The founders had to balance the needs of diverse states, from economic differences to cultural ones. The only way to make sure the president would be chosen by a wide variety of both individuals and also balancing regional considerations, the Electoral College was created. This makes us all equal partners in the selection of the president without giving too much power to those regions with higher populations vs. those with large land mass concerns. What originally was meant to balance the needs of the differences between the North and South has grown to also make sure there is a balance form coastal and interior concerns as well. The Electoral College makes us equal partners in selecting the President of the United States by more than just the popular vote, but the popular vote from 50 distinct states that also have their own independent powers. To protect the from popular takeover, the Electoral College as well as the Senate represents our federal limitations to state concerns.

According to the national archives, The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes. Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word “state” also refers to the District of Columbia. Each candidate running for President in your state has his or her own group of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the Electors and restrictions on who the Electors may vote for. The presidential election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. You help choose your state’s electors when you vote for President because when you vote for your candidate you are actually voting for your candidate’s electors. Most states have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” Read more about the allocation of Electors among the states and try to predict the outcome of the Electoral College vote. After the presidential election, your governor prepares a “Certificate of Ascertainment” listing all of the candidates who ran for President in your state along with the names of their respective electors. The Certificate of Ascertainment also declares the winning presidential candidate in your state and shows which electors will represent your state at the meeting of the electors in December of the election year. Your state’s Certificates of Ascertainments are sent to the Congress and the National Archives as part of the official records of the presidential election. See the key dates for the 2016 election and information about the roles and responsibilities of state officials, the Office of the Federal Register and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the Congress in the Electoral College process. The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the presidential election. The electors meet in their respective states, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots. Your state’s electors’ votes are recorded on a “Certificate of Vote,” which is prepared at the meeting by the electors. Your state’s Certificates of Votes are sent to the Congress and the National Archives as part of the official records of the presidential election. See the key dates for the 2016 election and information about the roles and responsibilities of state officials and the Congress in the Electoral College process. Each state’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House chamber to conduct the official tally of electoral votes. See the key dates for the 2016 election and information about the role and responsibilities of Congress in the Electoral College process. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States. The President-Elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the Presidential election.

While debating the creation of the new government during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates quickly discovered that the vast regional, geographical and diverse population of the nation would require two major compromises in order to adequately represent the concerns of the entire nation. One was the creation of the House and Senate as the legislative body. The House of Representatives would be selected by popular votes from equally populated districts, meaning states with larger populations would have more representatives than states with smaller populations. The Senate would have two senators for each state, providing equal representation per state. The second major compromise was how to select the president. Several systems were proposed, ranging from allowing the House of Representatives to choose to allowing the governors of the states to make the selection. Had the decision been made to select the president by popular vote, it was believed the Constitution would not be ratified since many states would not have the population to have a role in the selection. They also believed that their regional concerns would become secondary to the concerns of large population districts, where rural concerns and needs would be dismissed for urban concerns. This concern plays itself out today within states, where major investments are made for infrastructure in cities while rural infrastructure receives little consideration. Had the decision been made to allow one vote per state, it is also unlikely the Constitution would have been ratified, because larger states believed that wouldn’t be fair to their populations. The genius of the Founding Fathers can be found in the development of the Electoral College, where each states would receive electoral votes based on population, a vote for every representative in the House, and statehood, with two votes per state for each senator. Voters would select electors to the Electoral College who would then cast their ballots for president. With this compromise, the concerns of large and small states were balanced, and both were more willing to vote yes for the new Constitution. Alexander Hamilton described this system by saying, "if it is not perfect, it is at least excellent."

Without the Electoral College, the division of power between states and the federal government will be greatly diminished, and it could be argued that the Senate should be abolished as well. Without the Electoral College, the Constitution would not have been ratified, and the same arguments that were made and defeated in 1787 by the more populous states will seize power from massive land areas that are operated by fewer people but with massive land concerns. It also concentrates power to coastal urban regions and could exploit resources from other regions who would no longer be able to select a president who would have concern for all states. Currently, states like Iowa and New Hampshire represent the major importance of small states by having early primaries and caucuses, but without the Electoral College, candidates would only be concerned about representing and winning the densely populated regions, leaving many states out of the selection process. This is more than just campaign stops. Presidential candidates would have to pander to highly urban concerns alone, and the entire system would modify to only consider the needs of these people rather than the current system which forces candidates to become familiar with a variety of regional issues across the nation.

Those who want to abolish the Electoral College claim that every vote should count, and at the same time they are proposing that the votes of their own state could be negated entirely if they joined a coalition of 271 electoral votes and agree to cast their electoral votes for the popular vote winner despite their own state’s wishes. The Electoral College makes sure that, win or lose, every voters' decisions within their states are heard, and it also insures that their state reflects the will of the voters within the state. Also, nothing requires a state to allocate all of its electoral votes to one candidate. State laws have created the winner take all scenario. States can divide their electoral votes by district or by proportion if they choose to do so, and it still satisfies the requirements of the Electoral College. Without the Electoral College, any state could actually nullify the results of their own in-state election and represent the outcome of another state. One could ask, why have states at all? This was the argument of federalists vs. anti-federalists when the Constitution was ratified, where some fought to strengthen the federal government and others sought to protect the rights fo states. The Electoral College clearly limits federal authority by maintaining state control and input in the selection of the presidency, even if it overrides the national popular election because every voice and every state should have input in the selection, not just heavily populated states that have chosen winner-take-all in their electoral college.

About Save The Electoral College

Save the Electoral College is dedicated to the education and preservation of the Electoral College and its importance to the relationship between the people and the states that create the United States of America.