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Time for compromise in the Electoral College |
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November 22, 2016 |
The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the
Electoral College as a result of a compromise
for the presidential election process. During
the debate, some delegates felt that a direct
popular election would lead to the election of
each state’s favorite son and none would emerge
with sufficient popular majority to govern the
country. Other delegates felt that giving
Congress the power to select the president would
deny the people their right to choose.
After all, the people voted for their
representatives to the federal legislature. The
compromise was to set up an Electoral College
system that allowed voters to vote for electors,
who would then cast their votes for candidates,
a system described in Article II, section 1 of
the Constitution.
Each state is allocated a number of electors
equal to the number of its U.S. senators, always
two, plus the number of its U.S.
representatives, which may change each decade
according to the size of each state’s population
as determined in the Census.
Whichever party slate wins the most popular
votes in the state becomes that state’s
electors, so that, in effect, whichever
presidential ticket gets the most popular votes
in a state wins all the electors of that state.
The debate has started again as to whether the
U.S. Constitution should be amended in order to
change the presidential election process. Some
promote eliminating the Electoral College in
favor of a direct popular vote for president
while others believe the Electoral College
should remain unchanged.
Just as compromise solved the initial problems
of the framers, so it is that compromise can
solve this problem. The solution is to change
the electoral votes to electoral points and
award each candidate a percentage of points
based on the percentage of popular votes
received in each state.
This would eliminate the “winner take all”
system, thus allowing for all the votes to
count.
A voter is more apt to believe their vote
counted when a percentage of popular votes are
taken into account rather than the “all or
nothing” system currently in existence. Further,
this new system would integrate the desire for a
popular vote for president with the need for the
individual states to determine who actually gets
elected.
As for political primaries, the number of
delegates awarded in each state should be
determined by the percentage of votes won by
each candidate.
For 2016, multiplying the percentage of votes
each candidate received in each state times the
number of electoral votes in each state results
in the following: Clinton 256.985 and Trump
253.482. |
Joe Bialek
Cleveland, Ohio |
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