Electoral College

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/13/2023
  

  SCOTUS Seems Ready to Reject Independent State Legislature Idea in a Win for Democracy

  by J. Michael Luttig

  The retired federal jurist observed oral arguments in a case that would allow state legislatures to reject judicial review in setting the rules of elections, potentially leading to politically-motivated mayhem in federal elections. He thinks that the Court will reject the theory. 

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• SOURCE: MSNBC
  1/15/2023
  

  Nobody Likes the Electoral College—What are the Alternatives?

  Constitutional Scholar Akhil Reed Amar discusses how to replace the current electoral system with something more democratic and participatory. 

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• SOURCE: Harvard Kennedy School
  7/28/2022
  

  Alex Keyssar on the Need to Reform the Electoral Count Act

  The Electoral Count Act imposed after the contested election of 1876 leaves potential loopholes for a minority faction to override the will of voters and hijack the electoral college. Is proposed bipartisan legislation enough to fix it? 

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• 7/31/2022
  

  Time to Amend the Constitution

  by Don Fraser

  Significant changes are needed to the Constitution in order to preserve any semblance of democratic government. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  1/24/2022
  

  One National Republican Wants (Narrow) Action to Tighten up Electoral Count Act

  Former Congressman Zach Wamp (R-TN) says that the 1887 Electoral Count Act needs to be revised to take away an opening one party could use to contest election results. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/8/2021
  

  The Electoral Count Act is Broken; History Shows it Always Has Been

  by Erik B. Alexander and Rachel Shelden

  Much of what we know about the Congressional resolution of the 1876 presidential election is wrong. Rather than a behind-the-scenes compromise, the election was decided in a context of severe vote suppression and partisanship.

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• 6/6/2021
  

  America's First Peaceful (Just Barely!) Transfer of Power

  by Akhil Reed Amar

  While the selection of Thomas Jefferson as the third president in 1801 (after an electoral college deadlock) is touted as a crucial peaceful transfer of presidential power from one party to another, the transition was far more fraught with peril than most realize. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  Disregard for the Electoral Process is New and Alarming

  by Donne Levy

  How did the nation reach the point where one party is openly rejecting the democratic process? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/8/2021
  

  The Filibuster That Saved the Electoral College

  Powerful Southern conservatives Strom Thurmond, Sam Ervin, and James Eastland led the 1970 filibuster that stopped the Senate from approving a constitutional amendment to elect the president by the popular vote. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/8/2021
  

  How to Ensure This Never Happens Again

  by Beverly Gage and Emily Bazelon

  A menu of democratic reform initiatives ranging from strictly defining the electoral vote process to abolishing the electoral college: reforms needed to stop the temptation to undemocratic rule and authoritarianism.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/5/2021
  

  You Think This Is Chaos? The Election of 1876 Was Worse

  “I don’t really imagine Ted Cruz knows that much about the election of 1876,” said Eric Foner, an emeritus history professor at Columbia University and a leading Reconstruction scholar.

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  1/5/2021
  

  Pence Under Pressure To Follow Vote Certification Procedure But Also Please Trump

  Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer joins Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd to discuss the difficult position that Vice President Mike Pence is in ahead of the formal Electoral College vote certification in Congress.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  1/5/2020
  

  Josh Hawley Dodges Question During Fox News Grilling on Election Challenge

  Senator Josh Hawley's demands that Congress intervene in the electoral vote certification depends on ignoring that A: Congress formed such a commission in 1877 after three states failed to certify their vote and B: the resulting compromise forfeited the politial and civil rights of Black Americans. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/4/2021
  

  We Can’t Let Our Elections Be This Vulnerable Again

  by Richard L. Hasen

  2020 is a warning: America needs to remove opportunities for political pressure, discretionary action, and deception in the counting and recording of votes. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  12/15/2020
  

  Shut the Door on Trump by Ending the Electoral College

  by Peniel E. Joseph

  The electoral college has long worked hand in hand with Black disenfranchisement to distort the American political process. It's time to abolish it in favor of a system where every vote counts. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/13/2020
  

  Why Getting the Most Votes Matters

  Times Editor Jesse Wegman examines the unique absence of majoritarian principle in the election of the American president and argues it goes against the most basic understanding of political fairness. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/5/2020
  

  Of the 700 Attempts to Fix or Abolish the Electoral College, this One Nearly Succeeded

  by Gillian Brockell

  The most serious effort to abolish the Electoral College followed George Wallace's third party bid in 1968, when both major parties realized that a spoiler candidate could throw the election to the House of Representatives and extort political concessions for electoral votes. Southern conservatives, happy with the leverage the system gave them, blocked the amendment in the Senate.

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• 11/22/2020
  

  Biden will Confront Systemic Conservatism Despite a Mandate for Change

  by Steven F. Lawson

  If Joe Biden wants to implement progressive change, he'll be stopped not by a lack of popular support, but by the conservatism built into American institutions. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/17/2020
  

  American Democracy Was Never Supposed to Work

  by Richard Kreitner

  "Merely ousting Trump is not enough without addressing more fundamental weaknesses in our political system, especially an outdated Constitution that continues to serve a minority of wealthy and white citizens and to curb any movements that might threaten their wealth and power."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  11/12/2020
  

  The Never-Ending Crisis of the Electoral College

  by Bruce Bartlett

  "The inane system our founders developed to choose the president is an anti-democratic remnant of the slavery era that only benefits the GOP"--a longtime political observer endorses the National Popular Vote Compact as a way to circumvent the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment.