What are the benefits to the US Electoral College system?
So I'm a New Zealander and I have a pretty good idea on how the electoral college system works but it honestly sounds like something that can be easily corrupted and it feels like it renders the popular vote absolutely useless unless I'm totally missing something obvious?
So yeah if someone could explain to me what the benefits of such a system are, that would be awesome.
Edit - Thanks for the replies so far, already learning a lot!
Source: I teach U.S. history at the high school and collegiate level.
The Electoral College was one of the original pieces of the U.S. democratic system created when our constitution was drafted and ratified in the 1780s. It’s important to remember that the drafters of the constitution were very much experimenting with a modern representative democracy based on the values of the Enlightenment. So to the extent that the Electoral College seems odd, it’s largely a result of the context of its creation - namely, we weren’t sure exactly how our system would function yet.
One of the key tensions that the framers were trying to address in the 1780s was the struggle between anarchy and tyranny. That is, finding the right balance between giving too much power to common people and too much power to the elites. The framers thought that giving too much power to common people would create a “tyranny of the majority” and result in things like demagogue politicians and threatened property rights (the foundation of a stable economic system). However, too much power to elites would result in the same sort of tyranny that we lived under when we were part of the British imperial system.
So one way that they tried to strike the right balance with federal elections was to have popular elections, but to give a group of elites veto power over whomever was elected by the masses. So if someone was elected by the masses who was grossly incompetent for President, the Electoral College, a body composed of elites, could choose someone else. This was dangerous. The Electoral College would risk a crisis in the U.S. democratic system if they rejected the will of the people. So although they could veto the results of a popular election, in theory they would only risk doing so in dire circumstances.
There is also a commonly understood function of the Electoral College that is not as commonly taught and is still controversial in some circles to point out: it was created to enhance the power of slave holding states. Electoral College votes are given to states based on their population. So the more populous your state is the more votes you get. Southern states wanted to count their enslaved persons when it came to allocating Electoral College votes, but they didn’t want to recognize them as citizens or people. They threatened to walk from the brand new union if they weren’t allowed to count their enslaved population for Electoral purposes. So this resulted in something called the Three Fifths compromise where slave-holding states could count each slave as 3/5 of a freed man for Electoral purposes, but they didn’t have to recognize them as citizens or people. I would argue that the fact that the Electoral College has consistently entrenched white supremacy in the U.S. has been one key reason behind its staying power in our governmental system.
Speaking of the modern version of the Electoral College, some political scientists claim that benefits are:
-it forces politicians to campaign even in small, less populous regions of the nation rather than focusing on the large population centers.
-I’m some cases (like Obama’s election in 2012) it can amplify majorities in the popular vote and make it seem like an electoral winner has a stronger popular mandate
-It tends to result in two large parties that must put together broadly popular coalitions in order to win. This is in contrast to something like a parliamentary system when you often get a greater variety of more specialized parties. The claim is that, in theory, this makes parties more moderate and broadly appealing.
Some political scientists point out that some drawbacks are:
-It disproportionately benefits regions of the country that are predominantly white, rural, and conservative (and, frankly, racist and patriarchal)
-It allows conservatives to exercise minority rule by still winning elections even though they haven’t won the national popular vote in many years.
-It dilutes the will of the people by allowing a candidate to become president without winning the popular vote. This has happened twice since 2000.
Yep. And the kicker is that, with Trump, it failed at its core function of keeping incompetent people out of the presidency. So given that I think Americans are rightly wondering what the purpose of the institution even is.
... something called the Three Fifths compromise where slave-holding states could count each slave as 3/5 of a freed man for Electoral purposes.
Jesus... That's beyond awful.
I will say, though, and this is out of topic, you seem like a nice teacher.
English is not my first language and I'm kind of stupid when it comes to politics but you managed to not only make me understand everything but also made me interested, now I'm thinking about reading more of the topic, thanks!
Thank you for your kind words! I know many people struggle with politics and history, especially in school. It’s never too late to re-engage through books, movies, etc. as your time, interests, and happiness allow :)
Haha no way! I’m connected with some history teachers that teach in FL, and the conflicts they’re going though are just mind boggling.
I do live in a purple state that is protected from that crap by a Democratic governor elected with a pretty slim majority. So it could well happen to me in the future. I’ve given a lot of thought to how I’d handle being in that situation. Scary stuff.
"It tends to result in two large parties that must put together broadly popular coalitions in order to win."
If you don't mind, to what extent do you think the founders were aware of this? I know Washington made a point of warning about the dangers of political parties and then everyone else seems to have quickly hopped into the Republican/Federalist camps.
Was this seen as an unavoidable evil during the drafting, or did they think they were crafting something that would avoid parties becoming powerful?
That’s actually a really good question and I don’t know the answer. My best guess is that the founders didn’t intend that as a purpose of the EC, that it’s a secondary effect that modern political scientists have theorized.
You’re right that Washington pointed out the dangers of political parties, but that was in his Farewell Address which came at the end of his second term, by which time the Republican and Federalist factions were already becoming baked in and he had experience with Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s fighting within his administration. I don’t know that he or other framers were thinking of that when they designed the EC during the framing of the constitution eight-ish years prior.
For all I know, however, there might be a Federalist Paper that lays out partisan moderation as a function of the Electoral College. Maybe someone with more expertise can correct me here.
In many ways, yes. There were also abolitionists and abolition sympathizers among the framers. It was a complicated set of individuals and the resulting constitution was complicated as well. It’s a document that simultaneously enshrines liberty and white supremacy. There’s a real Jekyll and Hyde nature to American democracy.
At the time the electoral college was devised, the only way to reliably get an important message from a state capital to the federal capital was to send a trusted messenger on a horse. The electors are those trusted messengers.
Also, back then there was still a lot of disagreement about how the US would work. Was it going to operate be a single, unified country or would it be more like an EU style organization with a unified defense? IE Federalists vs Anti-Federalists? The electoral college was a compromise to let each state run its own elections and only franchise who they wanted. It’s important to remember that the US was not founded as a universal suffrage nation, and has only slowly and after much painful internal struggle expanded civil rights.
IIRC there was also a desire to put some distance between the unwashed masses and the election. James Madison, for example, was clear in his writings that he feared the system would devolve into mob rule by whichever group could whip up the most angry followers (January 6, 2021 anyone?). The presidential electors have an opportunity to be the adults in the room if the election is a hot mess and cooler heads need to prevail (though they can also swing the other way and wreak havoc so it's a double-edged sword).
Americans really have a hard time renewing things. The US is so high on the idea being the best country in the world, that they are afraid to change anything and get very defensive about modernization. I am kind of glad that Germany got a reset and was able to build something new in a modern time. I see how the US and UK really struggle with their excess weight of previous centuries. Ranked voting is more democratic. But how to you tell people that they have to change if they think they have the best system (while their current system clearly is dismantling their society at the same time)
When the definition of "everyone else" excluded people without property, women, and minorities, it served its purpose quite well. In fact it continues to serve the purpose of overrepresenting property owning white men. Not as well as back in the 1800s, mind you.
Like most weird things with the American federal government, you have to remember that at the founding, the individual states were much more autonomous, more similar to individual countries than they are now.
Primarily, the electoral college was one of many compromises made between the states so that all of them would sign on and join the union. It was deliberately designed to give smaller states a disproportionate say in the presidential election, to sooth their fears that they would end up being controlled by the larger more populous states (again, at the time, people would have identified much more strongly with their state than with the federal union.) So, the benefit was that it gave the smaller states enough of a say that they were willing to join the union.
If you conceive of the United States as a single nation state, which many today do, but was not historically a universal norm, then there's no real benefit and only serves to help Republicans maintain power, since less populous states tend to vote Republican. This is what most people tend to believe, especially people on the left, and why you largely see most people online oppose the electoral college.
If you conceive of these United States as a group of states and not just a giant nation state, then the electoral college allows the separate states some hedge against being dominated by their larger neighbors. Almost no one actually believes this. You'll mostly see Republicans bring up this argument, but by and large they're hypocritical about it(they'll use states rights when it serves them, and federal power when convenient). There are some people who do truly think that the states should be left to govern themselves, as a matter of principle and not just as part of a political game to get their way when convenient, but they are very rare.
Just look at how the EU government works, they ended up with a very similar system, just with a parliamentary twist. It's a bit of a natural compromise when you have a bunch of nations with their own identity coming together to form a larger body.
EC is great when you've got too many people to tally votes efficiently. So basically it's only use since the advent of the telegraph is to ensure mega cities don't disproportionately affect rural locations via election results. With EC, rural states have more weight than they otherwise would. I still think we should switch to a popular vote for elections.
What doesn't? That rural states have more weight via the EC than they would in a popular vote? It's not a benefit to the country and citizens as a whole, but it is to those individual states.
Saying it's more efficient was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. It's not now. It was a few hundred years ago when communication was still done by horseback.
Having local governments does mitigate the effect megacities have on rural locations, yes, but not regarding national elections. An argument I've heard time and time again for keeping the EC is that without it, each president would be decided by NYC and LA.
What I’ve heard is that it prevents “tyranny of the majority”, whereby the majority would just get their way 100% of the time.
I know that sounds like exactly what should happen, but I think the thought is that sometimes the majority does not vote in the country’s best interest.
As an exaggerated example, say there is some budget concern that would allocate all money to urban business and zero to rural. Depriving rural business like farms of this funding would cripple the country’s food reserves. But the majority live in urban environments, so they’d vote selfishly and fuck up the country. So rural voters are given more power to balance it out.
Now in my opinion - I don’t care about any of that. And I think if the majority votes one way and fucks up the country, so be it. Gotta learn to vote in the country’s interest and not your own.
I guess most other governments would never need a system like that given I don't imagine there's any other country in the world that is made up of as many States as the US.
We have an interesting electoral system in NZ called MMP which is essentially a first across the post system so even if a party gets more votes than anyone else, it they didn't get enough to cross the post/finish line, they don't win and so a coalition can be formed by smaller parties that got less votes to get across the finish line and therefore the country is then run by multiple political parties.
I think multi party parliamentary systems are probably the gold standard for representative government, but I don't think I like the Prime Minister as head of state/government due to the very reactionary and populist nature of a parliament.
Some if it depends on how the elections run. Like if people vote for parties and not specific candidates. If they have ranked choice voting. What the process and prospect for citizen initiated legislation is. How strong the checks and balances are against an out of control parliament. That sort of thing.
Rural America has very few people in it. The Electoral College makes "Rural America" matter by weighting it so that in effect landmass votes, not people.
My vote is worth something like 4/7 of a Wyomingite's vote because my state happens to include two or three large cities (that I don't live in).
I am an American. There are none other than ensuring the ruling class continues to wield unbalanced power over the masses.
Upon the founding of this country the office of president was very severely limited in what its function was (technically still is, which has been the great grift of American politics—true power is in congress but no one pays attention to congressional elections).
Nowadays the presidency has expanded a bit from its original design, to the point that it really should be a directly elected office, but it is very difficult to change the constitution of this country so the electoral college remains.
the main 'advantage' i believe is that it allows non-voting people to lend weight to the votes of those who do vote. it allows states to disenfranchise voters, without that impacting their state's influence on national politics. it also allows smaller states a larger proportional influence than their population would make reasonable.
personally, i don't see those as advantages, but i'm not some wealthy slave owner from the 1700s.
Currently: None. I guess you could swing a semi-benefit that it gives more power to smaller states so they don’t “get overrun” by the big boys, but the way most states decide their electors, this happens anyways and would probably be better without the EC. Unfortunately to get rid of it requires a Constitutional Amendment which is very hard to do in this country (only 27 times in 230 years under the Constitution, 11 of which were proposed with the Constitution). There are a couple sneaky ways states are trying to get around this. I think CGP Grey has a video or two all about the Electoral College if you’re interested
Historically: Actually more than people think. It was difficult to spread information around the nation cause it was really big for the technology at the time. The optimistic idea behind it was that a state could hold their elections, the electors would then be informed what the desires of their electorate would be, then they would spend a month moseying up to the Capital (originally NYC, then Philadelphia, then DC) and once they got there they could then vote for the President using not only the desires of their electorate, but the most up to date political information. The cynical view is that this allowed the wealthy and powerful to elect other wealthy and powerful men to be President. Real history probably places the true reason somewhere in between
There are a couple sneaky ways states are trying to get around this.
The biggest one is the NPVIC - basically, states representing a majority of electoral votes (considerably fewer than the 3/4 required to ratify a constitutional amendment) would enter into an interstate compact agreeing to award all of their electoral votes - and hence the presidency - to whoever wins the national popular vote.
It might be struck down as unconstitutional, but it also might not - states have a lot of power over how to allocate their electoral votes. But even getting to the needed 270 electoral votes is a stretch; we're currently at 205, but that includes most of the low-hanging fruit, because populous hard-right states like Texas tend to view the current system as favoring Republicans (and indeed the 4 presidents in the last 150 years elected despite losing the popular vote were all Republicans) and so even if a popular vote would bolster their national influence they're still against it. And the non-Republican-dominated states that haven't entered it yet - MI/WI/PA/AZ/NV/GA/NC/NH - are all presidential swing states that enjoy outsized influence under the current system and have no incentive to disrupt it.
So realistically, the only way to eliminate the electoral college would be for a Democrat to win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote, thus gaining support from hard-right state legislatures eager to delegitimize the election winner.
I'm not sufficiently educated on the subject so I can't argue either way, but the defense I usually hear is that the sparse farmland states and the densely populated city states have different needs, and that the majority of the population living in cities shouldn't be making decisions for the rest of the country. So it gives each state an equal say in the executive branch; Otherwise the most populated states hold all the power.
If there's a problem with this defense of its pro's, please educate me. I'm not being sarcastic.
I think you're thinking of the Connecticut Compromise, which established a bicameral Congress with a population-weighted House and state-weighted Senate.
The most populated states still hold a lot of power in # of votes in electoral college. It's not inherently good that small states hold a disproportionate power (vs population) in the electoral college.
In the real world, states may as well vote together as blocks. Only a few states flip to a different party every election.
After reading that second link, it definitely seems like they're saying the average citizens weren't smart enough to decide who should be president lol.
It helps candidates that don't actually have a policy win elections anyway. Helps the side that keeps losing popular elections get into office regardless.
In general, complicated electoral policies help maintain the status quo and a disconnect between the people and the state. It makes the people always think that things are bad because they didn't use the system right. Come on guys we need more voters. Come on guys we need to focus on swing States. Actually guys we need to vote in Congress too. Guys we also need local elections. Omg guys, we forgot about the supreme court!!
Rather than revolting against your government, you will always be presented with another route forward that won't take you there.
The main benefit is that it allows us to change how we vote for President over time without requiring a Constitutional amendment every time. This is because the states themselves can decide how they select electors, and can try out different voting systems without requiring permission from the federal government.
For example, there is currently an agreement between states that, if they get enough states to agree for a majority of electoral votes, they will all switch to using the national popular vote as their only criterion. So we can switch to that system with less than half the states, rather than requiring 3/4 of them to approve an amendment. And of we decide we hate the system later, we can switch back, again without an amendment.
This may sound cynical, but in my experience with it, 100 people are a lot easier to bribe than 230 million.
E: see, the people vote, and the EC are supposed to vote for what their state's people vote for. But, as free citizens, they're allowed to vote for who they want. So, we may get into situations, where the popular vote in a state was for A, but the EC vote was for B. The EC are supposed to represent their state, but should also be allowed to vote for the candidate they think is best (like the other citizens). IMO, it should be a point system. Each state gets the points of the EC count they currently have. The state's popular vote decides the candidate that gets the points of the state. The EC is disolved. Done. This allows the popular vote to win, while still maintaining the original reason for the EC (rural states have less people, but now have as much of a voting power as urban states, when compared to popular votes alone).
It's a decent idea that's been devastatingly crippled. We could fix almost all the problems with it by doing two things: unbinding electors, and uncapping the House. If more states moved to a proportional system, that would help, too.
The thing is... to forbid states to bind their electors (binding means the elector is not free to choose their vote for President, but must vote as dictated by state law) or to force states to choose electors proportionally, is beyond the power of the federal government. It would be better for everyone if states did this on their own, of course, but they can't be forced to do so.
Uncapping the House is desirable both in itself (for greater, and more granular, representation in Congress) and would also make the EC more representative by allowing more electors to populous states, without diminishing the representation of less populous states. But making the EC more democratic, without the check that unbound electors provide, could be dangerous, pushing the country further towards populism.
The main benefit is that it pushes a lot of issues to a more fault tolerant system.
Technically, the election of President was not supposed to be decided by the people. Only two state legislatures devolved the authority to choose the Electors in the Electoral College to a vote when Washington was elected. All states voted for the President after the Civil War, but the layout wasn't even.
In its current state, the Electoral College provides a fire break between the different states in how they vote. The states are supposed to run all elections, which may have impacts on who gets elected.
The system becomes easy enough for a lawyer to understand
The "popular vote" is also not a perfect system. When there are a majority of rural voters in area, and those voters are poorly educated, they come up with some interesting choices of town mayors, who then have no clue how to actually run a town council and provide services (not inside the US but just saying, no political system seems to be perfect).