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2 - How the Electoral College Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

George C. Edwards III
George C. Edwards III
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
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Summary

The electoral college is an extraordinarily complex mechanism for selecting a president. State and national laws drawn to implement the electoral college system have only added to the complexity—and the risks of a malfunction. The allocation of electoral votes among the states may not accurately represent the citizens resident in those states. Electors are not wise elites, and they may make errors or violate their charges when casting their votes. The constitutional provisions and laws required to implement the electoral college are open to multiple interpretations and may well involve Congress and the courts in partisan wrangling over which candidate won a state and which electoral votes to count. Their decisions may misrepresent the public’s wishes. Donald Trump’s attempts both to create alternative slates of electors and to reject certified electors from states won by Joe Biden could only occur because there was an electoral college. The absence of a right to vote in presidential elections is certainly inconsistent with our notions of democracy. Similarly, the selection of the ultimate choosers of the president—electors—by party committees is contrary to our notions of transparency and popular participation. Allowing a state legislature to choose the winning slate of electors of a state makes a mockery of popular selection of the president.

Keywords

electoral collegeelectorspresidential electionunit-voteCongresspresidency2000 presidential election2020 presidential electionDonald Trumppresidential incapcitation
Type
Chapter
Information
Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America , pp. 18 - 44
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Suggested Readings

Bessette, Joseph M., and Schmitt, Gary J., Counting Electoral Votes: How the Constitution Empowers Congress—and Not the Vice President—to Resolve Electoral Disputes (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2023).Google Scholar
Colvin, Nathan L., and Foley, Edward B., “The Twelfth Amendment: A Constitutional Ticking Time Bomb,” University of Miami Law Review 64 (January 2010): 475–534.Google Scholar
Congressional Research Service, Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress, December 8, 2020.Google Scholar
Foley, Edward B., Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, reprint ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Kesavan, Vasan, “Is the Electoral Count Act Unconstitutional?” North Carolina Law Review 80, no. 5 (2002): 1163–1813.Google Scholar
Keyssar, Alexander, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020).Google Scholar
Schickler, Eric, Bimes, Terri L., and Mickey, Robert W., “Safe at Any Speed: Legislative Intent, the Electoral Count Act of 1887, and Bush v. Gore,” Journal of Law and Politics 16 (Fall 2000): 717–764.Google Scholar

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