Brief notes on the US electoral college
11.14.2004I promised Marco an explanation of sorts concerning the quirky American electoral system known as the "electoral college". I guess it's time I delivered.
On the heels of another election, we're all painfully aware the popular vote doesn't count in US presidential elections. Instead, we've a quaint system by which each state has some number of electoral college votes (equal to each state's number of House representatives plus its two senators). Whoever wins the popular vote in each state, whether it's by one vote or one million votes, wins all the state's electoral college votes. Well, except for the case of Maine and Nebraska, where the plurality winner gets the two "senatorial" votes, and then another vote for each congressional district won (as of 2004, neither state has "split" its votes).
The concept of an electoral college is old, but now only used in the United States. This American electoral college was established in Article II of the Constitution, modified in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment & in 1961 by the Twenty-Third Amendment (which gave Washington DC electors). None of these changes, of course, dramatically altered the basic system: Presidents are elected indirectly by a list of electors chosen by the candidates to represent them in each state.
Also note that members of the electoral college have been known in the past to cast votes against their own candidates, though this infrequently happens & usually doesn't affect the outcome. BTW, here's a series of electoral college maps from elections since 1792.
While the system clearly has its problems, it works about as well as, and under similar logic to, European parliamentary systems. In both types of systems, the executive is chosen indirectly. Most presidential systems use the popular vote to elect a president, and these also often include a second-round voting system to ensure a president wins at least 50%+1 of the vote. It's important to note, however, that most of those systems are centralized, not federal states. And even those that are federal systems, like Brazil, are markedly different from the US case of bottom-up federalism.
The US electoral college combines two principles: democratic majoritianism & protection of minorities. This in keeping w/ the principles of America's "Founding Fathers" — most notably Madison — who argued against "pure" democracy, fearing a "tyranny of the majority" would trample on individual liberties. So. The entire structure of the US political system was meant to create semi-ambiguous lines of authority dispersed over several branches to prevent any one from dominating. The end result, of course, is a government that's tediously slow, but also quite incapable of making radical departures towards the right or the left. Hence, unlike 1930s Europe, neither communism nor fascism made any serious headway.
It's also important to note, of course, that US federalism still retains a very different attitude than European or Latin American federalism. In the background is still the notion that each "state" (the word betrays the original intent) is politically autonomous. The original thirteen colonies were considered independent states in their own right, each deciding to independently ratify the Constitution and join a "federation" together. To this day, federal law is superior to state law, but on all matters where federal law is silent, state law reigns (which, in turn, helps explain why the US Constitution is so vaguely worded). This makes for some unique experiences. Each state has its own voting regulations, its own driver's licenses, its own drinking laws (even on a county-by-county basis).
What does this have to do w/ the electoral college? Well, the Framers intended that each state would act together to cast a vote for a president. Not voters, states. Each state has a say in who will be the next president. Part of the idea was to protect small states from large states. In the original thirteen colonies, this meant prevent New York or Virginia from dominating the other eleven. Currently, this means protecting small states like North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Montana from large states like New York, Texas, and California.
But, like most of the US government system, there's a careful balancing act between states & populations. That's why the Senate has two members from each state — regardless of population — while the House of Representatives' seats are distributed by population (more populous states get more seats).
The electoral college, basically, is meant to balance both of these ideas — majority rule & protection of minorities. Each state elects the president individually, and each state's vote is weighted by population (California's 55 electoral college votes vs. Montana's 3). But the most important point to remember about the US electoral college is that it's not designed to let voters choose a president, but rather states.
A parallel to this might be recent developments in the European Union. Like the US, the EU is a federation of previously autonomous states. How they decide to determine how EU governments are elected will involve many of the same debates during the US Constitutional Convention. Should EU governments be elected by voters at large? Or by member states? So far, EU legislators are elected on a state-by-state basis (like the US model). The EU "executive" is the European Council, w/ one member per state, but the president of the Council is not elected, but rather selected (on a rotating basis) by the states. If something resembling a EU "presidency" is ever developed, it'll be interesting to see what kind of electoral system is adopted.
Posted by Miguel at 01:50 PM