Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College

by Jesse Wegman

Each state would get as many electors as it had senators and members of Congress combined—so Massachusetts, which had two senators and eight representatives in the first Congress, started out with 10 electors. Every four years, the electors would gather in their respective state capitals on a given day and cast their ballots for president. Each elector would vote for two candidates, at least one of whom had to live in a different state from the elector. The candidate with the most votes would become president. The runner-up would become vice president. If no candidate won a majority of electors’ votes, the Senate would choose the president from among the top five vote-getters. The framers did not call their invention the Electoral College. That name came into use many years later, and is somewhat misleading, since the design of the system—with electors gathering fleetingly in state capitals to do a single job—is hardly “collegiate.”

December 24, 2020. Page 74.