The Stubborn Survival of the Electoral College

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

By Alexander Keyssar Aug. 13, 2020 9:56 am ET

Since the early 19th century, roughly 900 constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress to alter or abolish the Electoral College. Yet it has proved stubbornly resistant to change. Even the "wrong winner" elections of 2000 and 2016, in which the presidential candidate who received the greatest number of popular votes was defeated in the Electoral College, haven't led to abolishing the system.

Today, conventional wisdom has it that the main obstacle to reform is the small states, which have a disproportionate number of electoral votes. But historically, most proposed reforms haven't aimed to change the number of electors from each state. Rather, they have focused on replacing winner-take-all state elections with electoral districts or proportional representation within each state. Moreover, proposals for a national popular vote—which would strip away the small states' edge in electoral votes—have frequently been supported by small-state political leaders.

These plans have often failed because one or the other political party thought that changing the system would damage its prospects at the polls. For the past 40 years, most reform proposals have been opposed by Republican politicians convinced that the Electoral College benefits their party. For the same reason, Democrats in California fought hard to block a 2007 proposal that would have divided up the state's electoral vote, awarding one vote to the candidate who received the most votes in each congressional district.

For long stretches of our history, attempts to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote were thwarted by the implacable opposition of the Southern states. With a popular vote it is the number of actual voters that matters, but under the Electoral College each state's number of electors is determined based on its population. This worked to the advantage of the slave states before the Civil War, when slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation, even though they couldn't vote.

The end of slavery only increased the advantage for white Southerners: Black citizens were counted fully for Electoral College purposes, but they remained mostly disenfranchised until the 1960s. As late as 1969-70, a proposal for a national popular vote was approved by the House but defeated in the Senate in a filibuster led by Senators Sam Ervin of North Carolina, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and James Eastland of Mississippi.
Ironically, the sheer number of problems with the Electoral College has helped preserve it. There is the winner-take-all method of awarding each state’s electors, which is not in the Constitution but has been almost universal since 1830; the use of electors as intermediaries; and the latitude given to states to change how they pick electors from one election to the next. Then there’s the “contingent election” provision—not used since 1824 but still on the books—which says that if no candidate wins an outright majority of electoral votes, the winner is chosen by the House, with each state having a single vote regardless of size. It has proven difficult to change any one part of the system without changing others, a fact that has multiplied the sources of resistance.

There is also simple fear of the unknown. Faced with the choice of sticking with a flawed but familiar system or adopting a new one that might have unforeseen consequences, many legislators have opted for the devil they know. Interest in change has also been hard to sustain. It has tended to surge around messy elections like those of 1824, 1876, 1948, 1968 (when George Wallace seemed poised to become a kingmaker), 2000 and 2016. But the momentum for change dissipated when electoral crises failed to materialize, faded in memory, or spawned partisan rancor so acute that cooperation became unthinkable.

What does this history tell us about the prospects for Electoral College reform or abolition today? Certainly, the long track record of failed attempts underscores the scale of the challenge. Jimmy Carter, who endorsed a national popular vote when he was president, gloomily predicted in 2001 that “200 years from now we will still have the Electoral College.” He may have been right.

But the historical record also reveals Americans’ enduring dissatisfaction with the institution, and the fact that we have twice come very close to changing it suggests that the goal is not a pipe dream. Indeed, numerous approaches to reform are now underway, including the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact—an innovative effort to institute a national popular vote without amending the Constitution—has been formally endorsed by 15 states and the District of Columbia since it was launched in 2006.

If the Republican Party retains its current strength and remains committed to the Electoral College, the odds of reforming it are close to zero. But history shows that political conditions can change, and so can the positions of parties. If the Democrats start to have a chance of carrying Georgia, Texas and other once-reliably red states, Republicans may find the winner-take-all system less attractive.

The acrid partisanship that surrounds us today doesn’t foster reasoned conversations about the best way to choose a president. But if we as a nation succeed in backing away from the precipice on which we now stand, with democratic norms eroding and democracy itself in some danger, those conversations could well begin. In the past, reform efforts have come closest to success when party alignments have been in flux. It’s possible that the post-Trump era, whenever it begins, will bring a similar realignment, and with it a chance to finally reform the Electoral College after 200 years.

—Mr. Keyssar is a professor of history at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of the new book “Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?” (Harvard University Press), from which this essay is adapted.