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In this afterword, the author discusses the events surrounding the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, in which George W. Bush became President based on a Supreme Court ruling that gave him the majority in the electoral college, defeating Vice President Al Gore, who had won the popular vote. The widely held ideal of a popular democracy is contrasted with the reality of the Twelfth Amendment system of electoral votes, and the author asserts that such contrasts point to the ongoing conflict between our “two constitutions” and our own sense of nationhood. Issues of voter disenfranchisement raised in the election are also examined.

Examines the question of whether electoral losers will try to change the rules of the game or will stop participating in politics altogether. Expectations of future loss are likely to have an important impact when citizens are asked to consider replacing the current status quo institutions with another set. Examining proposed and enacted institutional reforms in a variety of areas and countries, we find that losers by and large are more likely to support changes in institutional practices. The findings help to demonstrate that losing is an important part of the motor that drives institutional change. While losing does not presage a disaster or an abrupt end to democratic practices, it does seem to be one of the first steps in the direction of change and reform. One of the difficulties facing the design of democratic institutions is to have institutions that make losers, but not permanent losers, and to allow current losers some reasonable chance of winning in future periods.

This chapter summarizes the findings of the previous chapters and concludes that electoral colleges violate political equality. It argues that the electoral college system is obsolete. The United States is now the only country that elects a politically powerful president via an electoral college and the only one in which a candidate can become president without having obtained the highest number of votes in the sole or final round of popular voting. The chapter indicates that recent reforms in democratic countries have replaced indirect procedures with direct popular voting. In this light, the chapter offers alternatives to the electoral college and considers some prospects for change.

This chapter examines common arguments surrounding the Electoral College. Many of these arguments were present with the 2016 presidential election. The election marked the sixth time the popular vote winner did not win the Electoral College vote. It also witnessed the largest number of faithless votes for president in history. Lastly, it marked the second time in the last three elections that a state split its electoral vote total. Each represents a common criticism of the institution. Proponents of the body suggested the institution worked as it should—especially in regard to protecting the interests of less populated states and supporting the two-party system. All arguments over the Electoral College ultimately relate to issues over representation. The chapter concludes by examining historical controversies relating to the Electoral College and several reform efforts aimed at the body.

This chapter traces the origins of the electoral college. The Constitution's framers chose a unique and complex method of selecting the president—one that clearly violates fundamental tenets of political equality and majority rule. As such, this chapter considers the historical motivations behind the founding of electoral colleges, such as slavery, legislative intrigue, population differences, and voter parochialism. Afterward, it argues that most of the motivations behind the creation of the electoral college are irrelevant today and can be easily dismissed. In addition, the broad thrust of constitutional revision over the past two centuries has been in the direction of democratization and majority rule.

This chapter assesses how the inequalities in voting power involved in the US Senate and in the Electoral College used to elect the president violate the requirements of political equality. The Senate comprises two senators from each state. States with large populations get the same number of votes in the Senate as do states with small populations. Because the states vary considerably in population, there are large inequalities in how many citizens are represented by a senate delegation. This unequal representation of individuals in the Senate constitutes objectionable political inequality. The Senate is thus unjustifiably undemocratic. This conclusion has implications for the election of the US president, as the Electoral College process for such election tracks what the chapter argues is the malapportionment of the Senate. This inequality, too, is objectionable, and it should be eliminated. The reasons for a more egalitarian election of the president are all the more urgent given that the inequalities in the Senate are much more constitutionally entrenched, and thus likely to remain. The election of the president should mitigate that inequality rather than exaggerate it.

This chapter examines the function of the electoral college during the controversial 2016 presidential elections. It argues that the electoral college did not work at all as its defenders said it would. Instead of encouraging candidates to take their cases to the entire country and pay special attention to small states, it distorted the electoral process and gave the candidates strong incentives to ignore most of the country, especially the smallest states. It did not guarantee victory to the candidate receiving the most votes. It did not ensure national harmony, and it did not provide the winner a broad coalition and a mandate to govern. Moreover, the electoral college did not preclude extreme partisan polarization. As such, the chapter asserts that there is a need to focus directly and systematically on the core questions surrounding the electoral college and assess whether it warrants a role in American democracy.

During 1944, an anti-New Deal group of wealthy men known as the Texas Regulars attempted to seize control of the Texas Democratic Party in order to deny President Roosevelt Texas's electoral college votes. Cunningham was one of the leaders of the Texas New Dealers who resisted the Regulars. She ran for governor in 1944 in an attempt to expose Governor Coke Stevenson's ties to the Regulars, and helped establish the Texas Social and Legislative Conference to unite New Deal farmers and unions against the Regulars. When the Regulars attempted to take over the University of Texas, Cunningham organized the Women's Committee for Educational Freedom to defend academic freedom at the university, and to attempt to elect Homer Rainey, an opponent of the Regulars, as governor in 1946.

This chapter argues that the American electoral system is broken and in need of fixing even after the implementation of congressionally mandated reforms following the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, the problem arose from unsolved questions about touch-screen voting machines and provisional ballots. In addition, the McCain-Feingold legislation has failed to address the campaign for finance reform. The chapter first provides an overview of how American politics became highly polarized before turning to the problems of campaign finance. It then discusses the electoral college and the process of gerrymandering and how the political polarization of Congress has intensified due to the highly politicized redistricting efforts by both Democrats and Republicans. The chapter proposes a reform agenda designed to make the United States's electoral system truly work.

This chapter reviews the historical record to determine whether such a decisive home state advantage has ever happened, and concludes that it has not. Even so, it is possible that a decisive advantage could happen, and that it might have happened if in past close elections a presidential candidate had selected a different running mate. This chapter estimates the counterfactual effect of a vice presidential finalist who was not chosen by the presidential candidate, based upon past empirical predictors of state voting. In one instance, the results suggests that a running mate could have provided an electorally decisive home state advantage. Specifically, had Al Gore selected then-Governor Jeanne Shaheen in the 2000 presidential election as his running mate, all things being equal, the counterfactual Gore/Shaheen ticket would have won New Hampshire’s electoral votes, and with it a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

This chapter details applicable theories of representation relative to the Electoral College. It examines how representation has been operationalized over time, paying specific attention to Hannah Pitkin’s seminal work on the topic. Using her concepts of formalistic, descriptive, symbolic, and substantive representation provides a common framework to evaluate how the Electoral College performs relative to these standards. Edmund Burke’s distinction between delegate representation and trustee representation further aids the objective assessment of the Electoral College relative to expectations regarding representation. An examination of how electoral rules affect different dimensions of representation is undertaken in a comparative context. Analyzing how different nations use different electoral systems provides greater insight into what the Electoral College process emphasizes regarding representation. Acknowledging the importance and potential tension among popular sovereignty, federalism, and legitimacy is essential in evaluating the merits of the Electoral College.

Executive power created serious challenges for the delegates' republican ideals. Scheming political opportunists in the Congress could overwhelm a weak president; but an executive with too much power could lead to tyranny. At first, most delegates were content to allow Congress to choose and control the executive. Some favored a multiple executive with three individuals serving in the office. After the Connecticut Compromise, James Madison and other broad nationalists demanded a process for choosing the president that would better ensure his independence from Congress. Roger Sherman and many other narrow nationalists supported Congressional selection of the president. Finally, a Committee on Postponed Matters produced a plan for special electors, chosen by the states, to select the president. In this Electoral College, the number of votes for each state would equal the number of Senators and Representatives elected from each state.

This chapter focuses on the United States's presidential form of government at the national level and the gubernatorial form at the state level. It first describes the defining features of presidentialism and gubernatorialism as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution before turning to a discussion of the electoral college and why it was adopted at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, along with the views of Alexander Hamilton and Akhil Amar regarding the electoral college as a means of choosing a president. It then considers the importance of state autonomy concerning voting rules, the Twelfth Amendment as the legitimation of the party system, why the electoral college survives, and proposed changes to the electoral college. Finally, it examines the FairVote proposal to reform the system by which presidents are elected.

This chapter summarizes key findings and presents some final thoughts. This book examines two related propositions. The first is that there has been a shift in power over time that has resulted in something like a Democratic “lock” on the Electoral College. The second is that changes in state demographic characteristics—in particular changes in the racial and ethnic composition of key states—have moved some states from the Republican to the Democratic column. Evidence presented in the preceding five chapters shows that while there is some truth to both propositions, the full story is more complicated. The chapter also considers trends in key population characteristics over the last few election cycles and identifies states in which the trends favor one party over the other. Based on these trends, we can get a sense of the potential for either party to realize gains in relative strength in the future

This chapter considers Gokhale’s proposal for separate electorates. This approach coincided with that of the sub-committee of the viceroy’s Executive Council (the Arundel Committee) on the advice of which the Government of India framed its (Simla) proposals in 1907. The scheme announced by Morley on 17 December 1908, however, made a radical departure in favour of ‘electoral colleges’ to which a fixed number of Muslims and Hindus were to be returned ‘in the ratio of population’; these ‘colleges’ were later to elect members of the provincial councils in like proportions. The combination of joint electorates and proportional representation was intended to serve the twofold purpose of securing equitable Muslim representation and preserving harmonious relations between the two communities. However, the bulk of the Muslim educated class was in no mood to accept joint electorates.