Electing the People's President: The Popular Origins of the Electoral College

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Electoral College is frequently critiqued as an undemocratic relic of an antiquated constitutional system. Such criticism is largely based on the belief that electing the president by a straight popular vote or allocating electoral votes proportionally would make the system more representative of majority will. Proponents of the Electoral College generally do not challenge this assumption; instead, they argue that the system serves other important ends such as balancing the electoral interests of small and large states and minimizing the possibility of fraud. In fact, the dominant view of both critics and proponents of the Electoral College is that the system was always intended to fortify the influence of the states, rather than to facilitate the expression of majority will. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate, to the contrary, that the primary—though frequently overlooked or underemphasized—objective of the system, from its inception, was to maintain popular influence over the selection of the president.