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Writer's pictureStaci Jefferson

The Electoral College: An Explanation

By Victoria Quinhoes

Staff Writer


It’s been a week since Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency with not only a win in the popular vote but also the electoral college. No republican has won both since George H.W. Bush won the 1988 presidential election over Michael Dukakis. 

The last time Trump won the presidency he did so in the electoral college but not the popular vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 65,853,514 votes or 48.2 percent of the vote, vs Trump’s 62,984,828 or 46.1 percent of the vote. However, Trump garnered 304 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 227 votes in our country’s winner-takes-all system that awards an entire state’s electoral votes to that state’s winner. 

Many people assume that whoever wins the presidency is because they had the most popular votes, but this is not the case. The electoral college is a Winner-takes-all system. The system works by awarding all of the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the majority of the state's vote, regardless of the margin of the victory. Only two states, Maine and Nebraska, take a different approach. They use block-party voting known as the general ticket method. The General ticket method is when they choose one elector per congressional district and two electors of the ticket with a wide vote. 

There is an ongoing debate about whether the popular vote should be in place instead of the Electoral College. In the current system, the winner is with the most electoral votes. Candidates need a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. This is because the Electoral College consists of 538 electors. Each state's electors are based on the number of its congressional representatives-Senators and House Members. For example, the District of Columbia is allocated three electors, and treated as a state under the Electoral College due to the 23rd Amendment even though it is not a state.  

The biggest issue is the majority of Americans do not know what the Electoral College is and don’t fully understand how it works. 

The system has its roots in our country’s founding, as a compromise between the American people to vote for who is running for office by the popular vote and the people who prefer Congress to choose the president. In one of Alexander Hamilton’s essays, Federalist 68, Hamilton argued that the Electoral College system is balanced with popular input and is a safety measure against corruption in choosing the next leader. It dates back to when our government started, there were only 13 original colonies. Back in 1788, there was a vast majority of people who were slaves who couldn’t vote. So their composition was the Three-Fifths, meaning three out of five slave states were counted as a state's total population, which influenced the apportionment of electoral votes. 

The Electoral College still applied to this year's presidential election because of the influence of the battleground states known as the swing states. A swing state is any state that can be reasonably won by the Democratic or Republican candidates. It is a big part of the election because they hold the power to determine the outcome: Swing states will most likely change every presidential election. In the 2020 election, theswing states were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida. President Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The only change of swing states in this election is North Carolina. Since this election is a toss-up race for both of the candidates, they need a majority of 270 electoral votes. Going back to the winner-takes-all system, most states in the United States allocate all of their Electoral College votes to the Presidential candidate who wins the most of that state in any case of victory. If the candidate wins by a narrow margin, they will receive the state’s votes. When voters cast their ballots in the election, they are voting for the slate of electors that is pledged to a candidate and not directly. Maine and Nebraska use the General Ticket method when they are allocated electoral votes by congressional district and have two additional votes for the statewide winner. This is how campaign strategies are influenced as they mainly focus on swing states instead of putting their divided attention to other states. 

The debate of abolishing the Electoral College and implementing the popular vote has been a topic of discussion for many years. The arguments in favor of the state are the protection of smaller states and populated areas and the historical past actions that guide current practices because it is a decision that has happened and can be used in another similar situation.

  James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, argued in Federalist 10 that the popular vote could lead to the dominance of larger states. This phrase is called the Tyranny of the majority. The majority of his concern is about the populated states and wanting balance in the less populous states. Critics of the Electoral College argue for replacing it with a popular vote to ensure fair representation for all voters.  The candidates focus on swing states for their votes, which leads to a lack of voter participation and neglects the safe states.

There have been instances during the election when the popular vote did not match the electoral vote. In 2000, the election of Al Gore against George Bush had a long-standing controversy because of the legal and political battle over the state of Florida. The outcome of the election hinged on the results in Florida, which ultimately decided the winner of the Electoral College. Since the election was close, Florida law required a recount, which in the end, favored Bush. The aftermath of this issue was that both sides filed lawsuits. Bush’s legal team argued that recounts in certain countries were unfair. Gore’s legal team argued that every vote should be counted. This ended up in the Supreme Court. On December 12, 2000, the court issued a 5-4 decision and caused the recounts in Florida to a halt. It favored Bush, giving him Florida’s electoral vote and winning his campaign. 

The electoral college has remained a deeply debated topic component of American Democracy. It has shaped every presidential election since our nation's founding. Even if defenders argue that it protects the interests of smaller states and also maintains a balanced system, many critics have faced its failure to reflect the true will of people and bend campaign strategies to focus on swing states. 


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