The Electoral College -- Now, More than Ever

Abstract:     
The 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush raised great concerns, disbelief, and even outrage, that a popular vote would not determine the new president elect. This article examines the Electoral College provision of the United States Constitution. In the introduction, Sutton notes that the Electoral College had uneventfully operated in every presidential election prior to the 2000 election. With such outspoken opposition to the current system however, Sutton poses the question of whether Congress should “do away” with the Electoral College. The rest of the article analyzes the original purposes of the Electoral College, and discusses whether those purposes are still relevant today. Section two discusses why the Electoral College is still being debated. Sections three and four provide an overview of the history behind the Electoral College, focusing on the writings of James Madison in The Federalist Papers, and the implications of those ideas in 2001. In section five, Sutton compares the Electoral College with the popular vote in the 2000 election. In the conclusion, Sutton notes that her analysis strongly opposes any constitutional amendment that would replace the existing Electoral College system with purely popular voting system. Four graphical figures and one table are attached to the end of the article which provide graphical information about the popular vote and the electoral college, both in 1789 and in 2000.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 14

Keywords: Presidential Election of 2000, Electoral College, popular vote, James Madison, factionalism, The Federalist No. 10, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, United States Constitution, amendments

JEL Classification: K19

Accepted Paper Series