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Electoral College Argumentative Paper

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The Electoral College Explained

A national popular vote would help ensure that every vote counts equally, making American democracy more representative.

• Electoral College Reform

In the United States, the presidency is decided not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College — an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes yields results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters. On five occasions, including in two of the last six elections, candidates have won the Electoral College, and thus the presidency, despite losing the nationwide popular vote. 

The Electoral College has racist origins — when established, it applied the three-fifths clause, which gave a long-term electoral advantage to slave states in the South — and continues to dilute the political power of voters of color. It incentivizes presidential campaigns to focus on a relatively small number of “swing states.” Together, these dynamics have spurred debate about the system’s democratic legitimacy.

To make the United States a more representative democracy, reformers are pushing for the presidency to be decided instead by the national popular vote, which would help ensure that every voter counts equally.

What is the Electoral College and how does it work?

The Electoral College is a group of intermediaries designated by the Constitution to select the president and vice president of the United States. Each of the 50 states is allocated presidential electors  equal to the number of its representatives and senators . The ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 allowed citizens in the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections as well; they have consistently had three electors.

In total, the Electoral College comprises  538 members . A presidential candidate must win a majority of the electoral votes cast to win — at least 270 if all 538 electors vote.

The Constitution grants state legislatures the power to decide how to appoint their electors. Initially, a number of state legislatures directly  selected their electors , but during the 19th century they transitioned to the popular vote, which is now used by  all 50 states . In other words, each awards its electoral votes to the presidential candidate chosen by the state’s voters.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia use a winner-take-all system, awarding all of their electoral votes to the popular vote winner in the state. Maine and Nebraska award one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of their congressional districts and their remaining two electoral votes to the statewide winner. Under this system, those two states sometimes split their electoral votes among candidates.

In the months leading up to the general election, the political parties in each state typically nominate their own slates of would-be electors. The state’s popular vote determines which party’s slates will be made electors. Members of the Electoral College  meet and vote in their respective states  on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December after Election Day. Then, on January 6, a joint session of Congress meets at the Capitol to count the electoral votes and declare the outcome of the election, paving the way for the presidential inauguration on January 20.

How was the Electoral College established?

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 settled on the Electoral College as a compromise between delegates who thought Congress should select the president and others who favored a direct nationwide popular vote. Instead, state legislatures were entrusted with appointing electors.

Article II  of the Constitution, which established the executive branch of the federal government, outlined the framers’ plan for the electing the president and vice president. Under this plan, each elector cast two votes for president; the candidate who received the most votes became the president, with the second-place finisher becoming vice president — which led to administrations in which political opponents served in those roles. The process was overhauled in 1804 with the ratification of the  12th Amendment , which required electors to cast votes separately for president and vice president. 

How did slavery shape the Electoral College?

At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the northern states and southern states had  roughly equal populations . However, nonvoting enslaved people made up about one-third of the southern states’ population. As a result, delegates from the South objected to a direct popular vote in presidential elections, which would have given their states less electoral representation.

The debate contributed to the convention’s eventual decision to establish the Electoral College, which applied the  three-fifths compromise  that had already been devised for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. Three out of five enslaved people were counted as part of a state’s total population, though they were nonetheless prohibited from voting.

Wilfred U. Codrington III, an assistant professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and a Brennan Center fellow,  writes  that the South’s electoral advantage contributed to an “almost uninterrupted trend” of presidential election wins by southern slaveholders and their northern sympathizers throughout the first half of the 19th century. After the Civil War, in 1876, a contested Electoral College outcome was settled by a compromise in which the House awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency with the understanding that he would withdraw military forces from the Southern states. This led to the end of Reconstruction and paved the way for racial segregation under Jim Crow laws.

Today, Codrington argues, the Electoral College continues to dilute the political power of Black voters: “Because the concentration of black people is highest in the South, their preferred presidential candidate is virtually assured to lose their home states’ electoral votes. Despite black voting patterns to the contrary, five of the six states whose populations are 25 percent or more black have been reliably red in recent presidential elections. … Under the Electoral College, black votes are submerged.”

What are faithless electors?  

Ever since the 19th century reforms, states have expected their electors to honor the will of the voters. In other words, electors are now pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state. However, the Constitution does not require them to do so, which allows for scenarios in which “faithless electors” have voted against the popular vote winner in their states. As of 2016, there have been  90 faithless electoral votes  cast out of 23,507 in total across all presidential elections. The 2016 election saw a record-breaking  seven faithless electors , including three who voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was not a presidential candidate at the time.  

Currently, 33 states and the District of Columbia  require their presidential electors  to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Only 5 states, however, impose a penalty on faithless electors, and only 14 states provide for faithless electors to be removed or for their votes to be canceled. In July 2020, the Supreme Court  unanimously upheld  existing state laws that punish or remove faithless electors.

What happens if no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes?

If no ticket wins a majority of Electoral College votes, the presidential election is  sent to the House of Representatives  for a runoff. Unlike typical House practice, however, each state only gets one vote, decided by the party that controls the state’s House delegation. Meanwhile, the vice-presidential race is decided in the Senate, where each member has one vote. This scenario  has not transpired since 1836 , when the Senate was tasked with selecting the vice president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

Are Electoral College votes distributed equally between states?

Each state is allocated a number of electoral votes based on the total size of its congressional delegation. This benefits smaller states, which have at least three electoral votes — including two electoral votes tied to their two Senate seats, which are guaranteed even if they have a small population and thus a small House delegation. Based on population trends, those disparities will likely increase as the most populous states are expected to account for an even greater share of the U.S. population in the decades ahead. 

What did the 2020 election reveal about the Electoral College?

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump and his allies fueled an effort to overturn the results of the election, spreading repeated lies about widespread voter fraud. This included attempts by a number of state legislatures to nullify some of their states’ votes, which often targeted jurisdictions with large numbers of Black voters. Additionally, during the certification process for the election, some members of Congress also objected to the Electoral College results, attempting to throw out electors from certain states. While these efforts ultimately failed, they revealed yet another vulnerability of the election system that stems from the Electoral College.

The  Electoral Count Reform Act , enacted in 2023, addresses these problems. Among other things, it clarifies which state officials have the power to appoint electors, and it bars any changes to that process after Election Day, preventing state legislatures from setting aside results they do not like. The new law also raises the threshold for consideration of objections to electoral votes. It is now one-fifth of each chamber instead of one senator and one representative.  Click here for more on the changes made by the Electoral Count Reform Act.

What are ways to reform the Electoral College to make presidential elections more democratic?

Abolishing the Electoral College outright would require a constitutional amendment. As a workaround, scholars and activist groups have rallied behind the  National Popular Vote Interstate Compact  (NPV), an effort that started after the 2000 election. Under it, participating states would  commit to awarding their electoral votes  to the winner of the national popular vote.

In other words, the NPV would formally retain the Electoral College but render it moot, ensuring that the winner of the national popular vote also wins the presidency. If enacted, the NPV would incentivize presidential candidates to expand their campaign efforts nationwide, rather than focus only on a small number of swing states.

For the NPV to take effect, it must first be adopted by states that control at least 270 electoral votes. In 2007, Maryland became the first state to enact the compact. As of 2019, a total of 19 states and Washington, DC, which collectively account for 196 electoral votes, have joined.

The public has consistently supported a nationwide popular vote. A 2020 poll by Pew Research Center, for example, found that  58 percent of adults  prefer a system in which the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins the presidency.

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How the Electoral College Works—And Why It Exists

Every presidential election year revives questions about our system of voting through the Electoral College. Teachers tell us that students find this the most perplexing feature of our constitutional system. Below, we offer an explanation of why the Electoral College exists, how it works, and what happens when the electoral count in any state is contested.

What is the Electoral College?

Americans do not vote directly for the President of the United States. Instead, they vote for presidential electors, who then vote for the president and vice-president. This process is called the Electoral College.

Why does the Electoral College exist?

The Electoral College process respects the federal character of the United States, giving certain roles to the states and others to the federal government. Much of the discussion during the Constitutional Convention revolved around measures needed to balance the powers of the state and national governments. The Electoral College process was proposed and accepted as one of these measures.

How does the process work?

The process occurs in three stages: the selection of the presidential electors; the vote of the electors for the President and Vice-President; and the counting of the electoral votes.

Step 1: Choosing Presidential Electors

Each state has the same number of electors as the combined number of its Representatives in the House of Representatives and its two Senators. The number of representatives each state has depends on its population. Delaware, for example, with a population of a little over a million people has three electoral votes because it has one Representative in Congress and two Senators. California, which has a population of almost forty million, has fifty-four electoral votes because it has fifty two Representatives and two Senators. According to the twenty-third Amendment to the Constitution, the District of Columbia, the national capital, has three electoral votes, even though it has neither a voting member of the House of Representatives, nor Senators.

To win the electoral College vote, a candidate must receive 270 votes, which is a majority of the 538 available votes.

In each state, the political parties who have candidates running for president and vice-president choose electors at some point before the general election, the election at which the people of each state vote for president. The process for choosing electors varies according to state laws because the U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1, specifies that each state will appoint its electors “in such Manner as the Legislature” of the state “may direct.” (In addition to these state laws, a number of constitutional provisions and federal laws govern aspects of Electoral College procedures.) The electors chosen are called a slate of electors. When the people in each state vote for a presidential candidate, they are voting for his or her slate of electors.

Step 2: The Vote of the Presidential Electors

Following the general election, the Governor of each state (and the mayor of the District of Columbia) signs what is called a Certificate of Ascertainment. The Certificate must be ready at least six days before the electors meet. The certificate lists the slates of electors for each candidate, the votes each slate received, and specifies the slate chosen as the state’s electors for that election according to which candidate received the most votes. Here is an example of a Certificate of Ascertainment.

Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that Congress determines the day on which the electors cast their votes. Where they cast them is up to the state legislatures. The votes are cast on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election, usually in the state capital. Neither the U.S. Constitution nor any federal law requires that the electors cast their votes according to the popular vote in their state. The vote of the electors is recorded on a document called the Certificate of Vote. The Certificate of Vote contains a list for the President and another for the Vice President of all the electors who voted for each. All the electors sign the Certificate of Vote, which is then attached to an original of the state’s Certificate of Ascertainment. Both documents are then sealed up and sent to the National Archive.

In 37 states, the state official in charge of overseeing the state electoral process is the Secretary of State. The other states except one have a Board of Elections or a Commissioner of Elections who does this. In one state, Utah, the Lieutenant Governor is the chief election official.

Step 3: Counting the Electoral Votes

Electoral votes are counted at a Joint Session of Congress (the House and Senate meeting together) that takes place on January 6. This day is determined by federal law. The Vice President of the United States, acting in his or her role as the President of the Senate, presides over the counting and announces who has been elected president and vice-president.

Key Dates for the 2024 Presidential Election

November 5, 2024          Election Day

By December 11, 2024   Presidential Electors Appointed – Certificate of Ascertainment

December 17, 2024         Electors vote – Certificate of Vote

December 25, 2024            Electoral votes delivered to the President of the Senate and the Federal Archivist no later than the fourth Wednesday in December

January 6, 2025               Congress counts the vote

January 20, 2025             Inauguration Day

What Happens in Contested Elections?

Disputes over who won an election may occur in the states or at the Joint Session of Congress when the electoral vote count takes place. Some states have laws that require a recount if the election is particularly close or if, under certain circumstances, a candidate requests one. Candidates may go to state or federal court depending on whether they think the election process violated state or federal law or state or federal constitutional provisions. In 2000, the dispute over the election reached the Supreme Court . In 2020, Arizona’s Certificate of Ascertainment included information about court cases over the 2020 election that were decided or still pending.

When the Joint Session of Congress meets to count the electoral votes and declare who the next President and Vice-President will be, any objections to the electoral votes of the states must be made by at least one-fifth of the members of the House and one-fifth of the Senators.

If an objection has that level of support, the House and Senate meet separately to consider the objections. According to federal law, Representatives and Senators may consider only two objections to the electoral vote: the electors were not certified legally by a Certificate of Ascertainment or the vote of an elector was irregular in some way. An objection is sustained only if both the House and the Senate vote to do so.

If objections to the electoral vote leaves no Presidential candidate with at least 270 electoral votes, or if this is the result of the election, then according to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, the House of Representatives decides the Presidential election. The House chooses from among the top three vote getters in the Electoral College by majority vote. Each state has one vote. The District of Columbia would not have a vote because it does not have a voting member in the House. If no Vice-Presidential candidate wins at least 270 electoral votes, then according to the 12th Amendment the Senate elects the Vice President. The Senate chooses between the two top vote getters by majority vote. Each Senator has a vote.

Check out this related blog: A Conversation with John Dinan, Editor of our core document collection, Federalism .

Lessons from a Contested Presidential Election: The Election of 1800

The sand creek massacre, join your fellow teachers in exploring america’s history..

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The Electoral College system , long a source of controversy, came under especially heavy criticism after the 2016 presidential election when Republican Donald Trump lost the nationwide popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes but won the Electoral College—and thus the presidency—by 74 electoral votes .

• Gives the smaller states an equal voice.
• Prevents disputed outcomes ensuring a peaceful transition of power
• Reduces the costs of national presidential campaigns.
• Can disregard the will of the majority.
• Gives too few states too much electoral power.
• Reduces voter participation by creating a “my vote doesn’t matter” feeling.

By its very nature, the Electoral College system is confusing . When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are actually voting for a group of electors from your state who have all “pledged” to vote for your candidate. Each state is allowed one elector for each of its Representatives and Senators in Congress. There are currently 538 electors, and to be elected, a candidate must get the votes of at least 270 electors.

The Obsolescence Debate

The Electoral College system was established by Article II of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. The Founding Fathers chose it as a compromise between allowing Congress to choose the president and having the president elected directly by the popular vote of the people. The Founders believed that most common citizens of the day were poorly educated and uninformed on political issues. Consequently, they decided that using the “proxy” votes of the well-informed electors would lessen the risk of “tyranny of the majority,” in which the voices of the minority are drowned out by those of the masses. Additionally, the Founders reasoned that the system would prevent states with larger populations from having an unequal influence on the election.

Critics, however, argue that Founder’s reasoning is no longer relevant as today’s voters are better-educated and have virtually unlimited access to information and to the candidates’ stances on the issues. In addition, while the Founders considered the electors as being “free from any sinister bias” in 1788, electors today are selected by the political parties and are usually “pledged” to vote for the party’s candidate regardless of their own beliefs.

Today, opinions on the future of the Electoral College range from protecting it as the basis of American democracy to abolishing it completely as an ineffective and obsolete system that may not accurately reflect the will of the people. What are some of the main advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College?

Advantages of the Electoral College 

• Promotes fair regional representation: The Electoral College gives the small states an equal voice. If the president was elected by the popular vote alone, candidates would mold their platforms to cater to the more populous states. Candidates would have no desire to consider, for example, the needs of farmers in Iowa or commercial fishermen in Maine.
• Provides a clean-cut outcome: Thanks to the Electoral College, presidential elections usually come to a clear and undisputed end. There is no need for wildly expensive nationwide vote recounts. If a state has significant voting irregularities, that state alone can do a recount. In addition, the fact that a candidate must gain the support of voters in several different geographic regions promotes the national cohesion needed to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
• Makes campaigns less costly: Candidates rarely spend much time—or money—campaigning in states that traditionally vote for their party’s candidates. For example, Democrats rarely campaign in liberal-leaning California, just as Republicans tend to skip the more conservative Texas. Abolishing the Electoral College could make America’s many campaign financing problems even worse.   

Disadvantages of the Electoral College  

• Can override the popular vote: In five presidential elections so far—1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016—a candidate lost the nationwide popular vote but was elected president by winning the Electoral College vote. This potential to override the “will of the majority” is often cited as the main reason to abolish the Electoral College.
• Gives the swing states too much power: The needs and issues of voters in the 14 swing states —those that have historically voted for both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates—get a higher level of consideration than voters in other states. The candidates rarely visit the predictable non-swing states, like Texas or California. Voters in the non-swing states will see fewer campaign ads and be polled for their opinions less often voters in the swing states. As a result, the swing states, which may not necessarily represent the entire nation, hold too much electoral power.
• Makes people feel their vote doesn’t matter: Under the Electoral College system, while it counts, not every vote “matters.” For example, a Democrat’s vote in liberal-leaning California has far less effect on the election’s final outcome that it would in one of the less predictable swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio. The resulting lack of interest in non-swing states contributes to America’s traditionally low voter turnout rate .

The Bottom Line

Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment , a lengthy and often unsuccessful process. However, there are proposals to “reform” the Electoral College without abolishing it. One such movement, the National Popular Vote plan would ensure that the winner of the popular vote would also win at least enough Electoral College votes to be elected president. Another movement is attempting to convince states to split their electoral vote based on the percentage of the state’s popular vote for each candidate. Eliminating the winner-take-all requirement of the Electoral College at the state level would lessen the tendency for the swing states to dominate the electoral process.

The Popular Vote Plan Alternative

As an alternative to the long and unlikely method amending the Constitution, critics of the Electoral College are now perusing the National Popular Vote plan designed to ensure that the candidate who wins the overall popular vote in inaugurated president.

Based on Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution granting the states the exclusive power to control how their electoral votes are awarded, the National Popular Vote plan requires the legislature of each participating state to enact a bill agreeing that the state will award all of its electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, regardless of the outcome of the popular vote in that specific state.

The National Popular Vote would go into effect when states controlling 270—a simple majority—of the total 538 electoral votes. As of July 2020, a National Popular Vote bill has been signed into law in 16 states controlling a total of 196 electoral votes, including 4 small states, 8 medium-sized states, 3 big states (California, Illinois, and New York), and the District of Columbia. Thus, the National Popular Vote plan will take effect when enacted by states controlling an additional 74 electoral votes.  

Sources and Further Reference

• “From Bullets to Ballots: The Election of 1800 and the First Peaceful Transfer of Political Power.” TeachingAmericanHistory.org , https://teachingamericanhistory.org/resources/zvesper/chapter1/.
• Hamilton, Alexander. “The Federalist Papers: No. 68 (The Mode of Electing the President).” congress.gov , Mar. 14, 1788, https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-68.
• Meko, Tim. “How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states.” Washington Post (Nov. 11, 2016), https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/.
• How the US Electoral College System Works
• Reasons to Keep the Electoral College
• Electoral Votes by State in 2020
• The National Popular Vote Plan
• What Happens If the Presidential Election Is a Tie
• Representative Democracy: Definition, Pros, and Cons
• Direct Democracy: Definition, Examples, Pros and Cons
• What Is a Bicameral Legislature and Why Does the U.S. Have One?
• What Is Incrementalism in Government? Definition and Examples
• What Was the US Second Party System? History and Significance
• What Are Low Information Voters?
• About the Speaker of the House of Representatives
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• Apportionment and the US Census
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about The Electoral College

A history professor shares his insights on the governmental institution that has increasingly become the deciding factor in American presidential races.

The 2020 presidential election is fast approaching, which means it’s the perfect time for a refresher on the governmental institution that has increasingly become the deciding factor in American presidential races: the Electoral College. We asked Chris DeRosa, Ph.D., chair of the Department of History and Anthropology, to share his insights on the institution.

THE PURPOSE

The original plan called for each elector to cast two votes for president. Whoever received a majority of votes from electors became president; the runner-up became vice president.

States can do what they want with their electoral votes, says DeRosa. Most give them to the candidate who wins a state majority. An elector who defies that assignment is called a faithless elector, and the state has the choice whether to tolerate them. “You don’t get them very often because they’re chosen as party loyalists, and we’ve never had faithless electors swing an election,” says DeRosa.

One of the advantages is the end result is clear: “Somebody wins; somebody gets a majority of the electoral votes,” says DeRosa. If presidents were elected purely by popular vote, a candidate could win the presidency with less than 50% of the vote. “If you had more than two parties contending for the presidency, you might have somebody winning with 30% of the votes, and that’s a ticket to an extremist candidate.”

The first problem with the Electoral College is that it gives more weight to voters in small states than those in more populous ones, says DeRosa. Every state gets a minimum of three electoral votes. However, each state’s total allotment is based on its representation in the Senate (always two people) and the House (varies by population). “So take Washington, D.C., as an example,” says DeRosa. “More people live in D.C. than in Wyoming, the least populous state in the union; but they both get three electoral votes.” (Plus, unlike Wyoming, D.C. gets no voting representation in Congress.)

The biggest problem with the Electoral College is that it encourages vote suppression, says DeRosa. Southern states always had an advantage in the population count, because they got electoral votes appointed on the basis of their slave populations and their white populations. That gave the states extra representation for people they weren’t really representing at all.

After the Civil War, former slaves were counted as “whole” persons, not three-fifths of one, for purposes of electoral vote allotment. But Black voter suppression still took place through Jim Crow laws. This further “inflated the electoral count of people who were not representing all the people in their state,” says DeRosa. “So the Electoral College became a pillar of white supremacy.”

Love it or hate it, the Electoral College is here to stay because changing it would require “constitutional surgery,” says DeRosa. “You would need three-fourths of the states to ratify any change, and too many states that are intent on suppressing votes benefit from the Electoral College.” The downside? “If you never have to appeal to the electorate because you’re successfully suppressing some large part of it, then you have a broken system.”