The Many Unintended Consequences of the Electoral College
For 230 years, lawmakers have been trying to improve our flawed system for picking presidents. Will they ever succeed?
Congressional clerks pass the Electoral College certificate from the state of Ohio while unsealing and organizing all the votes from the 50 states in the House of Representatives chamber at the U.S. Capitol January 4, 2013 in Washington, DC.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North AmericaWhen it came time in 1787 to set the rules for choosing a president of the U.S., three of the principal authors of the Constitution — James Madison, Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson — argued that the best approach, the one most likely to inspire public confidence and national feeling, would be a nationwide popular vote.
All three also understood the prospects of this happening were, as Wilson put it, “chimerical.” It was obvious the method would instead have to reflect the two great (or awful, if you prefer) compromises hammered out at the Constitutional Convention over political representation. To keep the slave-holding states on board, the delegates had apportioned seats in the House of Representatives on the basis of a population count that considered slaves to be three-fifths of a person. And to assuage the smaller states they had created a Senate with two members per state, regardless of population.