The Electoral College was one of the least controversial provisions of the original Constitution. The state-by-state way we elect the President of the United States gives each state a number of Electoral Votes equal to the sum of their U.S. Representatives and Senators (and Washington, D.C., gets three). Nearly all states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes in their state (Nebraska and Maine apportion some by congressional district). To win, a candidate must collect the majority of electoral votes (270 of 538), or else the election goes to the House of Representatives (which also has a majority requirement). The Electoral College makes presidential campaigns and elections primarily a state responsibility, part of the American constitutional system called federalism.

Electoral College Map

Federalism, and the Electoral College in particular, reflect the belief that stable institutions are essential for maintaining a political regime and preserving a free society. They are products of the understanding that freedom is never the result of simple legal or even constitutional commands. Freedom requires institutions that channel potentially dangerous political passions into constructive compromise and coalition building. The Electoral College system does this; the proposed “National Popular Vote” interstate compact does not.

National Popular Vote is a San Fransisco-based organization founded and funded by Dr. John Koza. It is also the name of Dr. Koza’s proposal to use state legislation to create an agreement among states that would change how the Electoral College works. In short, states would agree to ignore the result within their state and instead give all of their electoral votes to the candidate winning the most votes nationwide. There is no majority requirement or provision for a runoff. The agreement takes effect when passed by enough states to control an electoral vote majority, and therefore to control the presidential election.

While Dr. Koza’s proposal has been stymied now for over a year, it was previously enacted in five states: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington. Within the last month, it has made some progress in Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York. It is now dead for the year in Delaware, but it remains possible that either or both of the other two states could enact it.

National Popular Vote cleverly takes advantage of the Constitution’s grant of authority to state legislatures to determine how to allocate their electoral votes. For over a century, Electoral College opponents focused on amending the Constitution. National Popular Vote is a clever strategy and, at least on its surface, elegantly simple.

Yet the benefits of the current Electoral College system have nothing to do with surface appeal. In fact, the debate over National Popular Vote exposes just how little most Americans (and many law professors and even politicians) understand the incentives created by the Electoral College that moderate and strengthen our political system.

The Electoral College forces presidential campaign strategists and national political parties to construct broad coalitions across much of the nation. The phenomena of “swing states” makes this clear: the candidates and their parties are currently so evenly matched that recent elections have worked their way down to a small number of states. Thankfully, and in part because of the workings of the Electoral College, neither the safe states nor the swing states represent anything like particular geographic regions or political interests. The states that make up each group (“safe” and “swing”) have been continually shifting as the political parties strive to achieve the constitutional majority defined by the Electoral College.

The greatest historical example of the importance of the Electoral College is the election of 1888. National Popular Vote claims that Grover Cleveland’s loss was a great injustice, yet it was a turning point–for the better–in American politics. Read more in our earlier post: What Grover Learned at (the) Electoral College.

The Delaware Senate spent portions of this week considering HB 198, which would commit the state to NPV’s anti-Electoral College scheme. The House already approved the legislation last year, so senate approval would send the bill to the Governor’s desk. The Senate has three legislative days left in which it could still approve the bill.

Save Our States director Trent England was in Dover earlier this week. He and Shaun Fink of the Caesar Rodney Institute visited with legislators and helped to educate them on the logistical and legal aspects of the bill. A few talk radio hosts in Delaware and a timely National Review Online blog post have all helped to get the word out. The grassroots response was overwhelming: Delaware citizens flooded state senate offices with phone calls. They want their senators to vote “NO” on NPV’s scheme, which would badly hurt a small state such as Delaware. Good news: Senators appear to be listening to their constituents (keep calling!). The Senate has considered, but then postponed, a vote on the measure twice.

An interesting tidbit: Saul Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has taken an interest in the issue and went to Delaware to lobby senators. For someone who claims to be an “unabashed Reagan-conservative,” his position is pretty surprising. He is urging Republican Senators to vote for the NPV plan. He claims that the Electoral College hurts the Republican Party; he says that getting rid of it would benefit Republicans in upcoming elections.

There are three big problems with Anuzis’s analysis.

First, even assuming that Anuzis is correct about the immediate political benefits, he is absolutely wrong to campaign against the Electoral College based on purely partisan concerns. Constitutional provisions are meant to serve the entire country on a permanent basis. It is destructive to change them simply to serve one person or party at one moment in time. The Electoral College serves all of us by ensuring that presidential candidates must always take into account the needs of a wide variety of Americans. They can’t cater to one region, state, or special interest group. Small states such as Delaware have a particular interest in preserving the Electoral College, which prevents them from being tyrannized by the majority in large cities and states.

Second, no one can know which political party will benefit the most if the Electoral College is abolished. As this author has explained elsewhere, eliminating the Electoral College would probably mean at least two things: Elections will become easier to steal and the two-party system will be undermined. So it follows that two types of political parties would benefit the most: Those that don’t mind stealing elections and third parties. Unfortunately, extremist third parties and special interest groups are most likely to benefit from the eradication of the two-party system. Surely none of this is what Anuzis really wants.

Finally, even assuming that the two-party system remains relatively stable after the Electoral College is gone, Anuzis has jumped to some questionable conclusions. He seems to think that the Republican Party will benefit from NPV because it will make candidates more likely to campaign outside of the big cities. (One vote in Delaware has the same weight as a vote in Los Angeles, but the media market is less expensive in Delaware so candidates would be motivated to buy air time where it is cheaper.) But the Los Angeles media market is more expensive because advertisers have the opportunity to reach so many people with their message simultaneously. It’s the simple rules of supply and demand, and candidates will know this as well as anyone else. Since their goal is to amass large numbers of individual votes, they will spend their money where they can reach the most people at once: the big cities.

In a 1977 radio broadcast, Ronald Reagan described the security that the Electoral College affords to all states, but especially to small states: “The very basis for our freedom is that we are a Federation of Sovereign States. Our Constitution recognizes that certain rights belong to the state and cannot be infringed upon by the National government. This is the guaranty that small states or rural, sparsely populated areas will have a proportionate voice in national affairs. Those who want to do away with the electoral college really mean they want the President elected in a national referendum with no reference as to how each state votes. Thus a half dozen rural states could show a majority for one candidate and be outvoted by one big industrial state opting for his opponent.”

Anuzis, the “unabashed Reagan-conservative,” should pay more attention to Reagan’s wisdom on this matter. He should not be trying to sway legislators in Delaware (or anywhere else!) to support NPV’s anti-Electoral College legislation. The Electoral College is healthy for our country. States such as Delaware will act not only in its own interest, but also for the benefit of the country, if it does its part to preserve the system.

Tonight Save Our States is hosting a Citizens’ Briefing to explain the importance of the Electoral College and the threat of the National Popular Vote plan.

A lot of people don’t like the Electoral College. Even more people don’t understand it. There are plenty of arguments for the institution’s irreplaceable contribution to American liberty and prosperity—like how it protects representation and minority rights, preserves national stability, gives every voter a say in presidential elections, etc.

But you don’t have to be a fan of the Electoral College to recognize the National Popular Vote plan for what it is—bad public policy. Even if the United States did choose to ‘reform’ the way we elect our president, the NPV plan’s striking resemblance to Swiss cheese should be enough to deter legislators from going this route.

Right now NPV legislation is poised to pass in Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware.

Join us this evening from 7:00-7:30 p.m. EST for a briefing on the National Popular Vote and what citizens in NY, Mass, and DE can do about it.

What: Urgent Citizen Briefing: The Electoral College under attack in NY, MASS, & DE

When: 7:00-7:30 p.m. EST, TODAY

Where: Simply click here to enter the Dimdim virtual meeting.

The balance of power between state and national governments was one of the most contentious issues for the American Founders.

The states were important historically, but also as a way to keep government close to the people and to divide government power into as many hands as practical in order to preserve liberty.

At the Constitutional Convention small states wanted every state to have an equal voice in the national government. Large states desired just the opposite—representation based on population would give them more power.

It was a compromise that created the U.S. Congress, where states are represented equally in the Senate but according to population in the House. That compromise not only broke the deadlock that threatened to derail the Constitution—it became the foundation for the unique American system of Federalism.

The national government was set up to provide national defense, manage foreign trade, and referee disputes between the states—in short, to provide the states with safety and commerce similar to the way the British Empire did for the 13 original colonies. The states were left to manage their internal affairs and to compete with one another; thus the states are sometimes referred to as our “fifty laboratories of democracy.”

Federalism fosters diversity by allowing groups of people in different states to manage their affairs differently, to innovate or remain the same, to address local needs. And by keeping government local, dividing it up, and making it compete, Federalism protects freedom.

The American system of states is not just unique—it has been uniquely successful. Federalism is an American invention worth preserving.

The Delaware state house has just approved the NPV legislation.  This news story misses a critical point in its coverage:
http://tinyurl.com/ldr3mg (scroll down to “Del. House OKs picking president by popular vote”).

The article incorrectly states that the bill would “allow Delaware’s popular vote to determine the state’s choice for the president and vice president.”  To the contrary, the bill would IGNORE the outcome of Delaware’s popular vote.  It would commit Delaware to an interstate compact among the states.  In all cases, the compact, not the will of Delaware voters, would determine how Delaware’s votes will be cast in the presidential election.  Delaware could be forced to vote for a presidential candidate who won a small plurality nationwide even if that candidate could not qualify for the ballot in Delaware.

This type of reporting reflects the enormous and unfortunate misunderstandings that persist about the NPV legislation.