THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM



FAIR HARBOR ELECTS A PRESIDENT

Fair Harbor is a small ficticious nation divided into seven states, A-G.
Total voting age population is 59 people.

In their recent presidential election,  Candidate Green received 42 votes as shown at left.  Candidate Red received 17  of the total 59 votes cast.  Candidate Green appears to be the winner by a landslide of 71%.

Candidate Green will not be celebrating a victory because Fair Harbor has a presidential election plan modeled after the US Electoral College System.

The rules are simple.  Instead of one large election, each state holds a separate election.  In Fair Harbor, a state gets an amount of electoral votes equal to its population.  (In the US, states gets an amount of electoral votes equal to the number of members of Congress they have. Representation in Congress is mostly based on population.)

In both the US and Fair Harbor, a state's  election is a winner take all election.  In Fair Harbor,  Green won State A (11 electoral votes), State D (11 electoral votes) and State F (7 electoral votes).  Green's total popular vote was 42 and the candidate accumulated 29 electoral votes.

Candidate Red won in states B, C, E and G for a popular vote toal of 17.  Candidate Red earned 30 electoral votes and was declared the winner even though the candidate had less than 30% of the vote.

This is, of course, an extreme example.  However, the winner of the US election in 1876,  Rutherford Hayes, had 252,000 fewer votes than the losing candidate, Samuel Tilden.  In 1888, Benjamin Harrison was elected even though Grover Cleveland had 98,000 more popular votes.  In 2000, George W. Bush was elected despite the fact Albert Gore had 543,000 more popular votes.






Elections with more than two candidates can cause real problems.  Cheating is rewarded more in an Electoral College system.  Theoretically, you need not cheat (or buy) millions of votes to affect an election.  You need only cheat enough to win in key states.  Some political scientists feel the election of 1960 may have been decided by alleged cheating in Texas and Illinois.  John Kennedy  won the electoral vote over Richard Nixon 303-219.  Texas had 24 electoral votes and Illinois had 27.  Had Nixon won these, he would have won the Electoral College vote 270-252.  Kennedy won Texas by about 46,000 popular votes and about 8,800 popular votes in Illinois.

Please note the Fair Harbor results.  If Green's backers could somehow bribe or coerce one Red backer in State B to vote for Green, the whole election result would be altered.  Green would have 36 electoral votes to Red's 23.  Of course, if Red can retaliate in State C and coerce or bribe one Green voter to switch to Red's side, the results would be altered again.  The point it simple.  In an electoral college type system, it takes far fewer acts of election fraud to change election results.  If Fair Harbor elected its president by popular vote,  the chances of altering the outcome (especially in a "landslide" election) would be very difficult.

(Of course, cheating of another kind could occur with a strict popular election.  A state could lie about its population and falsify its vote totals.)

Some political scientists feel this electoral college system protects small  states.  The winner take all aspect tends to increase the reward for winning a state.

Some people feel the system is beneficial because it causes a candidate to seek a broader base of support.

In the US system, actual electors are chosen and these people  take part in the vote that selects the president.  On rare occasions, an elector has gone back on his or her promise to vote for a specific candidate.  Also, if a candidate dies between the popular election and the electoral vote count. the electors are free to vote as they choose.  Under a straight popular vote system, a new election would be required.

Amendment XII of the US Constitution describes the system.