AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File
On December 19, the Electoral College will convene to elect the 45th president of the United States. Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote is climbing toward three million, but Donald Trump won more electors, making him the second presidential winner in the last five elections to prevail thanks to an electoral-popular vote split. As in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush, this has prompted a fresh round of questions about why the United States employs such a system in the first place. Electoral reform advocates argue that the current system is anti-democratic, while Electoral College defenders call it fundamental to the checks and balances that the founders put in place.
Trump's Election Day victory has intensified scrutiny of the institution, and increased the likelihood of "faithless" electors. Despite the attention the Electoral College regularly receives during the presidential election season, little is known about the electors who ultimately choose the leader of the free world. Robert Alexander, a professor of political science at Ohio Northern University, has surveyed presidential electors for more than a decade to understand who they are and how they view the institution. The author of Presidential Electors and the Electoral College: An Examination of Lobbying, Wavering Electors, and Campaigns for Faithless Votes, Alexander is a leading Electoral College scholar. He answered questions via email about the potential for "faithless electors," the obstacles to and openings for abolishing the Electoral College, and the role of lobbying in electors' decision making.
Adam Gallagher: There has been a lot of buzz about the possibility of "faithless" electors casting their votes for Hillary Clinton or a different Republican candidate when the Electoral College convenes on December 19. What are the chances that these faithless electors could swing the outcome of the vote? What role does lobbying play in an electors' decision to go rogue?
Robert Alexander: There has, indeed, been an intense and public lobbying campaign throughout the interregnum period. Immediately after the election, a Change.org petition circulated asking the electors to honor the popular vote and cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. Nearly five million people have now signed it. A separate movement occurred within the Electoral College when a group calling themselves the Hamilton Electors emerged in an effort to deny Trump the presidency by settling on an alternative Republican candidate. Most of these electors are Democrats, yet they say they are not looking to hand the election to Clinton and are instead more concerned with choosing a unity candidate to bring the country together.
The prospect of faithless electors popped up as early as August, when a Georgia elector said he would not be able to bring himself to vote for Trump. Months earlier, some pundits were advocating for an Electoral College revolt among Republican electors to prevent a Trump presidency if he were to win on Election Day.
Our research has found that Electoral College lobbying has been commonplace with a third of electors being contacted in 2004, 80 percent in 2008 and over 50 percent in 2012.
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I'd be surprised if any electors were able to dodge Electoral College lobbyists in this election.
It is hard to say whether these campaigns have much of an effect, as most all electors ultimately remain faithful. Yet, when asked, we have consistently found a relatively large contingent of electors who mull their votes before casting their ballots. About 10 percent of electors in each of the past three Electoral Colleges have considered going rogue.
As we saw in the 2016 election, and the 2000 election before it, the existence of the Electoral College opens the possibility for the winner of the popular vote to lose the election. For many, such an outcome contradicts democratic values. Aside from affinity for the founders, what are some of the main arguments for keeping the Electoral College? How do electors view the role of the Electoral College in American democracy?
If swing states are representative of the country as a whole, I think a solid argument can be made that it enables campaigns to focus their resources effectively in a small number of states that ultimately represent the republic at large. In short, it promotes an efficient use of resources among a large populace. The other main argument for keeping the Electoral College, as I see it, is the uncertainty of changing our current system to a national popular vote. As it stands now, the parties know the rules of the game and know how to play within those rules. Changing to a popular vote could weaken the two-party system, allowing for the introduction of candidates or parties with regional strength but not necessarily national appeal, thereby splintering votes among multiple parties and leading to winners with much smaller proportions of the total popular vote than we are used to seeing.
Not surprisingly, most Republican electors show an affinity for the Electoral College, while many Democrat electors would support changing certain aspects of the system. With that said, past Democrat electors seem to be more supportive of the system than Democrats in the electorate. Of note is that most electors enjoy their independence and do not indicate support for tabulating votes automatically.
Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment. Given the partisan climate in Washington today, that seems like an unlikely scenario. What other possibilities are there to reform, or even circumvent, the Electoral College? Have any gained traction in recent years?
The National Popular Vote (NPV) is the most talked about means to change the Electoral College, short of a constitutional amendment. It is a compact among states to give their electoral votes to any candidate receiving the plurality of popular votes across the country. It has gained support in a number of states, but it does not appear likely that it will be enjoy widespread adoption in the near future-in spite of this year's Electoral College misfire. Moreover, I think even if it were to gain momentum and gather enough states to reach the 270-vote threshold, a whole host of political and potential constitutional issues would threaten its implementation.
The Electoral College was designed to increase the representation of slave states and as a safeguard against citizens' ignorance. There are legitimate concerns that it is an anti-democratic anachronism. How do the electors greet criticisms of the Electoral College as undemocratic?
This too often breaks down along party lines, with Republicans having more sanguine views of the institution than their Democrat counterparts. Democrat electors are far more likely to support an amendment for a popular vote than are Republicans. In fact, most Republicans in the Electoral College very much support the current system. I suspect the views of both Democrat and Republican electors in this matter will only intensify after this election.
In a recent op-ed, you wrote about the 2008 lobbying campaign, anchored in "birtherism," to convince Democratic electors to not cast their votes for Barack Obama. Given the concern that many on both sides of the aisle have expressed over President-elect Trump's fitness for office, do you expect to see many faithless electors? Would a large contingency of such faithless electors help spur the conversation about abolishing the Electoral College?
Even before the election, electors were making noise that they would not be supporting their respective parties' candidates. Two electors from Washington state said they weren't sure whether they would vote for Hillary Clinton, and three Republicans electors voiced their concerns over Donald Trump's candidacy. Both of those Democrat electors are now among the "Hamilton Electors," and two of those Republican electors have since resigned-and the third has publicly encouraged his fellow Republicans to follow him and vote for an alternative Republican candidate for president. Given what electors have said in the past few weeks, I think it would be a surprise if we didn't see at least several faithless electors this year. The last time we had more than one faithless elector was over 100 years ago, and that was due to the death of a candidate.
Ironically, the move by these electors to rally behind Alexander Hamilton's view that electors were to be "men of discernment" will likely lead to more state laws to bind or punish those who choose to go rogue. Short of changes in statutes, it may lead parties to give more say to the candidates to choose their own electors in an effort to select individuals loyal to the candidate, rather than individuals loyal to the party.
We will likely see a tweak such as this, rather than wholesale change, coming out of the 2016 campaign when it comes to the Electoral College.
