All who hope that the United States will remain a federal republic may derive a measure of consolation from the failure of the recent session of Congress to advocate any reform of the Electoral College. For that much-criticized institution in its present shape at least insures that the President shall be elected by the States acting as wholly autonomous units, unaffected by the nationwide popular vote. The Electoral College, indeed, is a complete refutation of the curious myth that the United States, politically speaking, is a democracy—assuming this misty word to signify a system in which the will of the majority, nationally expressed, is entitled to triumph. 

But this consolation, for those who prefer a federal republic to a necessarily centralized democracy, is heavily clouded by the many deficiencies, not to say absurdities, of the Electoral College as it has evolved. The fact that some of these shortcomings are concealed is perhaps a tribute to the skill with which our professional politicians operate. It is certainly no compliment to the current interest of the American people in self-government. Many will scarcely believe, for instance, that in this age of almost instantaneous computations there is, and can be, no accurate record of how many voters favored President Kennedy in November 1960. All we know for certain is that he was not supported by a majority of the popular vote, being the fourteenth president, since this vote began to be tabulated, to be chosen by a minority of those who troubled to declare a preference at the polls.

To substantiate this statement is simultaneously to throw light on the extraordinary complications of our electoral procedure. In Alabama, as used to be the case in most states, the names of presidential candidates do not appear on the ballot. Quite logically, the ballot carries instead the names of the electors, whose eventual prerogative it will be to vote a president into office. Last year the eleven Democratic electors in Alabama were selected by a party primary, which chose five pledged to the Kennedy–Johnson ticket and six who emphasized their hostility to it by running as independents. All eleven were listed on the ballot alphabetically, without identification of their leanings, but the tabulation of the statewide popular vote showed that the lowest of the six unpledged electors—all of whom later cast their ballots for Senator Byrd—ran more than 2,000 above the highest of the electors pledged to Kennedy. 

It would be beyond the abilities of an Einstein accurately to classify these confused Alabama votes in terms of support for, or antagonism to, the Kennedy candidacy. The Associated Press, feeling it necessary to report something intelligible, merely attributed to the Democratic candidate the highest number of votes cast for any Kennedy elector in Alabama, which was 318,303. The equally reputable Congressional Quarterly chose to take the highest vote cast for any Alabama elector, which was 324,050, and then gave Kennedy five-elevenths of that figure. So close was the popular vote, throughout the nation as a whole, that the second of these arbitrary methods served to credit Nixon with a small plurality in the consolidated returns, while the first formula did the same for Kennedy. 

The closeness of the contest last November, and even more the charges of fraudulent count in several key states, served to concentrate public attention on the delayed electoral vote by which the President of the United States is actually chosen. The statutory date for this, which can of course be altered by Congress at any time, is the first Monday after the second Wednesday of the December immediately following the popular vote. On December 19, 1960, therefore, the electors chosen by the people on November 8 assembled in the various state capitals to elect the president. There are currently 537 members of this so-called “Electoral College,” which has no location, no permanent existence as a continuous body, and which has never assembled as a whole. 

While the electoral vote of each state was announced from its capital as cast on December 19, the presidential election was still not officially completed. This necessitated a third act, on January 6, 1961, when the outgoing president of the Senate (Mr. Nixon) certified the electoral vote to a joint session of both Houses of the expiring 86th Congress. The formality showed 300 electoral votes for Kennedy, 219 for Nixon, and 15 for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, who had never been a candidate. For vice president there were 300 votes for Senator Lyndon Johnson; 219 for Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; 14 for Senator Thurmond of South Carolina, and one for Senator Goldwater of Arizona, the last two of whom also were not candidates for office.

A further curiosity, in this highly implausible election system, was that the three electoral votes of Hawaii were not counted at all. The hairline division of the popular vote there had prevented a conclusive certification of any electoral slate for this newest state. So far as the presidency was concerned the people of Hawaii, for all their enthusiasm over statehood, might just as well not have voted.  

A largely unrealized point about the presidential electoral system is that there is nothing except party discipline, which cannot be legally enforced, to restrain an elector, once chosen as such, from voting for whomever he pleases. Of the fifteen who voted for Senator Byrd as president, eight came from Mississippi, six from Alabama, and one from Oklahoma, although the popular vote in this last state favored Nixon over Kennedy by better than 5 to 4. The phenomenon of electoral independence is not new. It accords both with the letter and spirit of the Constitution and is not infrequently exercised. In 1956, for instance, Circuit Judge Walter B. Jones received an electoral vote from Alabama though he had never been mentioned as a presidential candidate. 

Widely noted, however, was the fact that Senator Byrd, though refusing to be a candidate, still obtained almost 3 percent of the conclusive vote. If he had actively campaigned and won only the thirty-two additional electoral votes of Louisiana and the two Carolinas, Kennedy would not have had a majority of the Electoral College. In that case the election would have been thrown into the outgoing House of Representatives for decision, as happened in 1800 and again in 1824. It could happen a third time, and the weakening of party discipline, with both Democrats and Republicans rent by internal dissension, makes such an outcome more than a mere theoretical possibility for 1964.  

Since the last election there has developed a more general realization that a presidential candidate might seemingly be elected in November, yet found unauthorized to hold that office when the Electoral College vote is taken. This danger to national stability, plus the extreme complexity and illogic of the inherited system, has brought a flood of legislative proposals for its reform. All of them, however, require a constitutional amendment, since the existing arrangement is carefully spelled out in Article 11, Section 1 of the Constitution and in the revisionary Twelfth Amendment. Furthermore, and significantly, none of these proposals reached the voting stage in either House during the past session of Congress.

The situation is one that merits both a review of how it developed and a consideration of what, if anything, should be done to elect the President of the United States in a more rational manner.  

Origin of the Electoral College

As is known to every student of Madison’s Reports, the problem of presidential election was one of the most carefully considered and thoroughly discussed of all those confronting the Founding Fathers.

The Constitutional Convention got down to work in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, and as early as June 1, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, observed that even though “it might appear chimerical” he would say “at least that in theory he was for an election by the people.” That Wilson did not himself expect direct election of the president, however, was demonstrated the following day. He then formally proposed that the states be divided into electoral districts and that those resident therein and qualified to vote for Representatives in Congress should “elect members for their respective districts to be electors of the Executive magistracy.” It was further specified that the electors must not choose the Executive “out of their own body.” Here was the germ of the Electoral College, but Mr. Wilson’s motion was at the time voted down by eight of the ten states present, being favored only by Pennsylvania and Maryland.

By July 17 the delegates were ready to assess the two most radically different proposals: on the one hand, the election of the president by direct popular vote; on the other, his election by the Congress. The first alternative was supported only by Pennsylvania. There was general agreement with the scathing assertion of George Mason, of Virginia, that election by the people “at large” would be as “unnatural” as it would be “to refer a trial of colors to a blind man.” Election of the president “by the National Legislature,” however, was provisionally approved by all ten states then present. 

If this procedure had been finally adopted, the position of the president would have been akin to that of the British prime minister, and the development of disciplined party government in the United States would certainly have been accelerated. Partly because of the fear of what was then called “faction,” partly to confirm the separation and balance of power between legislature and executive, Mr. Wilson’s idea of specialized electors was revived, and it received the powerful support of James Madison, Elbridge Gerry, and Gouverneur Morris. On July 20, it was unanimously agreed “that the Electors of the Executive shall not be members of the National Legislature, nor officers of the United States, nor shall the Electors themselves be eligible to the supreme magistracy.” These stipulations are all in the Constitution today (Article 1, Section 2).

During the ensuing weeks the Convention frequently reviewed the issue of how the president should be chosen. The plan to have Congress elect him died hard and for a time seemed likely to succeed. James Wilson, who later became a justice of the Supreme Court, was staunch in his advocacy of “an election mediately or immediately by the people.” He was successful in the first of these objectives but not in his effort to have the electors chosen by congressional districts. Here the advocates of state sovereignty won out, as shown by the eventual decision that each state shall appoint its electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” 

The record makes plain that the Electoral College system, as finally adopted by the Constitutional Convention on September 6, 1787, was a dual compromise. On the one hand it bridged the gap between advocates of direct popular election of the president, and the greater number who at first thought he should be elected by the Congress. On the other hand the solution emphasized the dominant role of the states as such in choosing the man who would be chief executive of the national government. The very name of the office underlines the federal principle. It is President of the United States, not President of the American People. 

Evidence of the dual compromise is seen in the decision to make each state’s electoral vote equal to its representation in both Houses of Congress, so that none can have fewer than three electors. The president would, in effect, be chosen by a second national legislature. But as his election is its only purpose and function, the operative independence of the president from the actual lawmaking body is not infringed. 

A further part of the general compromise was to give the House of Representatives power to choose the president, from among the leading candidates, in the event of a tie, or the absence of a majority, in the electoral vote. But in such a runoff each state delegation has only one vote, no matter how many representatives, thus emphasizing state equality at the expense of democratic principle. 

Balancing this arrangement, in its turn, is the further constitutional provision to meet the possibility of a tie in the electoral vote for vice president. In that event the Senate would choose, by individual ballots, between the two contestants.¹

Whether in spite or because of its complexities, there was relatively little criticism of the Electoral College system in the bitter debates preceding and during the state conventions by which the Constitution was ratified. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton, in No. 68 of The Federalist (March 14, 1788), felt able to assert that “The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure.” He then proceeded to examine the advantages of indirect election of the president, by men of the highest community standing, without political obligations, and with complete freedom of choice—once these electors had themselves been chosen—to select the man whom they considered best qualified:

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. . . . It was equally desirable that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.

We must remember that the election of George Washingon as the first president of the United States was foreordained. He is the only one for whom every elector has ever voted, not only for his first but also for his second term. Without this assured initial unanimity it is probable that the electoral system would have been more closely scrutinized, with better anticipation of the troubles that lay ahead.  

Evolution of the Electoral College

“Partisan spirit,” admitted Washington in his farewell address, “unfortunately is inseparable from our nature.” Nevertheless he took the occasion to warn his countrymen “in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party.”

In retrospect we can see that the most serious oversight of the Founding Fathers was their failure to realize that party politics would inevitably develop in the United States. In the federation as designed there were certain to be some who would argue constantly for enlargement of centralized government, and others who would be equally anxious to restrain this in behalf of state sovereignty. Since this issue was both unresolved and all-pervasive, political parties dedicated to the two opposing theories were bound to arise. Indeed they began to take definite shape during, and as a part of, the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.

Yet that Convention assumed the presidency could be kept nonpartisan by giving the selective power to a nonpolitical “college”² of presumably eminent private citizens. Each elector would cast two ballots, without differentiation, except in his own mind, as to whom he wanted for president and for vice president. The man receiving the most ballots would be elected to the first office; the runner-up would get the second place. Thus, it was thought, the two best qualified men would be chosen as the chief executive and his alternate. It was simply not foreseen that the electors would themselves become politicians, viewing the outstanding presidential candidates as potential rivals instead of as potential partners.³

Hopes for the complicated procedure might have been fulfilled if, as proposed by James Wilson, the electors had been uniformly elected by contests in the congressional districts. But these had barely been organized by the time set for the convening of the First Congress, March 4, 1789. Only the preceding summer had the Constitution been ratified by Virginia and New York, in both cases after bitter opposition conducive to permanent political alignments.⁴ There simply wasn’t time to arrange for the election of presidential electors, as well as of representatives and senators, in many of the states. Most of them, therefore, were merely appointed by the state legislatures, as the Constitution permitted. Though in many cases outstanding citizens, they were all, naturally, acceptable to the dominant local political leaders. The pattern whereby electors would be controlled by party leadership was already taking form.

It developed rapidly. When Washington retired, John Adams was naturally the candidate of the Federalists, with Thomas Jefferson the leading choice of the Anti-Federalist grouping, who called themselves Republicans. In this election of 1796 there were 138 electors, from the then sixteen states, in six of which the electors were chosen by popular election, in ten by legislative action. Adams secured 71 electoral votes, one more than a majority, of which Jefferson’s 68 votes left him only two short. The heat of this close contest made proponents of both leaders equally anxious that electors should in advance declare themselves as advocates of a particular candidate. As the candidates acquired political labels the electors began to do the same. Before the end of the eighteenth century it was foreshadowed that state political organizations would eventually name slates of electors as mere figureheads, pledged in advance to cast their votes for the party candidate. 

In 1800, the congressional caucus began to be used to cut down the plethora of candidates (thirteen of them had secured one or more electoral votes in 1796) and to present agreed nominations to the already acquiescent electors. Both of the nascent parties sought to form an effective north–south axis, the Federalists backing Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, the Republicans naming Jefferson with Aaron Burr of New York as his running mate. But Burr, whose abilities were never impeded by scruples, was not content to play second fiddle. By extremely adroit political maneuvering he obtained control of a sufficient number of electoral votes to tie with Jefferson for first place, giving each more than a majority, with Adams trailing both of them. This threw the election into the House, after a campaign which for intrigue and malevolence has fortunately never been surpassed in American history.⁵

It took thirty-five House ballots, and much unsavory bargaining, to break the Jefferson–Burr deadlock, ten states out of the total of sixteen finally voting for the former. The necessary outcome was the Twelfth Amendment, stipulating that the electors should cast separate ballots for president and vice president. This in turn tended to strengthen the two-party system, permanent party organization, and consequent political control of electors. Now it was possible to establish a formal party “ticket”—of president and vice president—pitted against their opposites on the basis of a party “platform,” rather than by the comparison of personal qualifications on which the Founding Fathers had hoped the determination of the president would be made.  

This alignment, however, was not confirmed until the end of the “Virginia dynasty” of presidents—Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. With the political fluidity then resulting four strong candidates emerged, all at the time calling themselves Republicans, and by their rivalry throwing the election of 1824 into the House for the second, and so far the last, time. The candidates, after the withdrawal of John C. Calhoun when he felt assured of the vice presidency, were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford,⁶ and Andrew Jackson, their tally of electoral votes being respectively 84, 37, 41, and 99. 

This election was also the first in which there was any tabulation of the popular vote, which of course was meaningless until it was established that the electors for whom votes were cast would be definitely pledged to a particular candidate in advance. As taken in five states, this gave Jackson 152,901 as against 114,013 for Adams, the others trailing. The electoral vote, however, was divided in many of the then twenty-four states, and Jackson was short of a majority of the total vote of 261. So a House decision between the three leading candidates, as provided by the Twelfth Amendment, became necessary.

Henry Clay, the popular speaker of the House, had been eliminated as a presidential candidate, but not as a president-maker. In the opinion of many there was, and is, no doubt that Clay sold his great influence to Adams in return for a promise that the latter would make him secretary of state, as happened.⁷ Certainly there were many devious practices to influence House delegations in behalf of one or another of the three contestants. The vote was taken on February 9, 1825, giving Adams 13 States to 7 for Jackson and 4 for Crawford. So John Quincy Adams, though he had run behind Jackson in both the popular and the electoral vote, became president. 

The irrationality, not to say impropriety, of this outcome did much to cement the position of presidential electors as party puppets. The indignant Jacksonians, now calling themselves Democrats, proceeded, state by state, to develop a disciplined party organization, of which the Spoils System was shortly to become an important part. As another result, state legislatures under Democratic control began to drop the selection of electors by constituencies, wherever operative, in favor of statewide selection of what was called “the general ticket.” This meant much less likelihood of the split electoral votes that had been common. The political efficacy of this general ticket became obvious as the popular vote was more widely tabulated. Thus, in 1832, the popular vote for the principal candidates—Jackson and Clay—was practically even in both New Jersey and Maryland, each of which had eight electoral votes. Under the general ticket, in New Jersey, Jackson, with a few hundred majority, got all the electoral votes. In Maryland, using the district system, Clay with a similar majority received five electoral votes to three for Jackson. 

As it became clear that the Democrats were gaining by state consolidation of the electoral vote, the Whigs followed suit and two-men contests, with solid electoral votes by states, became the rule. The particular importance of this solidity in populous states was confirmed by the bitter election of 1860, when in fifteen states Lincoln did not receive a single electoral vote, yet obtained 180 to 123 for all of his three opponents on less than 40 percent of the popular vote. It has been argued that if this election had gone to the House for final decision, as might easily have happened, the Civil War could have been averted. Lincoln would have needed the support of 17 out of the 33 states then existent, which with 15 strongly hostile to him would have been most difficult to secure. The argument is that only a compromise president, disposed to let the nation remain “half slave, half free,” could then have been chosen.⁸

What is more certain is the political lesson that was drawn from Lincoln’s success in winnowing approximately 60 percent of the vital electoral vote from less than 40 percent of the popular vote. This demonstrated that the big electoral votes of heavily populated states could be delivered by well-cultivated minorities. There is a direct connection between the rise of big city Bossism and Lincoln’s minority victory a century ago. 

With the Democratic Party both split and discredited by the Civil War it was for a time the Republican Party that manipulated the perverted electoral system to best advantage. Although there were special postbellum factors in the famous Hayes–Tilden contest of 1876, the ultimate result was to take the presidency away from Tilden, who had a clear majority of the entire popular vote, and to give it to Hayes, the Republican. The Democrats suffered again in 1888, when Cleveland ran 100,000 ahead of Harrison in the popular vote, but won only 168 electoral votes as against 233 for Harrison. Of no national consequence, but certainly worthy of note, was the result of the election of 1948 in New York state. The Republicans then polled 45 percent of that state’s vote, the Democrats 44 percent, and other candidates 11 percent. On the basis of 5 percent less than half of the popular vote, all of New York’s forty-seven electoral votes—as the number was then—were delivered to Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate. In New York, the same ballots of the same voters on the same day sent more Democrats than Republicans to Congress, from the same state that was in effect voting unanimously for a Republican president.

Anomalies like this, in a country that likes to call itself democratic, are so extreme as to jeopardize the very illogical electoral system that has developed. The Supreme Court has ruled that no party organization is under compulsion to name an elector if he refuses to promise support for the party nominees.⁹ It has been established that “the position of Presidential elector is one of trust” and many “unreliables,” named as prospective electors by their local organizations, have been replaced by “loyal men” at statewide party conventions preceding a national election. But this pressure does not meet the case where the state organization, or an important part thereof, itself decides to name electors hostile to the national party nominee. This has happened twice recently, in 1948 and in 1960, both cases emphasizing the precariousness of the present Electoral College arrangement. 

The underlying aim in both cases was to throw the election into the House, and the difference in method emphasizes that there is more than one way in which this can be accomplished. In 1948, the delegations of four southern states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina—bolted the Democratic National Convention in protest against the Civil Rights plank in the party platform. They subsequently nominated their own State’s Rights Democratic candidates for the presidency and vice presidency, respectively Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Governor Fielding L. Wright of Mississippi. In the election they received the thirty-eight electoral votes of the four “Dixiecrat” States, plus that of one maverick elector in Tennessee. The final electoral vote was Truman, 303; Dewey, 189; Thurmond, 39. If Thurmond had doubled his electoral vote, at Truman’s expense, nobody would have been elected. 

This was not a third-party movement, like that headed by Senator La Follette in 1924. It only offered an alternative Democratic executive, in no way disturbing to any of that party’s congressional candidates. Nevertheless, it involved campaigning by Thurmond and Wright. The procedure adopted in 1960 was simpler, though in the upshot no more successful. The Democratic organization in Mississippi, and a large part of that in Alabama, merely named “unpledged”—meaning anti-Kennedy—electors, who six weeks after the popular voting cast their electoral votes for Senator Byrd, also supported by one maverick elector from Oklahoma. 

The unalienable independence of the individual elector was established as far back as 1820, when it appeared that President Monroe would get a unanimous vote for a second term. With the pleasing argument that none but George Washington deserved that honor, a New Hampshire elector, pledged to Monroe, voted instead for John Quincy Adams. Since then individual electors have, repeatedly, voted against the candidate who carried their state. It happened in Tennessee in 1948; in Alabama in 1956; in Oklahoma in 1960. There is nothing other than party loyalty and party discipline to make the pledge binding. If these are weakened by internal dissension, the electoral pledge will become increasingly unreliable.  

This is the more probable because the pledging of electors is so clearly at variance with the intent and spirit of the Constitution. It has also had undemocratic, unrepresentative and often unsavory results. As the function was designed, selection as a presidential elector would, as in the case of a congressman, automatically have insured the name thus honored a place in Who’s Who. Few presidential electors now living have that distinction, and none of them for that reason. 

On the other hand, the pledging of electors has served to consolidate the two-party system and has undoubtedly helped to make presidential elections decisive, however unfairly. Today, however, the procedure as it has evolved is under strong attack. There is a tendency to name unpledged electors and a parallel tendency to regard violation of the pledge, when made, as more honorable than otherwise. This intensifies the belief that the whole Electoral College system should be reviewed, and perhaps fundamentally revised, before, rather than after, a presidential election is again thrown into the House for settlement. 

Reform Will Not Be Easy

The Electoral College has now functioned through forty-four presidential elections as an amorphous institution that has lost all but the shadow of resemblance to that originally planned. It cannot now acquire conformity with design unless the Constitution that sought to frame that design is formally amended. Such are the curiosities of the legal process! 

The changes that have come must be regarded as a wholly natural result of the development of party government, not anticipated by the original Constitution. It was the rise of party that made the Twelfth Amendment essential, and this in turn facilitated party development. Today the elimination of rival political parties in the United States is, except to communists, unthinkable. Therefore any new amendment in this field should build upon, rather than attempting directly to repeal, the Twelfth Amendment. There is no analogy with the case of Prohibition, which having been established by the Eighteenth Amendment could be simply wiped out by the Twenty-First. 

Any amendment is, from the nature of the process, difficult to achieve. It is not even formally proposed until approved by two-thirds majorities in both Houses of Congress, and then must be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states. There is, of course, the alternative procedure whereby the reform movement originates in the states, but this also now requires the approval of thirty-eight out of the total of fifty. Utilization of that procedure to reform the Electoral College is most improbable, since the state political machines, whether in office or opposition, have a vested interest in maintaining the present arrangement. There is more likelihood of their consent to a change initiated by the Congress if it has there obtained strong and politically effective public support.  

Without the active and continuous backing of some dedicated group, such as the Anti-Saloon League or National Woman’s Party, no reform amendment is likely to be adopted. In the case of Electoral College reform there is no concerned organization of comparable influence. There is, on the contrary, entrenched political opposition to every type of reform suggested. The evolution of the Electoral College has been molded by professional political interests, regardless of party alignment. These interests, Democratic and Republican, have different complaints about the operation of the present arrangement, but are mutually critical of any change that might cut into their gradually established control over the electoral vote. This becomes clear from even a summary examination of the suggested reforms and of the interests that would be adversely affected thereby. 

It should first be noted, however, that there is no visible sentiment for election of the president by one or both Houses of Congress, although this was very seriously considered during the drafting of the Constitution. To say this is not to assert that such a change lacks argument in its favor, but simply that it is not currently proposed.

Of the three procedures that are now under consideration, that which seems most simple, and is certainly most democratic, is complete abolishment of the Electoral College and substitution of Direct Popular Election, by a plurality of voters, over the nation as a whole. 

This plan, on the other hand, would minimize the importance of state political organization. Criticisms of the idea are almost comparable to those which would be aroused by a proposal to abolish the Senate. Not only the politicians who would be adversely affected but also all who are interested in the preservation of states’ rights are antagonistic to this oversimplified solution. It would certainly be strongly opposed in the South, if there were any real prospect of its adoption. So long as the federal structure of the republic endures, the state-based electoral vote, in one form or another, is likely to continue also. 

A second proposed reform seeks to revive James Wilson’s original plan, which—as we have seen—was actually practiced by a number of states prior to the Civil War. Under this system of District Election, each congressional constituency would vote for a localized party elector, with the two corresponding to the senators for the state, and one for every representative-at-large, also on the ballot on a statewide basis. 

This plan would continue the practice of pledged electors, but those not “at large” would be pledged to their constituency, not to the state organization as a whole. State electors would divide between the parties in much the same proportion as state representatives in the House. This reform would certainly reflect the popular will much more closely than the present arrangement. It would mean that the House of Representatives would, except in very close contests, be controlled by the party of the president. And it would closely accord with the design approved by the Founding Fathers.

District election is most strongly opposed precisely because it would end the “winner-take-all” arrangement whereby success in a few key states insures a presidential victory. At present the twelve most populous states have 51.6 percent of the entire electoral vote. It is possible for a candidate to be badly defeated in all of the other thirty-eight states and still win the election. Consequently the great bulk of campaign effort and expenditure is concentrated in the states with big electoral votes, going as units. District election would make it necessary to diffuse equally throughout the country, which would be more expensive and would simultaneously make it more difficult to raise money in the big states. “Liberal” Democrats are especially opposed to the district election plan from fear that it would minimize the importance of the organized labor vote, concentrated in relatively few congressional constituencies.¹⁰

The third proposed reform plan is a compromise between the other two. It would abolish the Electoral College but keep the electoral vote on a statewide basis, dividing it according to the statewide popular vote. Under the Proportional Representation plan, Illinois, instead of giving its twenty-seven electoral votes to Kennedy in the last election, would have given him 13.493 votes, Nixon 13.445 votes, and other candidates combined 0.062 votes. An effective argument for this plan is that if there are fraudulent returns in a close election they would shift only a trifling percentage of the state’s electoral vote. The same argument, though less strongly, favors the district plan.

While the proportional representation plan has strong congressional support, it too is viewed with deep suspicion by many local political leaders. Their share in patronage depends on delivering an electoral vote that really counts. If it is only a percentage point or less over that of the opposition, the claim for reward is not convincing. Patronage is not as crude as it was when Senator Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, on becoming Lincoln’s secretary of the treasury, claimed the right to appoint 33 out of 269 State Department replacements. Ohio, he explained, had cast approximately one-eighth of the electoral vote for Lincoln, so Chase felt he could properly claim that fraction of the patronage.¹¹ But Civil Service has done more to moderate than to eliminate this psychology, considering the vastly greater number of political appointments now made. 

Another factor, operating against any change in the present electoral arrangement, traces to the decennial ups and downs in the size of state electoral votes. Since the total changes with the total number of senators and representatives, the size of the House plus the number of states (two senators from each) are the determinants. Therefore, as population climbed and as new states entered the Union, the size of the Electoral College increased rapidly. There were 138 electoral votes in 1800; 235 in 1820; 303 in 1860; 447 in 1900; and, after the 1910 census, 531 for the presidential election of 1912. In the preceding year, as the House was getting too cumbersome to conduct business effectively, the first Apportionment Act placed a ceiling on its membership, thus automatically limiting the size of the Electoral College. When Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, this numerical ceiling of 531 was provisionally raised to 537, to allow for the two senators and one representative from each of the incoming states. 

Since population increase is anything but uniform in different states, the procedure, following each decennial census, is to increase the representation of some and proportionately decrease that of others, in mathematical accordance with population change. This in turn alters the electoral vote of many of the states, up or down, in a manner which under the present unit voting is of the greatest political moment. A table showing the changes in half a dozen states as the result of the last three censuses will clarify the point. The 1964 figures are already established by the 1960 census. These estimated for 1972 are based on Census Bureau projections.

There is naturally some opposition, from the states that suffer, to attrition of their House representation. But even if it were feasible to avoid this by continuous enlargement, states such as California and Florida would still gain—and more rapidly—while others remained stationary. The shift in political influence, with all its repercussions on the nomination and election of presidents, would continue. 

Another factor to be remembered is that when a state either gains or loses in its congressional representation, it is the state legislature that modifies the congressional districts accordingly. This leads to as much gerrymandering by the party in control as local public opinion can be expected to tolerate, and instances from Maryland to California could be cited to show that this toleration is extremely high.¹² An effectively gerrymandered congressional district can, of course, do a good deal to decide the way a state’s electoral vote will go in the next presidential election. Thus the outcome of the 1964 election has, with little public awareness, already been strongly influenced by state redistricting, accomplished with only local publicity, in the legislative sessions of 1961.  

Since the political power and influence of a state depends on the size and solidity of its electoral vote, the growing states are sure to oppose any amendment that would shatter the practice of unit voting. But every reform scheme proposed would have that effect. So the very factors that make reform of the Electoral College desirable also operate to prevent it. The dilemma is not likely to be resolved unless 1) the originally intended independence of the individual elector is more largely restored, 2) a powerful popular movement agrees upon and pushes a single method of reform, or (3) a presidential election is again thrown into the House of Representatives.

It is the threat of this third possibility that currently brings the issue to the fore.

The Underlying Conflict

There have been many efforts, over a long period, to reform the Electoral College system. To review them briefly is to confirm the conclusion that the task is extremely difficult. 

The first significant attempt was made by Senator Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, shortly prior to the tangled election of 1824. In January of that year, in a memorable three-day speech on the Senate floor, Benton reviewed electoral history to that date, anticipated the difficulties that were very shortly to arise, and urged democratization of the arrangement: “The people can vote for a President as easily as they can for an elector.” Benton did not advocate a pooled nationwide vote, but the district plan as outlined in the previous section of this study. He urged “that the candidate for each office [president and vice president] winning a majority in any [electoral] district would thereby receive one vote, and that the candidates who received majorities of such votes would be declared elected, with a proviso that if no candidate for President or Vice-president received majorities, the election would go to the Federal Congress.”¹³

At this time eighteen of the then twenty-four states were actually choosing electors by popular vote in congressional districts—only six by legislative statewide appointment. So the prospect for reform seemed excellent. The Senate, however, voted to table the controversial issue and the tide of sentiment for district election ebbed as the political advantage of “winner-take-all” became apparent to the state political organizations. 

President Andrew Jackson, as was natural in view of his 1824–25 experience, felt strongly on the subject of electoral reform. In spite of their personal animosities, he recommended that Senator Benton’s plan be adopted, both in his first Message to Congress and thereafter. But all of Jackson’s strong authority was not sufficient to secure congressional action.

The Tilden–Hayes controversy of 1876 brought forth a spate of reform proposals in all three categories that are under consideration now. It also produced charges that the Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority when it appointed the Electoral Commission which in effect gave the presidency to Hayes. It was persuasively argued that Congress simply does not possess the power to decide the validity or invalidity of electoral votes.¹⁴ That viewpoint is now generally accepted, and incidentally serves to dampen the aspirations of the few who would still like to see the presidential election entirely turned over to Congress, as many of the Framers of the Constitution at one time thought desirable procedure. 

The next surge of interest in electoral reform was aroused by the contest of 1888. Grover Cleveland, seeking the second term which he obtained four years later, received almost 1 percent more of the popular vote than his Republican opponent. In the Electoral College, however, Benjamin Harrison triumphed, 233 to 168. Democrats, still indignant over the Hayes–Tilden outcome, emphasized the inequity of the system but ceased to protest as it became clear that every remedial formula suggested would threaten the solidity of that party’s control in the southern states.

That explains why an open split between northern and southern Democrats had to develop before, sixty years later, the current movement for reform began to take shape. Its first crystallization was in the proposed Lodge–Gossett Amendment, introduced as a joint resolution in the first session of the 81st Congress. Extensive and instructive hearings were held on this bill by committees of both Houses, and on February 1, 1950, it passed the Senate by a vote of 64 to 27, well over the requisite two-thirds majority. That, however, is the high-water mark as yet reached by any effort to reform the Electoral College system. On July 17, 1950, the House of Representatives not merely failed to approve but severely defeated the bill, by a vote of 210 to 134. 

The Lodge–Gossett plan, which under other sponsors still has many advocates, falls in the third category described in the preceding section. That is, it would abolish the Electoral College as such, but would maintain an impersonalized electoral vote by states, dividing it proportionately down to three decimal points as between all candidates contesting for the presidency in the state.  

Critics of the plan attack this central feature of proportional division as its most serious defect. The encouragement to “splinter” parties would not only endanger the two-party system but would mean more, instead of less, likelihood of election by a mere plurality—meaning a minority of the entire popular vote. It was further demonstrated that this method could give a minority of the electoral vote to a candidate having an absolute majority of the popular vote. A case study was made of the McKinley–Bryan contest in 1900, in which McKinley had an easy majority of the entire vote, and as between himself and Bryan alone outpointed the latter percentage-wise by 53.2 to 46.8. Yet, under the Lodge–Gossett plan, Bryan would have had 218.8 electoral votes to 214.5 for McKinley. This illustration was enough to alienate many Republicans, while the argument that the plan would strengthen the GOP in the South was simultaneously disturbing Democrats.

As this plan lost favor, that for district electors, chosen by majority or plurality and without proportional division of the vote, again came to the fore, sponsored in House and Senate by Representative Frederic R. Coudert, Jr., of New York and Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota. Extensive hearings on this and other proposals were held by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the 84th Congress, in the course of which former Representative Gossett (of Texas) agreed that “The new Mundt-Coudert Amendment would improve vastly our present system.”¹⁵ It was, however, significantly opposed by the then–legislative representative of Americans for Democratic Action (Mr. John J. Gunther), who urged direct popular election of the president without regard to state lines and with elimination of all state “discriminatory” restrictions, which he defined as “the poll tax, registration, residence, literacy and other tests.”¹⁶

Both the increase of unpledged electors and the virtual equality of the popular vote in the 1960 election have now again stimulated interest in the subject of electoral reform. A flood of bills on the subject was introduced in the opening days of the 87th Congress. Further committee hearings were held, with arguments for all three types of proposed reform. At the risk of repetition, these categories are

1. Election of the president and vice president by direct, popular, pooled nationwide balloting, eliminating both the Electoral College and the electoral vote. 
2. Election of the president and vice president by state electoral districts, with two of the would-be electors, like senatorial candidates, contesting with others throughout the entire state. This method would maintain both the Electoral College and the electoral vote, but would tend to divide the latter as the congressional representation of each state is divided. This method assumes, but in no way stipulates, that the system of pledged electors will continue. 
3. Abolition of the Electoral College, but not the electoral vote as such. This would be automatically divided, in each state separately, in proportion to votes cast there directly for president and vice president, down to three decimal places. 

One bill, introduced by Senator Smathers (D–Fla.), falls into none of the three established categories. This is the more interesting because formerly Mr. Smathers sponsored a projected amendment of the proportional representation plan. Now his joint resolution merely seeks the establishment of a bipartisan commission “to study and propose improvements in the methods of nominating and electing the President and Vice-President.” Half of its membership would “be chosen to represent the interests of the several States and private citizens.”¹⁷ A complete report from the commission, with recommendations, is called for “not later than one year after the effective date of this joint resolution.”

Since there will not be another presidential election until 1964, there is much to be said for a thorough approach to the problem of the Electoral College. Numerous studies of its deficiencies have been made, but few of them have really come to grips with the factors that most strongly impede reform. Those active in politics are often reluctant to identify these factors, which vary considerably from state to state. A Commission of Inquiry that would fearlessly analyze and expose all—not merely some—of the underlying issues would thereby provide a basis for solid progress in this highly controversial matter. 

It is a problem in which more haste may easily mean less speed. During the next session of Congress it is conceivable that an amendment to reform the Electoral College may be formally proposed—that is, passed by both Houses with two-thirds majorities. Even that modest beginning, however, has never yet been attained. And without closer consideration of many ingrown local factors, no amendment currently projected seems at all likely to secure the approval of the thirty-eight state legislatures which is requisite for its adoption. 

A very careful study of the Electoral College dilemma is the more desirable because it reflects an underlying conflict between inherited and current theories of American government. The institution was designed to impede democratic processes, to emphasize states’ rights, and to retard party government. Reform efforts should therefore start from a clear and well-reasoned judgment as to which, if any, of these original objectives are still desirable and tenable. The plan for direct, popular election, which denies validity to all of them, is perhaps for that very reason currently the most vociferously acclaimed. 

Felix Morley (1894–1982) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning editor of the Washington Post and a founding editor of Human Events. His books include The Power in the People (1949) and Freedom and Federalism (1959).

1. Until adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, in 1804, the vice president was the candidate who received the second highest number of electoral votes. So the issue of majority vote for him could not arise. The Twelfth Amendment stipulated that the electors should vote separately for president and vice president, thus removing a great impediment to the development of political parties. Since this also raised the possibility that no vice presidential candidate would have a majority, the Senate’s authority was enlarged to decide in this case. The situation has arisen only once, in the election of Richard M. Johnson as Van Buren’s vice president in 1831. ↩︎
2. The word was used to emphasize the academic, “ivory tower” conception of the institution. ↩︎
3. Hamilton did anticipate that the election would “sometimes, if not frequently” be thrown into the House (v. The Federalist, No. 66) but was not disturbed by the contingency. ↩︎
4. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not even enter the Union until after Washington’s first inauguration. New York also cast no electoral vote in 1788 because its legislature was unable to agree on a method of selection. And in both Maryland and Virginia the electoral vote was incomplete. All of the 69 electors who voted were for Washington, with John Adams, who thereby became vice president, the alternate for 34 of them. ↩︎
5. The involved story is well summarized by Claude G. Bowers: Jefferson and Hamilton, (Houghton Mifflin, 1925) Chs. 18–21. ↩︎
6. Secretary of the Treasury under Monroe. He might well have won, except for a paralytic stroke early in the campaign. ↩︎
7. Cf. Marquis James: Andrew Jackson, (Bobbs-Merrill, 1938) pp. 427 ff. and p. 852. For manipulation to obtain the vote of a State then with only one representative (Missouri) v. William Nisbet Chambers: Old Bullion Benton, (Little, Brown, 1956) pp. 128–30. There are today six states in which a single representative would determine the state vote in a presidential runoff. ↩︎
8. Cf. Charles O’Niel: The American Electoral System, (Putnams, 1887) p. 166. ↩︎
9. Ray v. Blair, 1952. ↩︎
10. This anticipation was strengthened when the American Good Government Society, in an analysis released November 23, 1960, concluded that under the district system Nixon would have been elected president with 282 electoral votes, as against 250 for Kennedy and only 5 unpledged. This analysis ignores the right of a pledged elector, as happened in Oklahoma, to change his mind. ↩︎
11. Carl Sandburg: Abraham Lincoln, The War Years, (Harcourt, Brace, 1939) Vol I, p. 177. ↩︎
12. On February 1, the State Democratic leaders at Annapolis agreed on the boundaries of the new congressional district gained by Maryland as a result of the 1960 census. It was obviously drawn so as to be safely Democratic without endangering that party’s superiority in the district from which the new one was carved. Reporting the decision, the Baltimore Sun of February 2, 1961, observed: “Since the Democrats hold absolute control of the Legislature the redistricting proposal is certain to breeze through the General Assembly.” It did so. ↩︎
13. Cf. William Nisbet Chambers, Op. cit., pp. 112–14. ↩︎
14. Cf. David McKnight: The Electoral System of the United States (Lippincott, 1878) pp. 199–200. ↩︎
15. Hearings, April 1, 1955, p. 148. ↩︎
16. Ibid. p. 201. ↩︎
17. Several House bills also call for such a commission, but fail to emphasize state interest in the problem. ↩︎