This week, delegates to the Electoral College will cast their votes for President of the United States.\u00a0 This Monday, New York\u2019s delegates will vote at the state Capitol in Albany.<\/p>\n
Under the U.S. Constitution this is the election that really matters.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Historically, those delegates have voted for President based on how the relevant state\u2019s population voted \u2013 if candidate X won the popular vote in a state, then the delegates from that state voted for that candidate.\u00a0 In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), the system is based on \u201cwinner take all,\u201d meaning that New York\u2019s 29 delegates all vote for the winner of the Presidential vote of our state.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 However, New York cast approximately 7.5 million votes for 29 Electoral College delegates, thus representing roughly 260,000 voters per delegate \u2013 more than twice the per delegate population as Vermont.<\/p>\n
Why the Electoral College?\u00a0 The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President. \u00a0In 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.<\/p>\n
The second reason was that the federal government, and its chief executive, were created by the states.\u00a0 Thus, the Electoral College was one of several compromises made to ensure that the smaller states would agree to the constitution.<\/p>\n
The impact of the Electoral College is usually pro forma.\u00a0 But this Presidential election is different; the expected winner of the Electoral College vote was the loser of the popular vote.\u00a0 And a big loser to boot.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes that her opponent Donald Trump.\u00a0 Purely in terms of popular votes, Mrs. Clinton\u2019s performance would put her in the top half of the winners of other Presidential elections.\u00a0 Of course, the nation\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
But she is the projected loser in the Electoral College delegate vote \u2013 and by a lot.\u00a0 As a result, she will join the list of five candidates who won the popular vote, but did not become President.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
As a result, there is a growing national discussion over the relevance of the Electoral College system.\u00a0 As a practical matter, since virtually all of the delegates follow the popular vote within their states, why have an Electoral College? \u00a0Other than the constitution\u2019s requirement, there really is no reason in the 21st<\/sup> Century to have one.<\/p>\n To change the system would require an amendment to the constitution, which is extremely difficult, but there are plans that should be considered.<\/p>\n One change could be that the power of the smaller states be maintained by merely continuing the current practice and apportion the states\u2019 \u201cvotes\u201d based on the rules of each state.\u00a0 The constitution does not mandate a \u201cwinner take all system,\u201d so states could change that if they wished \u2013 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 \u201chorse and buggy age,\u201d not in our 21st<\/sup> Century society.<\/p>\n Another change could be to just rely on the popular vote total.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Coupled with the power of big money to influencing elections, the patchwork system of voting rights which seems increasingly designed to deter<\/em> people from voting, a debate over the future of the Electoral College is one that should start now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week, delegates to the Electoral College will cast their votes for President of the United States.\u00a0 This Monday, New York\u2019s delegates will vote at the state Capitol in Albany. Under the U.S. Constitution this is the election that really matters.\u00a0 Delegates are chosen by the states and each state gets a total number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1792"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1796,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}