Why do we have the Electoral College? The history and arguments against the institution

Until Close polls To election dayMillions of people across the United States are voting for their preferred candidates to succeed President Biden in the White House. But to determine the winner, it's not enough to add up how many people voted for Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump Electoral College.

The Electoral College is a controversial step in the US election process dates from the 18th century. There is a growing movement towards this try to get rid of itothers defend the system that some exist States more weight in presidential elections.

Why was the Electoral College even created?

Whether the Electoral College is fair or necessary depends heated debate in a way that goes back to its founding.

The concept arose during the Constitutional Convention, which took place over a four-month period in 1787 to address problems with the early system of government in the United States. State delegates attending the convention were divided over how the country should elect its president. Some suggested that Congress should elect the executive branch, others argued for direct democracy in which citizens would vote to elect their leader. At that time, the right to vote was almost exclusively reserved for white men who owned property.

What to do with the method of selecting a president has become an ongoing debate in Congress, said Michael Thorning, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Democracy Project, who told CBS News the matter was ultimately referred to a group that certain areas of the constitution are tasked with resolving previous disagreements. It was called the “Unfinished Parts Committee.”

As a compromise, committee members agreed on the electoral college.

“There were some participants in the Constitutional Convention who didn’t have a great deal of trust in the will of the people,” Thorning said. “They feared that people with very little political experience, knowledge of the candidates and understanding of their programs would be asked to select someone they might not know. And so they could just vote for the person whose name they know against the most competent candidate. So that was a bargain.

Population size was a major point of contention. Delegates attending the convention came from large states such as New York and Pennsylvania, as well as small states such as New Jersey and New Hampshire. While some of the larger states would have preferred an electoral system based on the popular vote that would have given them a greater say in the election than a state with fewer voters, Thorning said delegates from some smaller states were concerned about being “overrun” by more populous ones Neighbors.

Other major states that sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention had institutionalized slavery. At this time, hundreds of thousands of people were enslaved throughout the South, accounting for approximately 40% of the South's population. Under the infamous “Three-Fifths Compromise” passed during the same Congress, which allowed Southern states to count three-fifths of their enslaved population in their overall census, slaveholding states could have considerable power in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, although only a fraction of its residents were allowed to vote.

Why are electoral votes important in presidential elections?

Elements of the Electoral College have changed since the Constitution was drafted, as voting rights were expanded and citizens chose their state's electors. But its fundamental role in electing the president has remained.

“We have 50 state elections that are all held individually,” Thorning said. “What matters is who wins each of the 50 state elections.”

Electoral votes are allocated to each state based roughly on its population, with the number of electors equal to the state's total number of U.S. senators and congressmen. That means even the most sparsely populated states get three, while many states have a dozen or more; The most populous state, California, currently has 54 residents.

In most states, it is a winner-take-all system where the candidate who wins a majority of the vote in the state wins. Only Maine and Nebraska have slightly different systems for apportioning their voters depending on who won at the congressional district level.

There are 538 electors who cast votes in the Electoral College, and a presidential candidate must receive at least 270 of those votes to win.

It is possible to win the popular vote nationwide and still lose the election if states with enough electoral votes go the other way.

This system also means candidates end up spending disproportionate amounts of time and money campaigning in a small number of battleground states, which could tip the balance in their favor.

Why do we vote when there is an electoral college?

When voters cast their presidential ballot, they are actually selecting the group of voters who, in good faith, represent the political party to which their preferred candidate belongs. The people who fill these roles are selected by their party and are typically local officials or committed political supporters.

Thorning called the popular vote for president “a really unofficial measure of the election.”

“While voters go to the polls and see a presidential candidate on the ballot, they are actually voting for voters who represent those people,” he said. “Whoever the predominant voters are in this election, they are the ones who ultimately cast the Electoral College votes. So the post-election period is actually a process of transferring these many popular votes into the electoral college.”

After the November election, voters meet in each state in December to officially cast their vote for their state's winner.

Why do some critics want to abolish the Electoral College?

Critics of the Electoral College primarily criticize the fact that it leaves open the possibility that the result may not reflect the result of the popular vote. This last happened in 2016, when Trump won the presidency with a majority of Electoral College votes, even though Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, won the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.

Similar problems have occurred in a few presidential elections, including in 2000, when George W. Bush won the Electoral College despite losing a majority of the vote to then-Vice President Al Gore. In this race, the majority of votes were split very narrowly between Bush and Gore – much smaller than in 2016.

“Over time, the world has evolved, even if the Electoral College hasn’t evolved as much,” Thorning said. “I think by some standards the idea that it's not a direct popular vote for president in this day and age doesn't seem democratic to some people.”

Under a suggested alternativeUnder the so-called National Popular Vote Compact, states would agree to give their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote – even if it doesn't match the result in their state.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris' vice presidential running mate, recently spoke out against the electoral collegeDuring a campaign rally in California, he said, “We need a popular vote.”

“I think we all know the Electoral College has to go,” Walz said. “But that’s not the world we live in. So we have to win Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We have to be able to go to York, Pennsylvania and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We have to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”

The Harris-Walz campaign followed up with a statement saying his comments did not reflect its official position on the issue.

Thorning pointed out that while the Electoral College system is partially enshrined in the Constitution, it can be changed.

“I think we should continue to debate aspects of our democracy and the content of our Constitution,” Thorning said. “But at the end of the day, this is the system that we have agreed to so far and so we have to conduct our policy through the system that we have and implement changes to that system through the system that we have.” There is one Opportunity to make that change if there is support for it.”