Good Question: Why Do We Have The Electoral College?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Next Tuesday, Americans won't be directly voting for the president. Instead, they'll be voting for people who will elect the next leader. It's the way we've been doing it since George Washington was president.
So, why do we have the Electoral College? Good Question.
"It goes back to the original constitutional design," says David Schultz, a professor of political science at Hamline University.
The Electoral College is a little like 51 mini-elections, Washington, D.C. included. Each state has a certain number of electoral votes equal to the size of the state's Congressional delegation. Whichever candidate wins that state, they also win that's state electoral votes. (Only Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes.) Whichever candidate reaches 270 votes wins the presidential election.
"The whole idea of the electoral college is the product of two or three compromises," says Schultz.
The first is compromise was between the big states and the small states. By giving each state a number of electoral votes equal to its U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators, smaller states were theoretically given a larger voice.
The second compromise was over slavery.
"The South was afraid with the North being more populous that with a straight popular vote, they wouldn't have any voice," says Schultz.
And, the third concern was that the framers of the Constitution didn't trust the electorate to make the right choice. At a time where much of the population was illiterate, there was a fear that a majority of the population would violate the rights of some citizens.
"The Electoral College is supposed to be a way of balancing majority rule with minority rights by saying that no particular region, no one part of the country would be left out in terms of selecting the president of the United States," says Schultz. "The theory was the president would actually represent everyone across the country."
According to the National Archives, there have been over 700 proposals introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. That would require a constitutional amendment.
Opponents of the Electoral College say the intent of the system no longer works because we have a more educated public. The current system also doesn't encourage campaigning in small or noncompetitive states.
Proponents of the Electoral College say it requires the candidate to be popular in more than one region of the country. And in a close election, it limits any recounts to a state, rather than the entire country.