Brian Schutt: Three cheers for the Electoral College: It works

The Electoral College was born in compromise over slavery, has never worked as Constitutional framers imagined, has had over 700 efforts to reform or abolish it, and remains the best system around for electing a chief executive.

At the time of writing, I don’t know the results of the election. But it’s certain that the Electoral College will be in the spotlight and very likely in the crosshairs. With the possibility that Donald Trump wins the election but receives fewer popular votes than Kamala Harris, many will be calling for its reform or replacement. 

The potential of this scenario and the belief that it would cause a crisis in the United States prompted late U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, from Indiana, to attempt amending the Constitution six times between the late 1960s and 1970s. The closest he came was in 1969. After a decisive vote in the House of Representatives and over 80% public support, it was only a filibuster by southern Democrats that prevented the Electoral College’s removal and replacement with direct election.

Advocates for direct election accurately note both the Electoral College’s contentious foundation and its preservation over primarily racist motivations. 

Additionally, they argue that the system is unfair and not representative since it erases so many millions of votes. They believe, because it allows a candidate who wins fewer votes to become president, it violates two fundamental American principles: political equality and majority rule.

Though persuasive in concept, these arguments both misunderstand the role of the presidency and undervalue the durability and moderating influence of the Electoral College. The role of the president is administrative, not representative. A diverse, populous and vast country requires a pluralistic institution to be its representative body, and that is Congress.

And while the Electoral College being a deliberative body was almost immediately replaced as a rubber stamp for the popular election within a state, the process of 50 separate popular votes remains one of the most democratic ways a chief executive is elected across the world.

In terms of its durability, American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin uses the concept of Chesterton’s Fence—before taking something down that’s long-standing, it’s important to know why it’s there. In the case of the Electoral College, Levin explains the rationale of Constitutional framers that “it’s there out of a concern that a direct election of a chief executive would lead to demagogues if chosen directly by the people, or a weak executive if chosen by Congress.” And while imperfect, its longevity of existence is itself an endorsement of its design.

Levin addresses an additional advantage of the Electoral College—that it forces the election to happen somewhere near the middle of the electorate. “In the absence of the Electoral College the parties would focus on the places they could get the most people out,” Levin said. 

DePauw University graduate Vernon Jordan was president of the Urban League in 1979 and opposed Bayh’s final attempt at replacing the Electoral College: “The Electoral College system acts as a brake to extremism. It forces candidates not only to appeal to the widest consensus among voters and regions, but it forces them to appeal to minority interests as well. Direct election of the president would likely lead to fractured national politics, a decline in the role of the parties, and an erosion of even the limited political influence blacks have gained.”•

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Schutt is co-founder of Homesense Heating & Cooling and Refinery46 and an American Enterprise Institute civic renewal fellow. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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