According to a flurry of recent public polls, the majority of Americans favored abolishing the Electoral College for the presidential election, a mechanism made the United States’ executive president be indirectly elected via a group of presidential electors instead of decided by voters directly.
The Pew Research Center survey released last month indicated that 63 percent of Americans favored a direct popular vote for the nation’s president over the Electoral College, with around 80 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of Republicans in favor of doing away with the process.
The Public Policy Institute of California’s October poll also showed that seven out of 10 voters in California, the most populous state of the country, wanted the Electoral College abolished.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst League of Women Votes (UMass Amherst) poll published on Friday showed six out of 10 American women favored abolishment of the Electoral College.
“The Electoral College is an outdated racist relic with harmful implications for all voters,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, in a statement. “So, it is no surprise that women are advocating for a more representative system that prioritizes the power of the people. Voters, not politically motivated electors, must choose the president.”
No surprise there, since states whose electoral votes can swing the election despite losing the national vote tend to be Republican. Donald Trump’s 2016 victory despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin fueled public debate on the Electoral College’s legitimacy and underscored the reason, for many, why it has to be repealed.
For over two centuries, the U.S. Electoral College has decided presidential elections, yet a majority of Americans now prefer a shift to a popular vote system that guarantees a democracy based on “One person, One vote.”
The Electoral College works by assigning each state a number of “electors” based on how many congressional representatives it has.
Total electoral votes add up to 538, with most states awarding all their votes to the candidate who wins that state in the popular vote. The candidate who receives 270 electoral votes wins the presidency.
Battleground “swing” states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania received disproportionate clout, reinforcing the importance of a few decisive regions in determining the outcome, which many feel undermines democratic rule.
The roots of the Electoral College go back to the U.S. Constitution’s framers, who sought to balance the influence of large and small states and prevent the dominance of heavily populated regions.
However, currently, criticisms argue that small states received disproportionate power, which led to outcomes that reflect the preferences of a minority rather than the broader electorate. Moreover, such demographic and economic imbalances could lead to repeated situations where the popular vote winner does not win the presidency, fueling distrust in the electoral process and political unrest.
The system led to controversies in close elections particularly, such as in 1824, 1876, and 2000. Each time, the candidate with the popular vote advantage was either narrowly elected by Congress or lost due to the Electoral College.
An additional issue lies with “faithless electors,” who occasionally vote contrary to their state’s popular vote since they are not required to follow their state voters. This gives a huge amount of power to a tiny handful of people — the opposite of the general election’s purpose.
“For much of the nation’s history, the Electoral College was an afterthought and viewed as a unique quirk in what otherwise was a democratic system of elections,” said Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll published Friday.
“In recent years, with increasingly close presidential elections, we have seen the Electoral College take center stage in selecting the nation’s next president as winners of the popular vote in 2000 and 2016 failed to secure enough Electoral College votes to become president,” he noted.
Historically, Americans have supported eliminating the Electoral College. In the 1960s, over half favored this change, and that number increased to 75 percent in the 1980s.
Reforming the system is challenging because it would require a constitutional amendment or a novel approach like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).
The NPVIC, supported by 15 states and Washington D.C., would require participating states to allocate their electors to the national popular vote winner if the compact reaches a majority threshold of 270 electoral votes.
While this approach bypasses some legislative hurdles, it faces potential legal challenges and relies on continued support from states.
“Using a popular vote system is the only way we can uphold our democratic values, reflect the people’s will, and ensure fair representation in U.S. presidential elections,” Kevin K., a university economics major, told Xinhua.
