Editor’s note: This op-ed is by award-winning journalist Telly Halkias. It first appeared in the Portland Sun.
With midterm elections just around the corner, it’s never too late to look past them to 2016. Recently, I read a report on several states tinkering with how to allot their votes in the Electoral College, and I’m convinced the way we elect our presidents needs reform.
Americans select their chief executive indirectly when all other significant ballots in the country are direct. While this seems peculiar, it’s rooted in the best intentions, and historical realities, of our Founding Fathers.
The U.S. today is a larger, powerful, and more diverse nation that the original 13 states. Back then, James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton put together the first arguments that later defined our constitutional republic: The Federalist Papers. Part of this discussion was the formation of the Electoral College.
The College was created as a type of filter between the people and a president’s journey to office. This was to ensure that no politician, either through wealth or influence, became so powerful as to manipulate the public vote.
Such fears stemmed from the monarchy’s contemporaneous tyranny, something the Fathers sought to avoid at all costs. As a result, they viewed direct election as anathema.
On March 12, 1788, Hamilton, under the pseudonym of Publius, wrote in Federalist #68, in the Independent Journal:
A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations … It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder … But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
In other words, the protection was against a populace not to be trusted completely with the task at hand, given the political shenanigans of the day.
We need look no further than the 2000 election to identify the Electoral College’s major problem: electing a chief executive who didn’t win the popular vote.
Another key factor in the College’s formation was to dispel the concerns of smaller states having their voices muted by larger cousins. Each state would have the same number of electoral votes as they had members in Congress, so three was the minimum.
Yet what resulted is smaller states holding more sway, as each of their electoral votes represented far less voters per capita than in larger states.
A major issue today is the 19th century practice of winner-take-all; even if a candidate won a state with 50.1 percent, he would still receive all of that state’s electoral votes. And the Constitution allows states to determine their own manner of distribution.
Currently only Maine and Nebraska award the tallies proportionately — which circumvents the whole purpose of having electors in the first place. The recent exploration of tinkering in Pennsylvania (to change to proportionate) and Nebraska (to change back to winner-take-all) is a signal of how capricious the system can get.
We need look no further than the 2000 election to identify the Electoral College’s major problem: electing a chief executive who didn’t win the popular vote. Absent of this system, we might have been spared the drama and expense of the Florida recount in which Gov. George W. Bush prevailed over Vice President Al Gore.
And while that may be our system, in a democracy something doesn’t seem right with the number two guy in votes taking the number one job. The irony? Both Republicans and Democrats have supporters and detractors of the Electoral College, so there is no consensus on reform.
Because of this split within both parties, a direct popular vote is probably not in the cards. It would require a constitutional amendment, which takes ratification from 38 of the 50 states. Many smaller states would resist it, and political interests state-by-state would be another roadblock.
Today, the most promising initiative is the National Popular State Vote Interstate Compact, which includes eight states and the District of Columbia. This body will allocate all electors to the winner of the national popular vote when its members’ electoral votes equals 270 – the number needed to win a general election. But it’s still 138 votes short – a bridge too far — from becoming a reality.
Individuals have also weighed in. Scholars – most prominently Dr. Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia – have drawn up ways to effectively reform the Electoral College without eliminating it.
Can we find some way to build this bridge? Until we do, get ready for more of the same: Candidates campaigning during peak election season in a handful of so-called “swing” states, while those seen as “in the bag” are largely ignored.
In a democracy, one thinks we can do better.
You may e-mail Telly Halkias at tchalkias@aol.com or follow on Twitter: @TellyHalkias.
