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1 1 (April 2, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govecwp0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congres W Research $ervrce [nf cmin~ th ~i~dat~%s del~ate fl~ ~ I 14 April 2, 2021 The Electoral College: Options for Change and 117th Congress Proposals Electoral College: The Basics American voters elect the President and Vice President of the United States indirectly: they votein their states and the District of Columbia for presidential electors pledged to the candidates of their choice. The electors are known collectively as the electoral college. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution assigns to each state a number of electors equal to the total ofthe state's Senators and Members ofthe HouseofRepresentatives, atotalof538 at present, including three electors for the District of Columbia provided by the Twenty-third Amendment. The Twelfth Amendment requires that candidates for President and [ice President each win a majority of the electoral votes cast for their office to be elected. Candidates for the office of pres identialelector are nominated by the state political parties. In 48 of 50 states, thecandidates winning the most popularvotes win allthe state's electoral votes, the general ticket or winner-take-all (W TA) system; Maine and Nebraska are the only exceptions, awarding electoral votes on combined statewide and congressional district totals. For further information see CRS Report RL32611, The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary PresidentialElections. Electoral College: The Record Since the first presidential election was conducted under the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, the electoral college has delivered a majority of electoralvotes to candidates for President and [ice Presidentin 54 of 55 contests, arate of 98.2%, measured by winning a majority of electoral votes. When measuredby electoral and popular votes, it has delivered the presidency to the candidates who won a majority of electoralvotes and a plurality or majority of popular votes in 45 of 50 elections-a rate of 90.0%-held since the election of 1824, the first for which relatively complete popular votereturns are available. Over time, consistency between the electoral and popular vote winners has come to be seenby some as a second measure of the system's success, as the states providedfor choice of presidential electors by thevoters. Contemporary press and media coverage, for instance, tends to focus on both the popular vote campaign and the electoral college in the states. The exceptions here are four presidential elections- 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016-in which candidates were elected who won a majority of electoral votes, but fewer popular votes thantheirprincipalopponents. In a fifth election, 1824, none of four major candidates won a majority of electoral or popular votes. This instance led to contingent election of the Presidentin the House of Representatives. For information on contingent election, see CRS Report R40504, ContingentElection ofthe President and Vice Presidentby Congress: Perspectives and Contemporary Analysis. Electoral College Reform: Pro and Con The performance of the electoral college has not protected the systemfrom criticism and demands for change. More than 700 proposals to reformor abolish it have been introduced in Congress since 1800. A major criticism centers on the Constitution, which provides for indirect election of the President and Vice President by electors, rather than voters. Indirect election, critics assert, was acceptable in the 18th century, but is incompatible with the norms of contemporary democratic government in the United States. A second constitutional criticism is that the systemhas elected Presidents who won the electoral college but who received fewer popular votes than their opponents, most recently in 2000 and 2016. Here again, reformadvocates maintain that this is irreconcilable with the democratic principle of majority rule. Another criticis m is that faithles s electors occasionally vote for candidates other than those to whomthey are pledged. In 2020, however, the Supreme Court ruled (in Chiafalo v. Washington) that laws in approximately 32 states and the District of Columbia requiring electors to pledge to vote for their parties'nominees for President and Vice President, 15 of which provide penalties for or replacement of faithless electors, are constitutionally valid. For further information and a legal analysis, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10515, Supreme Court Clarifies Rules forElecto ral College: States May RestrictFaithless Electors. Additional structural critiques assert that the system's allocation of electoral votes provides an advantage to less populous states, and that it does not account for changes in s tate population between each census-driven decennial reapportionment of Representatives (and therefore electois). A widely criticized nonconstitutional feature of the electoral college is the WTA systemused in 48 states and the District of Columbia. In W TA states, the candidates winning the most popularvotes in a statetake allthe state's electoral votes, no matter how close thepopular vote margin. Critics claim W TA thus disenfranchises voters who choose thelosing candidates. They also assert that the s y s temfacilitates various biases that are alleged to favor different states and groups, for example, the alleged electoral college lock, a questionable phenomenon that is claimed to have provide a nearly insuperable electoral college advantage to one or the other of the politicalparties at various points in time. Electoral college defenders assert that the systemis durable because of its recordofperformance, notingthat it has delivered an electoralvote majority in 54 of 55 presidential elections since 1804, and an electoral college winner who also received a popular voteplurality or majority in all but .conqgress.qov 9

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