Over the past four years, Congress and state governments have worked hard to prevent the aftermath of the 2024 election from descending into the chaos and threats to democracy that occurred around the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
A new federal law cleaned up ambiguities that could allow for election subversion. New state laws have been enacted across the country to protect election workers from threats and harassment. Technology experts are working to confront misinformation campaigns and vulnerabilities in election systems.
But untouched in all of these improvements is the underlying structure of presidential elections – the Electoral College.
Here is a quick refresher about how the system works today:
After citizens vote in the presidential election in November, the Constitution assigns the task of choosing the president and vice president to electors. Electors are allocated based on the number of congressional representatives and senators from each state. The electors meet in their separate state capitals in December to cast their votes. The ballots are then counted by the vice president in front of members of Congress on Jan. 6 to determine which ticket has won a majority.
The widely varied pros and cons of the Electoral College have already been aired and debated extensively. But there is another problem that few have recognized: The Electoral College makes American democracy more vulnerable to people with malicious intent.
A state-centric system
The original brilliance of the Electoral College has become one of its prime weaknesses. The unusual system was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 as a compromise that prioritized the representation of state interests. This focus helped win over reluctant delegates who feared that the most populous states would disregard small states’ concerns.
Nowadays nearly every state has chosen to award all of its electoral votes to whichever ticket wins more votes in the state. Even if a candidate gets 51% of the popular vote, use of the winner-take-all rule in these states means they will be awarded 100% of the electoral votes.
This is what leads to the “battleground state” phenomenon: Presidential candidates focus their rallies, advertisements and outreach efforts on the few states where campaigns could actually tip the balance. In 2020, 77% of all campaign ads ran in just six states that were home to only 21% of the nation’s population.
In this way, the Electoral College system naturally draws campaign attention to issues that might tip the balance in these hotbeds of competitiveness.
Over the past four years, Congress and state governments have worked hard to prevent the aftermath of the 2024 election from descending into the chaos and threats to democracy that occurred around the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
A new federal law cleaned up ambiguities that could allow for election subversion. New state laws have been enacted across the country to protect election workers from threats and harassment. Technology experts are working to confront misinformation campaigns and vulnerabilities in election systems.
But untouched in all of these improvements is the underlying structure of presidential elections – the Electoral College.
Here is a quick refresher about how the system works today:
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