral College

During the 1787 Constitutional meetings in Philadelphia, our Founding Fathers had the task of welding disparate and often disputatious sections of the country into a single nation. The thirteen colonies had long been divided sectionally along economic lines as wall as cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, to produce a country whereby no one section could dominate the presidential elections, a system was devised guaranteeing every state a distinct voice in the election process.1 It was called the Electoral College, created under Article II Section 1:2 of the Constitution. It provides that the candidate with the highest number of votes will be president and the runner-up, vice president. If there is a majority, the House will choose from the top five candidates.2

Further, the Constitution provides that: "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress."

During the early 19th Century the feature of "popular vote" was added to the College. This means that popular votes are collected with

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a "majority" can be determined. It also avoids uncertainty when the popular vote is extremely close such as was the case in 1960 between John Kennedy and Barry Goldwater and in 1968 when Richard Nixon won the presidency with only 43.4 percent of the popular vote to Hubert Humphrey's 42.7 percent and George Wallace's 13.5 percent.9 In addition, they claim that the nightmare scenario depicting chaos should no one win an Electoral College majority is extremely remote. It hasn't happened since 1825, when the suffrage was far narrower than it is today.10 Lastly, they point out that the fear a candidate could win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College vote is unjustified. It has only happened twice and both elections' results were tampered with through freakish circumstances. In 1876, the GOP won the College vote by an extraordinary "dirty deal" with Southern Democrats, and in 1888 the popular vote count was marred because hundreds of thousands of ballots cast by blacks for the Republican ticket in the South were systematically tossed out, costing the GOP a popular majority.11 The American Institute of Public Opinion asked before the closely-contested 1966 election: "Would you approve or disapprove of an amendment t
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Approximate Word count = 2222
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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