{"id":143002,"date":"2024-09-16T12:21:39","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=143002"},"modified":"2025-06-17T13:26:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:26:31","slug":"why-does-the-u-s-still-have-an-electoral-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-an-electoral-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does the U.S. Still Have an Electoral College?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do we have an Electoral College?\u00a0 The selection of the president is outlined in perhaps the most confusing clause in the Constitution (Article II, Sec. 1<\/a>). Perhaps nothing better could be expected from a measure written by the delightfully named \u201cCommittee on Postponed Parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did delegates to the Constitutional Convention struggle so much deciding upon the best method for selecting the president that they needed to postpone the debate several times?<\/p>\n

Fear.<\/p>\n

They feared a strong executive. They feared Congress controlling the president. They feared men with \u201ctalents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity\u201d charming ill-informed voters (Federalist 68<\/a>). They feared voters only supporting local candidates. They feared that the president would be subservient to any group that selected him, so instead they ended up with a cumbersome process that used specially chosen electors to elect the president.<\/p>\n

To further complicate things, the process immediately unraveled and almost never worked as intended. Their plan was that voters would select prominent men as electors.\u00a0 These men (and they were, of course, all elite white men) would have a greater breadth of knowledge of gentlemen from other states, and they would be free to choose anyone they wished. Theoretically, every four years, the electors would vote for the best candidates and the nation would prosper from their wise choices.<\/p>\n

There were a litany of things the delegates did not anticipate: political parties (they feared these, too), joint tickets for president and vice president (they planned for the person who came in second place to be vice president), candidates actively running for office, improved communication and a growing trust in democracy (The Constitution allows each state to decide how to select its own electors. So, for a time, some voters did not even get to choose the electors let alone vote for president.)<\/p>\n

Some of these problems have been resolved. The 12th<\/sup> amendment ended the idea that the person who comes in second becomes the vice president. Since 1868, in every state, people vote for the president, and the state electors are generally bound by their decision.<\/p>\n

Neither of these changes, however, have resolved the biggest complaint against the Electoral College. With electoral votes based on the number of congressmen and senators a state has, a candidate \u2014 with victories in the correct combination of states \u2014 can win the presidency while losing the popular vote.<\/p>\n

Since the Constitution\u2019s ratification, there have been over 1,000 amendments proposed to change or eliminate the Electoral College. These proposals generally offer the obvious solution; the president should be the candidate who gets the most popular votes. Given that, according to most polls including a 2023 Pew Research Center study, approximately two out of three Americans \u00a0support this change, why haven\u2019t we just amended the Constitution to have the president popularly elected? As is often the case, the easy solution is not as easy as it seems. The problems include:<\/p>\n