On January 6, 2021 protestors, who believed the November 2020 election had been stolen from their candidate, stormed the Capitol to prevent the Electoral College from electing the next President and Vice President. This shocking event resulted in the Electoral Reform Act of 2023 which clarifies how Electors are chosen and to address “vulnerabilities exposed by the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” How Electoral Votes are Counted for the Presidential Election.

Media coverage of January 6th also provoked interest in the formerly often ignored Electoral College, raising questions such as “What is it?”, “Why do we need an Electoral College today?” and “Why don’t we let the voters choose the next President and Vice President?”

To win, the candidate must capture at least 270 (50% plus 1) of the 538 total Electoral College votes. For a brief review of what the Electoral College is and how it has evolved over time, see our blog, Why does America have an Electoral College?

 Arguments for Abolishing the Electoral College

1. It’s an ugly holdover, designed to give Southern states more power because of their large enslaved Black population. 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.” How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970
2. Abolishment has had popular and Congressional support. In 1968, a Gallup poll found 80% of Americans supported abolishment. The following year, the House voted 338 to 70 for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, but in 1970, a group of southern senators succeeded in killing the bill by filibustering it.
3. The Electoral College is biased in favor of small and rural states. As the population grows and becomes more urban, Electors become less representative. One example is California with 101% of the combined population of 21 states and D.C., but just over half as many of the Electors.
   

   	21 smallest states (including DC)	California
   2023 population estimate	38,427,981	38,965,193
   Number of Electors in 2024	95	54

4. Five times, Presidents have been elected who lost the popular vote. These include two of the most recent 5 elections:  Adams (1824), Hayes (1876), Harrison (1888), Bush (2000), Trump (2016). National Popular Vote

Arguments for Retaining the Electoral College, with Rebuttals from Opponents

The conservative Heritage Foundation explains the Benefits, listed below. We include Rebuttals that express our conviction that all votes should be equal.

1. “Federalism: By allocating electoral votes by the total number of representatives in a given state, the Electoral College allows more states to have an impact on the choice of the President.”
   
   • The Electoral College grossly inflates the weight of votes from smaller states. This conflicts with the principle “one person one vote” on which democracy is based.
2. “Encourages Broad coalition building and moderation: The Electoral College prevents presidential candidates from winning an election by focusing solely on high-population urban centers and dense media markets, forcing them to seek the support of a larger cross-section of the American electorate.”
   
   • There is nothing “moderate” about a system that gives 95 electoral votes to 21 states with virtually the same population as California with 54 electoral votes, nor does the process lead to moderation; rather swing states become battlegrounds.
3. “Promotes legitimacy of election outcomes: The Electoral College increases the legitimacy and certainty of elections by magnifying the margin of victory, thereby diminishing the value of contentious recounts and providing a demonstrable election outcome and a mandate to govern.”
   
   • “Magnifying the margin of victory” is counter to the principle of accurate election counts.

4. “A mechanism for stable elections: The Electoral College makes elections more stable, and less likely to trigger contentious recounts.”
   
   • The loser of the 2020 race challenged state results in 62 court cases.

5. “Discourages voter fraud: While no system can completely eliminate the risk of individuals trying to cheat the system, the Electoral College minimizes the incentives for voter fraud because the system isolates the impact of stolen votes.”
   
   • Voter fraud is negligible. Even the Heritage Foundation’s own database lists only 19 cases of voter fraud of all types in the 2020 election.

An Alternative: The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

What if, instead of trying to abolish the Electoral College by the difficult and unlikely process of Constitutional amendment, every State Legislature simply agreed to instruct their Electors to vote for the candidate who won the most votes nationally? This concept, called the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” has been growing since 2007. By 2023, 16 States plus D.C., representing 205 Electoral Votes have signed up. The Compact would only take effect once it reached 270 Electoral Votes, the number needed to decide the election.

Proponents say that the current system gives too much influence to “swing states.” Most states use the “winner take all” approach to assign electoral votes. Proponents argue that this system discourages voting in states dominated by one party. It also has led to the loser of the popular vote winning the election twice (2000 and 2016) in the past six elections.

Opponents argue, among other things, that large population states would have greater impact than their representation in Congress where every State has two Senators regardless of population.

Ask yourself, should our President and Vice President be elected by direct popular vote or indirectly, based on how we send Senators and Representatives to Congress?