Tryon: Split decision looms for Electoral College

Published: Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 19, 2012 at 3:56 p.m.

A nice man, a reader of the Herald-Tribune for more than 20 years, called last week to lament that most of his friends don't understand the Electoral College or its role.

That means they fail to realize, the caller emphasized, that the millions of Americans who cast ballots in the general elections won't actually and directly elect the president of the United States.

The congenial fellow -- I won't give his name, to spare him crank phone calls on a Sunday morning -- asked me to explain.

First, the caller is right: Americans who cast ballots in the race for the presidency actually delegate their votes to 538 electors, who are selected by different criteria and subject to different requirements depending on their state.

The most dramatic potential result of this delegation to electors: A candidate for president can win the most votes nationwide but not be elected president.

That potential most recently came to fruition in 2000, when Al Gore received a half-million more votes than George W. Bush, but didn't win the presidency. Bush narrowly won the office in the Electoral College, which voted 271-266 in his favor.

Prior to 2000, such a split decision with two major-party candidates in the race hadn't occurred since 1888.

But there is a possibility of two split decisions involving the presidency in the past 12 years.

On Friday, the website RealClearPolitics reported its analysis of various national polls, showing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in a tie -- each with 47 percent of the popular vote.

Under one scenario -- based on current state-by-state polling averages and predicted outcomes in toss-up states, Obama would win re-election in the Electoral College 281-257 ... even if he narrowly lost the popular vote.

Imagine the reaction of the Romney camp and Obama opponents to that result -- and the severe leadership challenges the president would encounter.

I respect the U.S. Constitution and the wisdom of our nation's founders. But the election of a president who doesn't receive the most votes cast nationwide defies logic and puts public confidence in the office at risk.

The centuries-old practice of delegating votes to the Electoral College is inconsistent with the modern notion of national elections and the principle of "one man, one vote" -- especially since Florida and 47 other states have "winner take all" laws and political-party pledges.

In other words, the state's electors are required to cast every electoral vote for the winner of the popular vote in that state.

As a result, in 2008, all of Florida's Electoral College votes went to Barack Obama -- even though 48 percent of Floridians cast their ballots for Republican John McCain. In 2000, George W. Bush got all of Florida's electoral votes, even though he barely defeated Al Gore by 537 popular votes in that famous/infamous election.

In 2008, the Electoral College just skewed the results of popular voting nationwide; in 2000, the Electoral College imposed minority rule.

What's more, the state-by-state approach utilized by the Electoral College system is at odds with the powers of the presidency and the ability of modern campaigns to communicate with voters nationwide.

The Electoral College was effectively established by the Constitution in 1788; Article II calls for each state, under the direction of the legislature, to appoint "electors" who, in turn, elect the president. The number of electors is based on the sum of senators and representatives from each state, plus three from the District of Columbia. (As a result, Florida will have 29 Electoral College votes for the 2012 presidential election; it takes 270 to win.)

The process was codified into federal law in 1845; today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors."

The Constitution's framers saw the appointment of electors as a compromise between the election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote.

Some of the framers envisioned that "electors" would deliberate over the choice of the president.

But there is no deliberation by the Electoral College. Instead, there is compliance with state laws and party pledges. (The Office of the Federal Register reports that, throughout national history, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.)


Each candidate running for president has his own group of electors, generally chosen by the candidate's political party.

A constitutional amendment is unlikely due to the difficulty of the process, but there are two less-demanding options. One would be for states to pass laws committing electors to vote based on the outcome of nationwide voting. The other option would be for legislatures to call for electors to vote based on the outcome of the presidential election in each congressional district.

Either option would be an improvement, but neither is unlikely to happen. Unless, perhaps, history is made twice in a dozen years.

Tom Tryon is opinion editor.

This story appeared in print on page A16


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