Kudos to Theodore R. Johnson for his critique of the electoral college in his Sept. 4 op-ed, “The electoral college gets a failing grade,” and for drawing attention to the winner-take-all system used by 48 states for allocating electoral votes.
By Letters to the Editor
The electoral college is part of the Constitution, but the winner-take-all system is not. Each state is free to change its method for allocating its electoral votes. I favor Mr. Johnson’s third alternative, a proportional system that would award electoral votes in each state based on each candidate’s share of the vote. To avoid scenarios where no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes — a plurality — I suggest awarding electoral votes only to the top two vote-winners.
Such an allocation system could be achieved nationwide, either through a constitutional amendment or an interstate compact that would become effective when adopted by states controlling 270 electoral votes.
Michael Lee, Towson, Md.
Throughout our national history, there have been five electoral disasters in which the public got a president whom they did not elect by the popular vote. The most recent case (and, by far, the most dramatic) was the election of Donald Trump in 2016. In all of our lower-level elections — from town council to senator — a majority of the popular vote (whether simple or relative) determines the winner. Yet, we have opted to use a dangerously byzantine, biased and error-prone electoral college for the most important of all our public offices: the presidency.
In his column, Theodore R. Johnson proposed that each state grant a number of its “electors based on each candidate’s share of the statewide vote.” This would combine both simplicity and fairness. Importantly for democracy, “losing candidates can still receive the electors they earn,” and “it’s even good for third parties.”
Would we need a constitutional amendment to implement this change nationwide? Yes. What would be needed? First, each of the two chambers of Congress would have to approve this proposal by a two-thirds majority. Then, three-fourths of the states would also have to approve it, which is 38 states. Provided Congress can agree and no more than 12 states hold out, this belated sane approach to voting might finally put an end to the harmful, deceitful electoral college relic. We have it within our power to rescue ourselves from an ominous, destructive anachronism. Let’s use that power.
Stan Pearson, Newport News, Va.
Benefits of the electoral college
Theodore R. Johnson suggests that the dissonance between the electoral votes and popular votes is a bad thing. This kind of thinking fails to recognize the tremendous benefits we have derived from it. It has: prevented the formation of a fragile multiparty system; demanded that parties develop wide national reaches in policy and geography; precluded small minority parties from acquiring power beyond their measure; and eliminated the risk of small factions from becoming kingmakers.
Over the longer term, the electoral college more or less demands a national, two-party system. If the college disappeared tomorrow, what would happen? The two parties would be weakened, especially the Democratic Party. In all likelihood, majority elections would become rare. This would result in the House deciding races, where each state gets one vote, and where Republicans hold a decisive edge.
Mr. Johnson gets one point correct, though. The issue is with how the states choose to allot their electors, usually by an all-or-nothing approach. He outlines one way to address the problem by going to proportionate distribution of electors. A better approach would be this: The second-place finisher in a state’s vote gets their share of the state’s electors, but the winner gets the remaining balance. This math precludes minor parties from gaining disproportionate power.
Patrick Rhoads, Alexandria
More votes, more representation
While Theodore R. Johnson’s criticism of the electoral college is correct, his suggestions for improving it all suffer from the same two flaws. The first is that there will always be a chance for the second-place finisher getting the most electoral votes so long as the system exists. Political scientists have modeled these and other improvements for decades and always come to that conclusion.
Second, even these modest improvements will never be adopted by the states and political party that benefits from the current system. Since the founding of the Republican Party, its candidates have won the presidency four times while finishing second in the popular vote. Two victories came from the natural workings of the system, and two received a boost from conservative members of the Supreme Court. The most widely accepted proposal, having states commit to assigning their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, has been adopted only by reliably blue states, not red ones.
Mr. Johnson weakened his arguments with some odd biases. A popular vote in California would somehow be less “representative” than the system used by Nebraska and Maine to apportion their electors, even though he admits that the latter system is subject to gerrymandering. He also notes most Americans favor scrapping the electoral college by a 2 to 1 margin, but he doesn’t say how this margin would change if the opinions of Californians were discounted.
Mr. Johnson also ignored this crucial fact: Each California elector represents 732,189 people, as of the 2020 U.S. Census. Each Nebraska elector represents 392,301. Each Maine elector represents 340,590 people. And they’re not even the worst examples. Each Wyoming elector represents 192,284 people. Wyoming’s electoral votes are nearly four times stronger than California’s, but Mr. Johnson’s proposals would do nothing to fix that.
Furthermore, Mr. Johnson’s proposal would give minority parties a better chance of getting electoral votes. This would increase the chances that no presidential candidate would get a simple majority. That would send the choice to the House of Representatives, where — voting by state — Republicans have the edge. A Republican candidate who came in second, or even third, in the popular vote would then become president. How is that an improvement?
Given the political realities, there is only one plausible path to improvement. The House, whose number of representatives provides the majority number of electoral votes, must be expanded to match the U.S. population. Following the 1910 Census, when the population was 92 million, the House grew to 435 members. The 2020 Census revealed a population roughly 3.5 times greater. Yet, the House remains at 435 members.
Even by expanding the House, an unrepresentative outcome would still be possible. However, the chances would be reduced, and there’d be much less room for political meddling.
Jack M. Hirsch, Silver Spring
Even Republicans say they want it gone
Theodore R. Johnson perspicuously highlights how this “antiquated” system has “become increasingly unrepresentative.” This has led many Americans to conclude that “the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,” as Donald Trump tweeted in 2012, because it distorts our democracy’s “one person, one vote” pillar. It also probably contributes to low voter turnout nationwide.
It’s widely accepted the 2024 presidential election hinges on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In 2020, these three states garnered an impressive average voter turnout of 74 percent (exceeding the national average of 67 percent by 7 percentage points) arguably because these states’ citizens know their votes matter more than those of average Americans. Nationwide voter turnout would probably surge to comparable levels — and nationwide faith in our democracy would correspondingly increase — if presidents were elected via the popular vote instead of the electoral college.
When endorsing such an initiative in 2014, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wrote, “America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally.” Hear, hear, Mr. Speaker.
T. Michael Spencer, Washington
A way to fight election fraud
Theodore R. Johnson’s proposal to “assign electors based on each candidate’s share of the statewide vote” carries even more benefits than he observes. Candidates would need to appeal to all Americans, not just those in the battleground states. Furthermore, perpetual minority groups of voters (Republicans in California or Democrats in Alabama) would know that their votes counted toward the election of their president. Even potential election fraud would have a minimal impact, as switching a few thousand votes in a tight race would have a much smaller effect in the absence of a winner-take-all system.
Keith Ord, Potomac
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