Does my vote count? Understanding the electoral college

Debating a constitutional amendment

As your state's delegates to a national constitutional convention, you are being asked to consider whether the current process of electing a president should be changed and, if so, what the new process should be.

Proposals to consider

Possible proposals include the following:

1. The current process (no change).
2. Direct popular election. The candidate with the most votes nationwide becomes president, and there is no voting by state.
3. Proportional voting. Each state retains its current number of electors, but within each state, electoral votes are assigned proportionally to the popular vote. If a candidate wins 60% of the popular vote in a given state, he or she receives 60% of the electoral vote.
4. Voting by congressional district. Each congressional district gets one electoral vote, which goes to the winner of the popular vote in each district.
5. Compromise between state and district voting. Each congressional district gets one electoral vote, which goes to the winner of the popular vote in each district. In addition, each state gets two electoral votes that go to the winner of the statewide popular vote. (This is the system currently used in Maine and Nebraska. This is sometimes called the "Humphrey Compromise.")

For information about proposals 3, 4, and 5, see ElectionReform.org, which provides an analysis of how the 2000 and 1996 elections would have turned out had we used each of these systems.

You are also free to develop your own proposal!

Issues to consider

You should evaluate each proposal based on your state's interest and on the inherent fairness or unfairness of the proposal. Based on these issues and your discussion, your group will decide to endorse one of the proposals listed above, or to write a new proposal.

Your state's interests

• Given your state's size, would each of these proposals help or hurt it?
• Does your state have interests that need to be protected by an electoral system that preserves voting by state?
• Does your state have a lot of political variation by congressional district? Are there districts whose "voices" are drowned out in a statewide election?

Use the "Evaluating Your State's Interests" page to answer these questions.

Fairness and the "will of the people"

• What would a "fair" electoral system do? (Warning: there is no easy answer to this question!)
• How "fair" is each of these proposals? How well do they enact the will of the people?