How to elect the President in the United States: Three alternatives to the Electoral
College

Introduction
The Founding Fathers of the United States proposed a system called the Electoral
College as a compromise between a Presidential election by the people and a one by
Congressmen. In the Electoral College, the same number of Presidential electors as
Senators and Congressmen is allocated to each state, and a state elects Presidential
electors in a manner specified by its legislature (National Archives, 2019). Presidential
electors cast two ballots on Presidential candidates, but at least one ballot must be cast
on a candidate whose hometown is different from theirs. The candidate who gets the
majority of the electors’ vote becomes the President of the United States and the runnerup the Vice-President. This is the earliest version of the Electoral College.
Later, the Electoral College underwent minor modifications by constitutional
amendments. Twelfth Amendment provided that the President and the Vice-President
are elected separately, and Twenty-third Amendment allocated three Presidential
electors to District of Columbia (National Archives, 2016). Today, the total number of
Presidential electors is 538.
In the era of nation-building, not only politicians but also the people accepted theElectoral College as an innovative election system. However, as Graph 1 shows, morethan half of Americans have been against the Electoral College over the last few years.
The present study discusses major problems in the current system of electing thePresident, propose several alternatives, and determine which one is the best. The publicconcern over the Electoral College has risen recently, and the campaign for the next1

Presidential election has already gone underway. Therefore, it is important to discuss
inherent problems of this system and explore ways to improve the process of electing
the Chief Executive.

Graph 1 (Jones, 2019)

Literature Review
This chapter will analyze major problems in the Electoral College. According toJones (2019), there are four reasons why today’s Americans are opposed to the current
system (see Table 1). As Table 1 indicates, what concerns Americans most regarding theElectoral College is the problem that the winner of the popular vote doesn’t always win
the election. In the 2016 Presidential election, Hillary Clinton (Democrat) got about
three million more votes than Donald Trump (Republican) (Krieg, 2016). However,
Trump won the Presidency, just because he got more electoral votes. Furthermore, thatwas not the first case in which a candidate lost the popular vote yet won the election.
The same thing had happened four times before 2016 (Lucas, 2017, p.6).
2

Table 1 (Jones, 2019)
The major cause of this is that almost all the states have adopted the winner-takeall system. As described above, the Federal Constitution provided that the right tochoose Presidential electors is reserved to the state governments. Therefore, as Graph 2
indicates, the process of choosing the electors varied from one state to another.
However, the states gradually adopted a statewide election system called “the winnertake-all system”. By 1836, all the states except South Carolina adopted the system(Maccarthy, 2012).
Most of the states where the winner-take-all system is adopted use ballots on
which only the names of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates are written (Ota,
1996, p.51, p.56). A voter casts a ballot on the Presidential candidate of his or her
choice, and then the ballot is sent to a group of Presidential electors who pledged
support for that candidate. The number of these electors is the same as that of the
Presidential electors allocated to the state. Finally, the group which gets most votes iselected as Presidential electors in bulk.
3Graph 2 (Mccarthy, 2012)
In this system, the Presidential candidate with the most popular votes gets all the
Presidential electors in a state, and the runner-up gets none. As a result, a large numberof wasted votes can be generated. This is the reason why an upset like the 2016
Republican victory can happen. Table 2, which was made by the present author, is theperfect example of this. Candidate A can become the next President by getting more
electoral votes, even though he/she has been defeated in total vote cast.
Votes in state A

Votes in state B

Total votes

Electoral votes

Candidate A

7000

2000

9000

12

Candidate B

5000

8000

13000

10

Table 2Moreover, the problem in which Americans have the second strongest interest is
the one that “small-population states have disproportionate influence on the outcome”.
The cause of this is not the winner-take-all system, but the Electoral College itself. The
federal government allocates at least two seats in the U.S. Senate and a one in the U.S.
House to every state, so all the states can get more than three Presidential electors
4regardless of the size of population. Therefore, a large number of people suspect that
small-population states exert disproportionately large influence on the outcome of
Presidential elections.
In fact, Graph 3, which was made by the present author using data gathered fromthe U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (2017), verifies their suspicions.
This graph shows the correlation between the number of Presidential electors in each state
and the degree of the change of influence each state exerts on Presidential elections when
the popular vote is adopted in place of the Electoral College. The horizontal axis iscalculated by the following formula: (the number of voters in each state / the total numberof voters in the U.S.) – (the number of Presidential electors in each state /the total numberof Presidential electors in the U.S.)

the number of Presidenital electors in eachs state

Correlation between the number of Presidential electors in each state
and the degree of the change of influence each state exerts over Presidential
elections when the popular vote is adopted in place of the Electoral College
60

50

Correlation coefficient : 0.77826
40

30

20

10

0
-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

the degree of the change of influence each state exerts over Presidential elections
when the popular vote is adoted in place of the Electoral College

Graph 35

0.8%

This Graph indicates that smaller a state’s population is, the less influence the state
would exert if the popular vote were adopted. In other words, the Electoral College works
better for smaller states. In this way, the problem of this disproportion is inherent in theElectoral College itself.
The following problem also attracts almost the same amount of attention from
Americans as the preceding one: The Electoral College makes it very difficult forindependent or third-party candidates to win. Certainly, there are some examples thatindependent or third-party candidates fought good fights in the past elections (Kubo, 2018,
p.184, pp.66-67). However, they have never won since the middle of the 19th century,
when the current two-party system was established (Kubo, 2018, pp.292-293).
The major cause of this is that almost all the states have adopted the winner-takeall system. As explained above, a large number of wasted votes can be generated under
the current system. The fact that independent or third-party candidates have virtually nochance of winning discourages the people from voting for them.
The last problem to be discussed is that Presidential candidates focus theircampaign mostly on voters in a small number of competitive “swing” states. Lucas (2017,
pp.5-6) indicates that a Presidential election campaign tends to be focused on only six
states. He also says these states have a common characteristic: They are the states where
it is extremely difficult to make predictions about which candidates will win. The reason
is that power balance between Democrats and Republicans is “swinging”.
This phenomenon is also caused by the fact that almost all the states have adopted thewinner-take-all system. As described above, the runner-up cannot get any Presidential
electors under the winner-take-all system. Therefore, Presidential candidates tend toignore conservative and liberal strongholds and instead campaign most vigorously in a6small number of competitive “swing” states.
This chapter has clarified the major causes of the four problems. The problem of
the disproportion of Presidential electors is attributed to the Electoral College itself. In
contrast, the primary cause of the other three problems seems to lie in the fact that almost
all the states have adopted the winner-take-all system.
As Graph 1 indicates, the majority of Americans complain about the Electoral
College and hope to change it fundamentally. Taking this fact into account, it would bebetter to reform the current Presidential system. The next chapter will explore thepossibility of adopting alternative methods.

Analysis and Discussion
According to the document released by National Conference of State Legislatures(2016), there seem to be mainly two ways to change the current Presidential election
system. One is the adoption of the popular vote instead of the Electoral College. The otheris introduction of the district system or the proportional-representation system in all statesin place of winner-take-all system (National Conference of State Legislature, 2016, Ota,
1996, pp.62-63, and Lucas, 2017, p.9, pp.15-24) This chapter clarifies how many
problems regarding the Electoral College these three ideas solve.
The popular vote is the most well-known idea for Americans. This is an election
system in which voters cast ballots directly for a Presidential candidate. If this systemwere adopted, all the four problems mentioned earlier would be solved. In the popular
vote, state boundaries become mostly pointless, so the introduction of this system would
eliminate wasted votes generated under the Electoral College. As a result, Independent or
third-party candidates would have a chance to win. Besides, there would be no such7

concepts like Presidential electors and “swing” states.
Compared with the popular vote, although the district system seems to be lessfamiliar to Americans, this is adopted by the states of Maine and Nebraska. In the district
system, the state government allocates one Presidential elector to every congressional
district. When a Presidential candidate has won in a congressional district, he will get
one Presidential elector. Moreover, the Presidential candidate who got the most votes ina state win two Presidential electors corresponding to the number of Senators. Under
this system, a Presidential candidate does not always get all Presidential electors in astate. In fact, in the 2008 Presidential election, John McCain (Republican) won four
Presidential electors and Barak Obama (Democrat) one in Nebraska (National
Conference of State Legislatures, 2016).
Although the introduction of the district system would solve a few problems in theElectoral College, this system retains many of the problems. If all the states adopted the
district system, “non-swing” states would attract more attention. Since liberals tend tolive in urban areas and conservative are concentrated in rural areas (Keena 2019), a
Presidential candidate could possibly get a few Presidential electors even in Democrat’sor Republican’s strongholds if he/she concentrated election campaign on a particular
district. The same thing can be said about independent or third-party candidates.
Therefore, the introduction of the district system would better serve their interests.
Independent or third-party candidates would nonetheless remain in a
disadvantageous position in the district system. This is because only the leading
Presidential candidate can get a Presidential elector in a congressional district, and a lotof wasted votes would still be generated. For the same reason, the introduction of the
district system would not solve the problem that the winner in the popular vote does not8always win the election. Moreover, the problem of the disproportion of Presidential
electors would not be solved even if all the states adopted the district system, because it
does not mean the abolishment of the Electoral College.
The last to be discussed is the proportional-representation system, which is less
known throughout the United States. If this system were adopted in all states instead ofwinner-take-all system, three of the four problems except “small-population states havea disproportionate influence on the outcome” would be solved. This is an election
system in which the state government allocates Presidential electors to a Presidential
candidate in proportion to his share of vote. Table 3, which was made by the present
author, is an example of a Presidential election result in a state where the proportionalrepresentation system is adopted. Although there are various ways to allocate
Presidential electors proportionally, D’hondt method is used in Table 3 for the sake ofargument. In this case, Candidates A, B and C can get three Presidential electors
respectively.
Candidate A

Candidate B

Candidate C

Candidate D

Votes

1,200,000

900,000

600,000

150,000

1

1,200,000

900,000

600,000

150,000

2

600,000

450,000

300,000

75,0003

400,000

300,000

200,000

50,000The number of

3

3

3

0

Presidential electors

Table 3As Table 3 shows, election results under the proportional-representation system
justly mirror public opinion because wasted votes tend to be much fewer than under the9winner-take-all system. Therefore, the introduction of this system would help
independent or third-party candidates to make a difference. In addition, the possibility
that the winner in the popular vote fails to get the Presidency would decrease
substantially. Moreover, every state would become a “swing” state, so the adoption of
the proportional-representation system would help to decrease the disparities in
influence among the states. On the other hands, the problem of the disproportion of
Presidential electors would not be solved even if all the states adopted this system. The
reason is that the adoption of the proportional-representation system does not mean theabolishment of the Electoral College.
Having considered the discussion above, the popular vote seems to be the best of
the three alternatives to the current system. However, before giving a definite answer, I
will discuss potential problems in the three methods. First, the popular vote is problematicin that it would produce a large number of minor candidates. As described above, theadoption of the popular vote would benefit independent or third-party candidates. This is
desirable from the perspective of competition among political parties, but at the sametime it may promote competition excessively. As a result, even minor candidates would
be able to exert influence on election results.
Moreover, it is predicted that the introduction of the district system would
promote “partisan gerrymandering” (Tausanovitch, 2019). The federal government
delegates the authority to redistrict to each state legislature, so the dominant party in astate is free to alter congressional districts for the sake of them. Therefore, the dominantparty is likely to gerrymander in order to help its favorite Presidential candidate get the
Presidency if a particular state adopts this system. In contrast to the preceding two
ideas, there is a small problem in the proportional-representation system. If many states10adopted this system, Presidential candidates would have difficulties getting the majorityof electoral votes. Therefore, it is possible that “minority” Presidential candidate would
get the Presidency. However, we can justify that kind of victory because the election
result justly mirrors public opinion. Furthermore, a large number of minor candidates
would not appear because they cannot exert any influence over Presidential election inthis system unless they got a Presidential elector as Table 3 indicates.
It became clear from the preceding discussions that the district system is inferior
to the popular vote. However, the proportional-representation system is not necessarily
inferior to the popular vote, so we cannot yet conclude which system is the best.
Therefore, it may be reasonable to compare the two methods – the popular vote and the
proportional-representation system – from the perspective of which one is easier torealize. However, it is tremendously difficult to do this, so I will compare them from theperspective of which is more acceptable to Americans.
According to Jones (2019), there seem to be mainly two ways to realize thepopular vote. One is a constitutional amendment, and the other is the National Popular
Vote Interstate Compact. The latter is an agreement between the states in order to basethe winner in Presidential elections on a one in the popular vote without procedures foramending the Federal Constitution (Neale, 2019). This compact takes effect when thenumber of Presidential electors the member states have reached 270. As of December 1,
2019, fifteen states and District of Columbia have participated in this compact and thetotal of Presidential electors is 196.
Jones (2019) describes that 55% of Americans are in favor of a constitutional
amendment and 45% prefer the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Moreover,Table 4 indicates that Republicans tend to be against for the popular vote. There are11mainly two reasons for this.

Table 4 (Jones, 2019)
One reason is that Republicans tend to believe that the Electoral College works
better for their interest. As described above, Donald Trump got the Presidency despite
losing in the popular vote. Moreover, the same Republican victory materialized in the2000 Presidential election, so it is no wonder that Republicans prefer to retain theElectoral College. In fact, the polarization between supporters and opponents, as Graph
1 indicates, has widened since 2016.
Another reason is that Republicans tend to hate infringement of state sovereignty.
Watase (2018) explains that conservative Americans are faithful to the Constitution, so
they are allergic to the expansion of federal power. The adoption of the popular vote inplace of the Electoral College means that the federal government deprives the states ofright, which is why Republicans tend to be against the popular vote.
In contrast, the proportional-representation system is an alternative to the winnertake-all system rather than to the Electoral College. The introduction of this system ineach state does not lead to the expansion of federal power. In this respect, theproportional-representation system is more acceptable to conservative Americans thanthe popular vote. Having considered these matters, the proportional-representation
12

system is more acceptable to Americans as a whole than the popular vote.
This chapter has discussed which of the three ideas is the best alternative to thecurrent system. Having considered the overall arguments, it seems natural to conclude
that the adoption of the proportional-representation system in all states is the best of thethree. This would solve three out of the four problems about the Electoral College without
generating a new problem.

Conclusion
The present study has concluded that the adoption of the proportionalrepresentation system is the best alternative to the current Presidential election system.
However, this idea has not prevailed throughout the United States. Although Democrats
agree to realize electoral reform, they lean heavily toward the popular vote and refuse to
adopt a compromise solution. This study offers a suggestion that Democrats should makea compromise with Republicans.
One of the limitations of this study is that it fails to discuss whether the threealternative systems actually materialize, so a farther study of this should be conducted.
However, this study has proposed the best Presidential election system for Americans. In
this respect, it has a profound importance. It is hoped that this study will contribute to abetter understanding of the ongoing debate on the Electoral College.

References

Jones, J. M. (2019). Americans Split on Proposals for Popular Vote.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/257594/americans-split-proposals-popular-vote.aspx
13

(accessed 2019-12-27).
Keena, A., Latner, M., Smith, C. A., McGann, A. (2019). Here’s how to fix partisan
gerrymandering, now that the Supreme Court kicked it back to the states.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/02/heres-how-fix-partisangerrymandering-now-that-supreme-court-kicked-it-back-states/(accessed 201912-27).
Krieg, G. (2016). It’s official: Clinton swamps Trump in popular vote.
https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trumphillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/index.html(accessed 2019/12/27).
Kubo, F. (2018). American political history [America seijishi] Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 66-67,
184, 292-293.
Lucas, J. W. (2017). Fifty States, Not Six: A Bipartisan Approach to Reforming theElectoral College and Assuring that Every Citizen’s Vote Counts. Scotts Valley:
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 5-6, 9, 15-24.
Mccarthy, D. (2012). How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All.
https://www.fairvote.org/how-the-electoral-college-became-winner-take-all (accessed
2019-12-27).
National Archives. (2016). The Constitution: Amendment 11-27.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27 (accessed 2019-1227).
National Archives. (2019). The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript (accessed 201912-27).
National Conference of State Legislatures. (2016). The Electoral College.
14http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/the-electoral-college.aspx(accessed 2019-12-27).
Neale, T. (2019). NPV—The National Popular Vote Initiative: Proposing Direct
Election of the President Through an Interstate Compact.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11191 (accessed 2019-12-17).
Ota, S. (1996). Research about Presidential election in the United States. [Amerika
gassyukoku daitoryosenkyo no kenkyu] Tokyo: Keio gijukudaigaku Shuppankai,
51, 56, 62-63.
Tausanovitch, A. (2019). The impact of Partisan Gerrymandering.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2019/10/01/475166/i
mpact-partisan-gerrymandering/(accessed 2019-12-17).
The U.S Census Bureau, American Community Survey. (2017). Table B05003, Sex byAge by Nativity and Citizenship Status, Universe: Total Population.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/2019/constitution-day.html (accessed
2019-12-27).
Watase, Y. (2018). The scenario for re-election of Trump Japanese people do not know.
[Nihonjin no shiranai Toranpu saisen no sinario] Tokyo: Sangakusya, 110.

15