THE OLD COLLEGE TRY.

• Author: Toner, Robin
• Position: Duties and part played in presidential elections by Electoral College

Does the Electoral College need an overhaul?

This year's presidential election has renewed an old debate about an 18th-century institution that critics say is unnecessary, archaic, and even dangerous to the will of the majority--the Electoral College.

That institution acts as an intermediary between the popular vote and the actual selection of a President, and has always had the potential of awarding the presidency to a candidate who did not carry the popular vote. Laurence H. Tribe, an expert on constitutional law at Harvard Law School, has described it as "a train wreck waiting to happen." Twice in the 19th century, in fact, the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the most votes in the Electoral College.

The Electoral College comprises 538 electors--people who are nominated by state parties, committed to their party's presidential nominee, and elected when the voters cast their presidential ballots. Each state gets as many electoral votes as it has members of Congress, so even the smallest state gets three (see Electoral College FAQs, right). Defenders of this system say it gives at least some power to the smaller states, so that campaigns do not become mere mass-media appeals focused on populous areas.

Still, there are many calls for change. Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) has proposed simply abolishing the Electoral College in favor of direct popular election. Another idea would be to keep the Electoral College, but follow the lead of Nebraska and Maine, and apportion votes based on who won the popular vote in each congressional district. This approach would allow the electoral votes to more closely track the popular vote and foster competition within a state. Right now, for example, there is little incentive for a Republican candidate to compete in much of the Northeast or a Democrat in much of the Deep South, although individual congressional districts may be competitive.

There are other schemes, including proportional representation, whereby a state would allocate its electors based on the proportion of the popular vote each candidate has won.

Nobody suggests that achieving any of these reforms would be easy. In 1969, a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives and endorsed by President Richard Nixon. But it was killed in the Senate, largely by Senators from small states and the South.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE FAQS

WHO ARE THESE ELECTORS? The...