Electoral College is overdue for the dustbin

Cleary, the Electoral College has passed its time.  It's an anachronism that confounds the will of a majority of the American people.  It's not just that twice in the last decade and a half it has handed the presidency to the candidate who did not receive a majority of the popular vote. It's that most Americans think the popular vote should elect the president.  Most are surprised when they learn that that's not how the president is elected.  Even Donald Trump thought the Electoral College was an anachronism, until its use gave him an undeserved presidency.

The fact of its existence, and how it came to be, are now much in the news, though there are still many Americans who don't understand how it works and how it came to be there in the first place.  That's because it's counterintuitive.  We're all schooled on the idea that we live in a democracy and the people vote for president every four years.  When it gets more complicated than that, a great many people, especially school students, tune out.  And so, when it comes into play, as in this election, they're confused. Most think it's ridiculous, and should be abolished.

The only sure way to get rid of the Electoral College is by constitutional amendment, something that is very difficult. There have been over 700 proposals in the last 200 years to reform or eliminate the Electoral College; there have been more constitutional amendments to alter or abolish it than any other subject, all to no avail.  Congress must pass a joint resolution by a two-thirds majority; then three-fourths of the states (38) must ratify it.  There's little prospect that a Republican Congress would entertain eliminating the device that just gave them the presidency.  And despite the fact that polls show a majority in many states favor getting rid of this undemocratic mechanism that frustrates the popular will, state legislatures will likely be unwilling, because to eliminate it would diminish those states' significance in the election process.  Small states, which have the same two senators as large states, will see purging it as disadvantageous.

[The Electoral College is hated by many. So why does it endure?]

The strongest argument for retaining the Electoral College is that it guarantees the president is elected by a majority of something. Donald Trump was not selected by a majority of American voters, but he was elected by a majority of the Electoral College, which is somewhat representative of the states.  Should no candidate in a presidential election receive a majority of the Electoral College, the selection goes to the House of Representatives, where a simple majority makes the choice.  This has happened twice in our history.

Because there are always more than two candidates (the marginal ones representing small or splinter parties), it's likely that with a direct vote of the people, sometime we would have a president elected by a plurality (more votes than any other candidate but not a majority of all votes cast).  This would be awkward. We've had some presidents who won a majority of the Electoral College but only a plurality of the popular vote, most notably Abraham Lincoln, who was elected with 40 percent of the popular vote. But without the majority provided by the Electoral College, a plurality president would not have the justification of having been elected by a majority of some representative body.  There could be a constitutional challenge to that.

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Some who want to eliminate the Electoral College have put their faith in a new initiative called the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact." By its terms, states voluntarily pledge to allocate all their electors to whichever candidate wins a majority or plurality of the popular vote. Ten states have signed on to this idea. But even if enough states were to commit to the compact to control the 270 needed to elect the president, it's not clear that the compact would survive a constitutional challenge.

But the anomaly of the president not being elected by popular vote sticks in the craw of most Americans; it doesn't fit with what they've learned about America, that it's a popular democracy where the act of voting elects the president. The Constitution has been successfully amended 27 times.  Eliminating the Electoral College should be next.

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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