Eliminate the Electoral College
November 4, 2024
Seven. Let that number sink in.
The electoral votes in only seven states are likely to determine who will be our next president. By the numbers, that’s only 90 electoral votes, but they are the important ones. And the states that matter? Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, and Michigan. There are a total of 538 electoral votes and 270 needed to win the election.
Of the 50 states, these seven are the only truly competitive ones this year, with the rest all comfortably Democratic or Republican, according to public opinion polls.
Utah is not among them. If you ever wonder why many Utah voters say their vote doesn’t matter, this is a large part of the reason.
The League of Women Voters set out to eliminate the Electoral College and has been working toward this since 1970. The late Dr. Deborah Turner set a Moonshot goal for the League, and we have since begun a 50-year plan of action. See https://www.lwv.org/opov.
But what has happened to our momentum as we perhaps face another election in which the winner of the popular vote loses to the Electoral College winner? We asked two questions of National, one of which was how the League will respond if Donald Trump gains office again. The other was when will we see action on the Electoral College?
The first question depends on what happens. We need to prepare for any scenario while maintaining our nonpartisan posture and will respond appropriately.
No matter what happens in November, the LWV still has to consider how we move to a more democratic election. The LWV promises to roll out a major initiative on the Electoral College following the November election. The plan, as we know it, is broken into 5-year implements, starting with passing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact by 2028. (See for more information on the Electoral College https://www.lwv.org/league-management/advocacy-litigation/elevating-lwvs-one-person-one-vote-campaign-during-fall-2024)
Have you ever tried to explain the Electoral College to someone? It was the first question about our elections that a visiting international group of women asked us. The answer is murky, at best.
In short, our Founding Fathers were anything but united in their vision of America. James Madison and his nationalist allies feared that any national government would be undermined by the very confederation they had created. Congress was hamstrung by a requirement for unanimity, but getting smaller states and, of course, the Southern delegation on board was daunting.
They compromised in a sacrifice that would give the federal government the power it needed to work. The Southern states insisted that slaves be counted in apportioning congressional seats. And that led to the three-fifths compromise, in which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person.
“The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise, the Faustian bargain they’d already made to determine how congressional seats would be apportioned,” the Brennan Center for Justice writes.
There is so much more to learn about the Electoral College, how it has worked and how it has survived despite its inherent unfairness. I recommend reading “Distorting Democracy – the Forgotten History of the Electoral College – and Why It Matters Today” by Carolyn Renee Dupont.
At present, only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow this winner-take-all method for electoral votes. In those states, electoral votes are proportionally allocated. Utah, however, is a winner-take-all state, with all of its 6 votes going to the popular winner.
If we truly want to reflect the principles of the League of Women Voters, we cannot stop now. We just saw a small victory when the Utah Supreme Court ruled that citizens have the right to change their form of government.
Think about that as we head into 2025.
— Katharine Biele, LWV Utah President
