Our Bungling Electoral System

Extract

According to popular parlance, we elect a President and vice-president, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November of each fourth year, by vote of the people. It is well known however that, technically speaking, we do not choose these officers on that day or at any time by popular suffrage. Instead of that, we choose in each state a committee that is called the electoral college; and these electors meet on the second Monday of January and elect the President and vice-president by ballot. The theory of the Constitution is that these electors are not to be pledged or obligated to vote for any particular person, but that they and not the people shall really make the choice.

But, practically from the start, and contrary to the expectation of those who framed the Constitution, the choice of President and vice-president was seized by state legislatures and afterwards transferred to the people, through the device of appointing electors that were virtually pledged to designated candidates. So the electoral colleges have failed of their purpose and become a useless complication. And not only are they useless, but objectionable also and dangerous in many and serious ways.

This paper will endeavor to show that our present system of presidential election is bad in every step of the process, viz. in a. the appointment of the electors, b. the membership and proceedings of the electoral colleges, c. the count of the vote in congress, d. the interval between the election and the time when the President takes office, and e. the election by the house of representatives in case the electors fail to give a majority vote to any candidate.