Reform of the Electoral College
| Author | Mark Rathbone |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905818815192 |
16 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2018
Hillary Clinton won almost three
million more votes than Donald
Trump, but the Republican took
the White House in 2016. Why?
The short answer: the Electoral College.
This elaborate mechanism for electing
presidents was set up by the Founding
Fathers when they wrote the Constitution
back in the late 1780s. When casting their
ballots in a presidential election, voters do
not vote directly for one of the candidates.
Instead, they vote for electors to represent
their state in the Electoral College, which
meets to select the president on the rst
Monday after the second Wednesday
in December. The number of electors
allocated to each state is based on
that state’s combined total of Senators
and Representatives. So, it is roughly
proportional to each state’s population,
although each state is guaranteed at least
three electors, as even the smallest state,
Wyoming, has two Senators and one
Representative. This is designed to ensure
that the inuence of smaller states on the
choice of president is not swamped by that
of larger ones.
Currently, in 48 states the winner of the
popular vote in a state takes all that state’s
electors. The two exceptions are Maine
and Nebraska, which allocate their electors
by the congressional district system,
producing a result more proportional to
the percentage of the popular vote won by
each candidate in the state.
The three-elector guarantee
What is wrong with these current
arrangements for electing US presidents?
The simple answer is that it does not always
accurately reect the wishes of the voters,
due to a combination of the guarantee of
at least three electors to every state and
the ‘winner-takes-all’ system of allocating
Reform of the
Electoral College
Mark Rathbone examines the controversial system for electing the US
President and suggests ways the Electoral College could be reformed
to make it more fair and more democratic.
Political Insight December 2018.indd 16 01/11/2018 09:02
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