By Theodore R. Johnson / Special to The Washington Post
The electoral college is gearing up for the fall semester. An election that once promised a presidential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump now features a fresh face in Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Election Day, Americans will cast their votes; but it will be the college that determines the winner, weeks later. Sometimes its decision is to bypass the people’s choice and award the presidency to a candidate with fewer votes. That’s occurred twice in the last six presidential elections. And it’s not out of the question this year.
The college was originally advertised as a shield against a fickle public and the excesses of democracy. Its deliberations would be governed by honorable, judicious men, who would avoid secrecy and plotting. The institution would harbor a preference for low-population states to ensure those in the minority have a strong voice. And it would use weighted calculus to help reach fair decisions. But today, its design is antiquated. The math, too old. The college has certainly seen its share of intrigue and corruption. Along the way, it’s become increasingly unrepresentative even as our democracy has become more accessible.
For example, since Harris became the Democratic nominee, Trump has dropped nearly 7 points in national polling. That shift represents millions of voters who’ve changed their minds about the election. But the people’s shift is of little interest in the college. There, states matter most. And its winner-takes-all system doesn’t care whether victory in a state is decided by one vote or 1 million. As a result, though Harris could win the popular vote by millions, Trump could still win more states. In a system designed more than 200 years ago, that combination means lopsided elections can become electoral nail-biters.
In short, the college has lost touch with the campus. In 2016, though Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 3 million votes, in the vote that counts she lost by 77 electors; an outcome effectively decided by 80,000 people in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by 8 million, yet failed to match Trump’s margin of victory in the college four years earlier. Of those 8 million, the deciders amounted to just 44,000 people in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. These numbers don’t add up. That’s why Americans favor scrapping the electoral college by a margin of 2 to 1. And it’s another reason the public has such low confidence in this not-quite-democracy.
Changing any college is hard; this one requires a constitutional amendment. A compact among states could circumvent that, perhaps, but it would still need filibuster-proof congressional support and a favorable White House. And yet, the electoral college is overdue an overhaul. Few generations of Americans know that as well as ours. Why shouldn’t we be the people to do it?
We have options. One suggestion is to rely solely on a national popular vote, though wide margins of victory in a populous state put the race out of reach nationally. Clinton’s winning margin of 4.3 million votes in California is why she won the popular vote; without it, she loses the national vote by more than a million. Biden won the state by 5.1 million votes in 2020, more than the total population of 27 states. A more representative idea would be to allocate electoral votes in all states as Maine and Nebraska already do: two electors to the statewide winner and one vote for each congressional district. But that approach is spoiled by partisan gerrymandering, which can help losers of the statewide vote win more electors.
A third alternative is a combination of the two. Assign electors based on each candidate’s share of the statewide vote: Win 60 percent of the vote, get 60 percent of the state’s electors. More importantly for our democracy, losing candidates can still receive the electors they earn. These changes would restore meaning to margins of victory and inspire candidates to compete in every state. Additional electors can be found wherever candidates lose by a little less or win by a little more. It’s even good for third parties. In 2016, under this scheme, Green Party nominee Jill Stein would’ve won an elector in both deep-blue California and deep-red Texas.
Importantly, this reform would continue the electoral college’s built-in protections. It wouldn’t be a simple reflection of the popular vote. Instead, the college would refocus its protection from favoring low-population states to giving voice to political minorities everywhere; an outcome truer to the college’s founding idea. Sometimes it, too, will award the presidency to a popular vote loser. For example, scored by this set of rules, George W. Bush would still win the 2000 election. However, Florida’s recount would have been of little consequence because the state’s virtual tie would mean a difference of only one electoral vote would have been at stake, instead of all 25. In a liberal democracy, when counts are tight, sometimes political minorities win.
Change won’t come this semester, but the need for reform is glaring. Even the Supreme Court is starting to recognize flaws in the electoral college; in 2020, it permitted reining in of “faithless electors” who ignore the people’s voice. The logic is sound, and the process is clear. The only open question is if we are brave enough to finally make the college our own.
Theodore “Ted” R. Johnson, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, is a scholar on race and democracy, and a retired naval officer. His forthcoming book, “If We Are Brave,” will be published in October.
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