The Constitution allotted Electoral College votes to each State based on the number of representatives each has in the House plus their two Senators. That formula hasn’t changed since 1789, but many processes have.
The Constitution (Article II, Section 1) specified each State Legislature shall choose electors. Then Amendment XII of 1804 required separate elections for President and Vice President. Next, Amendment XX of 1933 changed Inauguration Day (from March 4 to January 20) and clarified how to handle the death of the President. Lastly, the Amendment XXIII of 1961 added representatives from the District of Columbia to the Electoral College.
In the late 1960s, “the United States came very close to abolishing the Electoral College, an indirect voting system originally designed to give southern states more power because of their large enslaved population of Black people. … In 1970, a group of southern senators succeeded in killing the bill by filibustering it.” How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970
After the 2020 election, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act to address “vulnerabilities exposed by the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” How Electoral Votes are Counted for the Presidential Election.
An Alternative: The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
What if, instead of trying to abolish the Electoral College, State Legislatures simply agreed to instruct their Electors to vote for the candidate who won the most votes nationally? This concept has been growing since 2007, and by 2023, 16 States plus D.C. representing 205 Electoral Votes have signed up. The Compact would become active once reaching the number of Electoral Votes to decide the election, currently at 270.
Proponents argue that the current “winner take all” Electoral Votes approach used in most states puts undue emphasis on “swing states,” discourages voting in states dominated by one party, and has led to the loser of the popular vote to win the election twice (2000 and 2016) in the past six elections. Opponents, among other things, argue that large population states would have greater impact than their representation in Congress where every State has two Senators regardless of population.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
- 6 Times the Filibuster Helped Senators Kill Big Bills, History.com, July 8, 2021
- 5 Presidents Who Lost the Popular Vote But Won the Election History.com, History.com, November 2, 2020
- How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970, History.com, August 25, 2020
- The National Popular Vote, Explained, Brennan Center, December 8, 2020
- How Electoral Votes are Counted for the Presidential Election, Brennan Center, February 16, 2023
- National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Wikipedia
- National Popular Vote: Ensuring Every Vote Counts, Common Cause