• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
  • WORLD DEMOCRACY
  • POLITICAL ART
  • more
    • election technology
    • money politics
    • political dissidents
    • THIRD PARTY
      • third party central
      • green party
      • justice party
      • libertarian party
    • voting methods
  • DC INFO
    • author central
    • about
    • advertise with DC
    • contact
    • privacy policy

Democracy Chronicles

The Case For Abolishing The Electoral College

by DC Editors - March 28, 2022

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

The Case For Abolishing The Electoral CollegeThis research article is by Katherine Shaw. Here is the abstract:

As the 2020 presidential election made clear, the Electoral College is a profoundly dangerous institution. American constitutional democracy survived that election and its aftermath, emerging battered and bruised but still standing. But the Electoral College is in large part to blame for how close it came to a fatal wound.

That’s true as a technical matter. Joe Biden won the national popular vote by approximately seven million votes and prevailed in the Electoral College 306–232. But just forty-four thousand more Trump votes across Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin would have resulted in a 269–269 tie in the Electoral College. If that had happened, the House of Representatives, voting by state delegation, would likely have handed Donald Trump the presidency. That would have marked the third time in twenty years—and the second time in two cycles—that our anachronistic system of presidential selection produced a president who did not win the national popular vote. Following the election, President Trump worked ruthlessly to convert loss into victory, exploiting pressure points and ambiguities in the protracted and complex process, partly constitutional and partly statutory, that we refer to collectively as the Electoral College. Trump’s campaign filed numerous lawsuits designed to delay state certification beyond the statutory “safe harbor” deadline, after which a state’s slate of electors is no longer conclusive in the event of a dispute. Trump supporters attempted to disrupt the required meetings at which each state’s electors actually cast their votes. Ersatz Trump “electors” purported to cast competing votes in some states, seeking to lay the groundwork for later challenges to official state slates. Trump pressured state election officials to “find” additional votes for him and reportedly urged Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral votes from a number of states. Trump loyalists in the Department of Justice sought to push state legislatures to take the radical step of discarding state returns on the basis of spurious fraud claims and appoint Trump electors themselves. Most significantly, what became the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was an effort to disrupt the final event in the Electoral College timeline: a joint session of Congress over which the vice president presides.

It is tempting to dismiss these events as largely attributable to the identity of the incumbent president and not as fundamentally connected to the Electoral College. Certainly, any electoral system can be targeted by a sufficiently determined aspiring autocrat. But as Jesse Wegman’s Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College makes clear, not only questions of democratic legitimacy, but also the specter of chaos and manipulation, have stalked the Electoral College from the beginning. Wegman’s important book is an urgent indictment of the Electoral College; one hopes that its urgency is not lost as President Trump’s tumultuous departure from office fades from view. While Trump was emphatically wrong in the particulars of his attack on the 2020 election, there is something deeply broken in our system of presidential selection. Perhaps an unexpected legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency will be finally galvanizing us to fix it.

Find the article information here.

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Filed Under: Democracy in America Tagged With: American State Elections, Election History, Election Methods, Election Science, Electoral College

About DC Editors

We are your source for news on the all important effort to establish and strengthen democracy across the globe. Our international team with dozens of independent authors are your gateway into the raging struggle for free and fair elections on every continent with a focus on election reform in the United States. See our Facebook Page and also follow us on Twitter @demchron.

Some highlighted Democracy Chronicles topics

Africa American Corruption American Local Elections American State Elections Asia Capitalism and Big Business Celebrity Politics China Democracy Charity Democracy Protests Democrats Dictatorships Education Election History Election Methods Election Security Election Transparency Europe Internet and Democracy Journalism and Free Speech Middle East Minority Voting Rights Money Politics New York City and State Elections Political Artwork Political Dissidents Political Lobbying Redistricting Republicans Russia Socialism and Labor Social Media and Democracy South America Spying and Privacy Supreme Court Third Party Voter Access Voter ID Voter Registration Voter Suppression Voter Turnout Voting Technology Women Voting Rights Worldwide Worldwide Corruption

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home | AMERICA | The Case For Abolishing The Electoral College

Primary Sidebar

Advertise button

A Dangerous Reprise Of American Exceptionalism In Ukraine

By Jamie Lampidis May 15, 2022

The stakes are too high to cave into Putin’s phantasmatic imperial play, and too high to believe that this war can be won by arming Ukrainians.

On The Coming End Of Roe v. Wade

By Peter J. Dellolio May 11, 2022

Anyone who says that the evolution of law has nothing to do with politics is either very corrupt or very stupid. Laws evolved through the centuries.

democracy chronicles newsletter

DC AUTHORS

Goodbye Roe v. Wade, Goodbye Rule Of Law

By Andrew Straw May 5, 2022

Congress should impeach judges who act like that because it is not good behavior, and they were asked not to act that way when they were confirmed.

PODCAST: Debating The Future Of Debates

By Jenna Spinelle May 4, 2022

We love a good debate — and have certainly had plenty of them on this show. But how effective are they in today’s media and political landscape?

What “Pro-Palestine” Student Groups Get Wrong

By David Anderson, J.D. May 3, 2022

Back then – as now – this fit into a “colonialist” narrative of European Jews oppressing Arabs – an easy, eye pleasing but intellectually lazy fit.

Examining Government As A “Necessary Evil”

By Gary Berton April 29, 2022

Thomas Paine defines government as separate from society, and indeed if society functioned perfectly there would be no need for government.

Ukrainian And Polish History: Fighting The Empires

By Maxim Sidorenko April 26, 2022

On February 24th, Russia started an unprovoked war against Ukraine. It has become one more attempt of the empire to demolish the Ukrainian state.

PODCAST: What Student Debt Says About Democratic Institutions

By Jenna Spinelle April 26, 2022

In a new book, Josh Mitchell draws alarming parallels to the housing crisis, showing the catastrophic consequences student debt has had on families.

Aging White Men Who Commit Voter Fraud Have Nothing To Fear

By Steve Schneider April 22, 2022

The sentences stand in contrast with the actions of the Governor who recently got the state legislature to create an election integrity police force.

MORE FROM OUR AUTHORS

VISIT OUR POLITICAL ART SECTION:

dc political art

DEMOCRACY CULTURE

Kenyan 'Cartooning For Peace' To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

Kenyan ‘Cartooning For Peace’ To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

May 17, 2022

Cartooning is an art that has been playing a major role in illustrating stories in different ways, from health to politics, and even sports.

Anxious Leaders Influence Their Followers' Anxiety, Even Online

Anxious Leaders Influence Their Followers’ Anxiety, Even Online

May 17, 2022

Organizational leader’s tweets can influence employee anxieties and this effect is more prominent since the rise of COVID-19, study.

North Korea Cracks Down On 'Capitalist' Pop Culture

North Korea Cracks Down On ‘Capitalist’ Pop Culture

May 6, 2022

North Korea has increased its campaign against “capitalist” style clothing, others, in broader crackdown on foreign pop culture.

DiCaprio, Ruffalo Urge Brazilians To Vote, Irking Bolsonaro

DiCaprio, Ruffalo Urge Brazilians To Vote, Irking Bolsonaro

May 6, 2022

Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo joined other celebrities making a final push for voters in Brazil to register to vote.

Mock M&M Election Teaches Alaskans About Ranked Voting

Mock M&M Election Teaches Alaskans About Ranked Voting

April 26, 2022

There are paper cups with eight different kinds of M&M near the entrance to Amalga Distillery in Juneau for a mock ranked choice vote.

MORE CULTURE

VISIT OUR US DEMOCRACY SECTION:

American Democracy