While it may seem as though the “popular vote” of the American people should be used to determine the President of the United States, delegates in 1787 found the need to raise the question of how the president should be elected at a Constitutional Convention that year.
This concern continued for months, with some of America’s Founding Fathers believing the decision should be left up to Congress and others sticking to the democratic popular vote. Their compromise of both preferences is called The Electoral College.
The Electoral College is not a physical place but a process that includes the selection of electors, the meeting of said electors to cast the votes for President and Vice President and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.
Each state gets its electors from the number of members it has in Congress, including the House and Senate; there are a total of 538 electors. These electors end up being the true deciders of the election, not the American people.
The Electoral College system was influenced by the system of Slavery in the United States. Even though slaves had no rights and were unable to vote, southern governments aspired to expand their representation in Congress by counting enslaved persons in their demographics.
Since it would give the southern states excessive authority, the northern states were against this. After the Three-Fifths Compromise was established, each enslaved person was considered three-fifths of a person for the purpose of the Electoral College and congressional representation. Southern states gained more members in the House of Representatives and, thus, more electoral votes as a result of this deal, which also raised their population counts.
A September report by Pew Research shows that more than 60% of the American population is in favor of doing away with the Electoral College. Those supporting the college believe that this system restores the balance between small and large states and brings stability to the country. However, many believe that this process, rooted in racism, is the reason why swing states exist.
The Electoral College established a political environment centered on “swing states,” whose competing voter bases make election results unpredictable, as new states joined the Union. Since most Electoral College systems employ a winner-take-all strategy, giving the majority winner all of the electoral votes, candidates concentrate on winning these states.
Some believe that more populated states with more stable political inclinations are left out while smaller, less diversified populations are disproportionately benefited. In addition to maintaining historical disparities, critics claim that this biased emphasis muffles voters’ opinions in states consistently categorized as “blue” or “red.”
A national popular vote, according to reformers, would more accurately represent the whole electorate and give each voter equal weight in presidential elections. According to these opponents, America has a convoluted election system that many believe does not fairly serve all of its residents since the system perpetuates disparities that have their roots in compromises made during the enslavement era.
Considering the origin of the college and its uncomfortable fit in today’s political process, many still ask arguably one of the most important questions regarding the General Election still remains: why does the Electoral College still exist?