Why We Use Electoral College, Not Popular Vote"The Electoral College remains in place over two centuries after the framers of the Constitution empowered it to select presidents.
Though occasionally maligned, this system of electing a chief executive has been incredibly successful for the American people.
Many modern voters might be surprised to learn that
when they step into a ballot box to select their candidate for president, they actually are casting a vote for fellow Americans called electors.
These electors, appointed by the states, are pledged to support the presidential candidate the voters have supported.
The Electoral College holds its vote the Monday after the second Wednesday in December following the election.
The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College after much debate and compromise, but it has provided stability to the process of picking presidents.
Though the winner of the national popular vote typically takes the presidency, that vote
failed to determine the winner in four elections: 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000....One organization, National Popular Vote, has worked toward eliminating the Electoral College through an amendment to the Constitution or a
state compact. National Popular Vote argues that the current system encourages presidential candidates to spend most of their time in “swing states” rather than campaigning for votes across the entire country.
This plan for a national popular vote has received a moderate level of support, but
Heritage’s von Spakovsky has called it bad policy, based on mistaken assumptions.
Swing states, he wrote, “can change from election to election, and many states that are today considered to be reliably ‘blue’ or ‘red’ in the presidential race were recently unpredictable.”
Many states have
signed on to a bill that essentially would tie a state’s electoral votes to the national popular vote.
Those states will pledge to swing all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote..."
