This week, delegates to the Electoral College will cast their votes for President of the United States.  This Monday, New York’s delegates will vote at the state Capitol in Albany.

Under the U.S. Constitution this is the election that really matters.  Delegates are chosen by the states and each state gets a total number of delegates that equals of the sum of its members of the House of Representatives plus its two members of the U.S. Senate.

Historically, those delegates have voted for President based on how the relevant state’s population voted – if candidate X won the popular vote in a state, then the delegates from that state voted for that candidate.  In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), the system is based on “winner take all,” meaning that New York’s 29 delegates all vote for the winner of the Presidential vote of our state.

Given that smaller population states are entitled to Congressional representation of two U.S. Senators and at least one member of the House, the Electoral College system can give disproportionate power to those smaller states.  The result of this system is that in this election the state of Vermont cast about 320,000 votes, and thus each of its three electors represent roughly 107,000 voters.  However, New York cast approximately 7.5 million votes for 29 Electoral College delegates, thus representing roughly 260,000 voters per delegate – more than twice the per delegate population as Vermont.

Why the Electoral College?  The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President.  In the Federalist Papers, historians believe that the founders wanted the electors to be able to insure that only a qualified person becomes President. They believed that with the Electoral College no one candidate would be able to manipulate the citizenry. It would act as a check on an electorate that might be duped.

The second reason was that the federal government, and its chief executive, were created by the states.  Thus, the Electoral College was one of several compromises made to ensure that the smaller states would agree to the constitution.

The impact of the Electoral College is usually pro forma.  But this Presidential election is different; the expected winner of the Electoral College vote was the loser of the popular vote.  And a big loser to boot.

Mrs. Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes that her opponent Donald Trump.  Purely in terms of popular votes, Mrs. Clinton’s performance would put her in the top half of the winners of other Presidential elections.  Of course, the nation’s population has grown over time, but her margin of victory in the popular vote exceeded that of Presidents Carter in 1976 and Nixon in 1968, among others.

But she is the projected loser in the Electoral College delegate vote – and by a lot.  As a result, she will join the list of five candidates who won the popular vote, but did not become President.

This is also the second time in recent years that the winner of the popular vote did not become President (the other being the 2000 election).

As a result, there is a growing national discussion over the relevance of the Electoral College system.  As a practical matter, since virtually all of the delegates follow the popular vote within their states, why have an Electoral College?  Other than the constitution’s requirement, there really is no reason in the 21^st Century to have one.

To change the system would require an amendment to the constitution, which is extremely difficult, but there are plans that should be considered.

One change could be that the power of the smaller states be maintained by merely continuing the current practice and apportion the states’ “votes” based on the rules of each state.  The constitution does not mandate a “winner take all system,” so states could change that if they wished – liked Maine and Nebraska already have done. Such a system may not change the outcome of this election, but it would eliminate the ceremony of the Electoral College process, one which made more sense in a “horse and buggy age,” not in our 21^st Century society.

Another change could be to just rely on the popular vote total.  That would be a more fundamental change and one which would overrule the decisions of the founders, but one which is certainly defensible in a democracy.

Coupled with the power of big money to influencing elections, the patchwork system of voting rights which seems increasingly designed to deter people from voting, a debate over the future of the Electoral College is one that should start now.