Repeal the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is one of the accidental oddities of our political system, created in a different time with different laws and concepts of civil society. Back when our founding fathers were more skeptical of democratic power, where they wanted to give state-elected officials the ability to choose the chief executive — the president — rather then the voters. Since then, all states have adopted laws that allow citizens in their states to cast a vote to choose the state’s electors, although that’s not explicitly required in the constitution.

The US Constitution could be changed either by one of ways — the legal process set out by requiring adoption of a majority of both houses of Congress along with 2/3rds of the states — but that would give veto power to 1/3rd plus one of the states. Many rural and smaller states would likely loose power under direct-elections, assuming they aren’t swing area. They would reject the amendment, it would be bound to fail. The other-way would be extra-legal — Congress with adequate public support could declare the US Constitution null and void, an enact any law they please. Indeed, they did with that the Articles of Confederation — they didn’t repeal it in a lawful manner, Congress just replaced it. But it seems unlikely the public would support such a power grab, and institutions such as the courts would halt such an action.

The truth is neither way of repealing the Electoral College is unlikely. But I think people are wrong in thinking that the repeal would mean cities get all the attention by Presidential Elections. I think in contrast, the areas of interest to candidates would be the marginal areas, namely the suburbs and other very competitive areas. Cities are going to go overwhelmingly Democratic, while rural areas would go Republican. The battleground would be the exurbs and outer suburbs, and other areas that are competitive. Cities might get little more attention then they do now. And it’s not clear that battlegrounds would change that much — maybe Westchester County or Long Island might get a visit or two more by leading presidential candidates — but it hardly would be the change that proponents of repealing the electorial college would expect.