Electoral College

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the Electoral College as a result of a compromise for the presidential election process. During the debate, some delegates felt that a direct popular election would lead to the election of each state's favorite son and none would emerge with sufficient popular majority to govern the country. Other delegates felt that giving Congress the power to select the president would deny the people their right to choose. After all, the people voted for their representatives to the federal legislature. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.

Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the Census).

Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State.

The debate has started again as to whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended in order to change the presidential election process. Some promote eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote for president while others believe the Electoral College should remain unchanged. Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem. The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state. This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count. A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence. Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected. For example, in Alabama, President Bush won 63% of the popular vote and therefore would be awarded 5.67 electoral points as compared to Senator Kerry with 37% of the popular vote and 3.33 electoral points. In the event of a tie, the national popular vote results would decide the outcome.

If one tabulated the final totals from Election 2004, they would find Bush with 274.92 electoral points versus Kerry with 257.71. The existing electoral college votes shows Bush 286 to Kerry 252. I believe this compromise would reflect a truer intent of the will of the people as exercised through their states. This would also prevent the smaller "red" and "blue" states from being virtually ignored in favor of the larger "battleground" states.

Actually you are not quite correct. The Constitution does not provide for any kind of popular vote for the President. In fact, it gives each state the right to decide how they will elect their slate of electors. Yes it is true that each state chose to decide their electors via a popular vote. However, ultimately that was a choice made by the State and is still their decision to change.

If you remember election 2000 the Florida House was going to vote to award the Electors to Bush regardless of the decisions that came from their Supreme Court. The purpose of the E.C. is to separate the power to elect a President between the Congress and the States. If there is a electoral tie the House has the final say. Also, the state does not need to award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. For example, Maine has an electoral district and whomever wins that district wins that elector regardless of who wins the state's popular vote.

I do not support your idea to change the E.C. and think that it is an excellent compromise between the will of the populace and the will of the states. Even though Gore won the popular vote in 2000 he lost 30 states including his own home state. The E.C., as proved in this case, was a far greater example of representative will and lets not forget that we do live in a Republic!