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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.

This chapter focuses on political leaders' responses to the European Convention's proposal of revising the Treaty of Nice via the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe in spring 2003. To understand the announcements of popular votes by political leaders, it investigates their choice of ratification paths from a strategic perspective, which considers the interactions among political leaders, political parties in the domestic parliaments, and voters. It argues that when choosing a ratification path, political leaders attempted to anticipate the reactions of parliaments and voters. The empirical analysis reveals that these leaders not only considered their expected gains from each ratification path—that is, their gains from the revision of the Treaty of Nice and the likelihood for successful ratification—but also recognized the strategic implications of a referendum announcement for both European and domestic politics.

This chapter argues that the electoral college does not provide a straightforward process for selecting the president. Instead, the process can be extraordinarily complex and has the potential to undo the people's will at many points in the long journey from the selection of electors to counting their votes in Congress. Congress may find it difficult to choose justly between competing slates of electors. It is even possible, although highly unlikely, that a state legislature could take the choice of the electors away from the people altogether. Yet the chapter contends that the electoral college poses an even more fundamental threat to American democracy, by violating political equality.

This chapter focuses on contingent elections. If the presidential and vice presidential candidates fail to receive a simple majority of electoral college votes, the Twelfth Amendment provides that the House of Representatives chooses the president and the Senate chooses the vice president in a process known as “contingent” election (contingent upon the absence of a majority in the electoral college). There have been two contingent elections for president in U.S. history, following the elections of 1800 and 1824. Very minor shifts of popular votes in the nation, however, would have sent a number of other elections to the Congress for a decision. In the House, where each state must vote as a unit, a majority of 26 or more votes is required to elect a president; in the Senate, a majority of 51 or more votes is required to elect a vice president. Although a superficial reading of these rules suggests the operation of majority rule, the chapter maintains that this process actually represents the most egregious violation of democratic principles in the American political system.

This chapter examines the relationship among the electoral vote, the popular vote, and legitimacy in presidential elections. The Framers sought a process that preserved federalism and yielded candidates with broad appeal across the country. Forty percent of all presidential contests can be classified as hairbreadth elections (decided by less than 75,000 votes). Twenty percent of all elections have been decided by just 10,000 votes. On six occasions, the candidate winning the popular vote failed to win the Electoral College vote. These so-called misfire elections have occurred in two of the last five campaigns and have the potential to occur with greater frequency given changing demographics. The divergence between the Electoral College vote and the popular vote represents a potential challenge to legitimacy for incoming presidents. Specific attention is devoted to how misfire elections may have affected the agenda of incoming presidents.

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 focuses on the outcome of the February 1936 elections. By 17 February it was evident that the Popular Front had not merely won but would hold a parliamentary majority. That fact was not contested at the time, but subsequently there were much controversy and confusion about the overall totals in the popular vote, made more confusing by the functioning of the alliance system. One of the most remarkable results was that, ultimately, seventeen of the twenty-two Communist candidates gained seats.

This chapter considers a few challenges to the desirability and superiority of the Confucian hybrid regime, especially the meritocratic elements in this regime that are apparently a significant departure from the present liberal democratic regimes. Some people may object to this regime because it apparently violates what they take as principles of liberal democracy: the principle that the legitimacy of a government comes from popular votes and the principle of equality. This kind of objection is an “external” one because it considers some fundamental ideas of the Confucian hybrid regime problematic. The chapter also looks at some “internal” objections to this regime, such as it will lead to consequences that it considers bad within its own framework, it is not as good as it claims to be, or we do not have to go that far to achieve what is desired by the framer of the Confucian hybrid regime. By answering all these challenges, the chapter hopes to elaborate on the designs of this regime and the reasoning behind it, and to further show the superiority and the desirability of it.

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 evaluates how the Electoral College performs relative to norms associated with representation. While Electoral College practices have changed considerably, many arguments applied to the body rely on original expectations of the institution. This study reveals that the Electoral College performs poorly along many dimensions associated with norms of representation. Not surprisingly, many reforms have been proposed to the body. These include making electoral votes automatic, adopting some form of proportional representation to award electoral votes, and abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote. These reforms are discussed and evaluated relative to the criteria associated with norms of representation. Although the institution often fails to perform in many of the ways its proponents suggest, it has been resistant to change. Absent pressure from large numbers of citizens from across the political spectrum, wholesale change to the institution is unlikely to occur in the near future.

A constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College is not feasible, at least for the foreseeable future. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact plan, as a method of nullifying the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment, is a seriously flawed idea for several reasons, the most significant of which is that it would award the presidency to a plurality winner of the national popular vote. Thus, if there were a three-way split in the popular vote—for example, 43 percent, 42 percent, 15 percent—the compact would award the presidency to the candidate with 43 percent even though 57 percent of the electorate strongly opposed that candidate. The fear that an independent candidate could cause Trump’s re-election even when roughly 60 percent of voters oppose this, because the opposition is split among two (or more) candidates, applies equally to the existing system and the compact. Litigation is unlikely to eliminate plurality winner-take-all. States must act.

Are political parties an unavoidable component of liberal constitutionalism? A historical enquiry shows us how troubled was the perception of political parties among Western European liberals. In the mid nineteenth century, the understanding of them as inheritors of classical ‘demagogy’ was still competing with the Burkeian idea of parties as ‘honourable connexions’. What changed in subsequent years was the expansion of the franchise and the realization that what counted in politics was numbers not brains. A realistic approach then prevailed, which understood a constitution as a means of organized access to power based on popular consent. This raised the problems of ‘disciplining’ the popular vote, and parties became seen as a tool to organize democracy. After the Second World War, a party-based democracy became the accepted norm in Western Europe, but parties now transformed themselves from ‘Weltanschaaung’ into ‘catch-all’ parties.