Perspective 149. U.S. Presidential Elections: Can They Be Democratized?

In five U.S. presidential elections, the latest in 2016, the candidate with fewer votes has won. The same is likely to happen this year if Donald Trump wins key swing states. Is there a feasible way to drain the Electoral College swamp that makes this possible?

Yes. Since Al Gore lost in 2000 despite winning more votes, there has been a creditable movement to instill real democracy in the election of our top executive. The beauty of it is that it can be done without a constitutional amendment, which is a process so cumbersome that it requires almost unanimous agreement – a rare event in politics.

In perspective, the Electoral College is a fossil remaining from the illusion of our Founding Fathers that a small group of carefully chosen Electors would be more trustworthy than ordinary voters. It never functioned as envisioned. In practice, states came to simply award their electoral votes to the winning candidate in that state, on a winer-take-all basis. This created the possibility of a non-democratic outcome on the national level.

The U.S. Constitution simply provides that “each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” the Electors to which it is entitled. This led some astute experts, following Al Gore’s 2000 loss to George Bush despite having more votes, to propose a simple way of democratizing the outcome without changing the Constitution. If states could select Electors on the basis of state-wide popular vote, then why not on the basis of nation-wide popular vote?

The constitutionality of this novel approach is reinforced by a 2020 Supreme Court decision that states may, in fact, bind their Electors to the state’s popular vote. If to the state’s vote, why not the nation’s?

Apart from guaranteeing democratic election to the nation’s top office, nationalizing the race would guarantee more attention being paid by candidates to states other than the swing states. In recent elections around half the states, and the issues concerning them, were ignored by candidates. It would also raise voter interest and turnout; in 2004 the turnout among young voters was 64.4% in battleground states and only 47.6% in the rest of the nation.

What has emerged is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), introducing legislation in all states pledging that state’s electoral votes to the national vote winner – all of this to come into effect when and if enough states were signed on to constitute an Electoral College majority.

And in one of the most under-publicized developments on the political scene, 17 states, with 209 of the required 270 majority in the Electoral College, are now on board. The matter is pending in another four states with 50 electoral votes. And it has in the past passed at least one chamber in the state legislatures of another four states.

Critics point out that the states that joined NPVIC are Democratic-leaning and that not a single deep-red (Republican) state has yet signed on. So they doubt that the 270 goal will ever be reached. But the compact has received attention and support from some Republican legislators, and research by Nate Sliver has shown that historically it would have benefited the two parties about equally (Democrat John Kerry came close to a minority win of the Presidency in 2004). So there is hope that the partisan divide can be overcome.

In the meantime, readers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Arizona –- all states not yet part of NPVIC – may want to get more involved in this effort, once the hoopla of the current season (however it ends) is past.