The Relationship Between the Popular Vote and the Electoral College in U.S. Presidential Elections

[Time for change]

The principal of one-person-person-one-vote is – ideally – a bedrock principle of democracy in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that principle in the 1960s with a series of rulings that required that Congressional districts be roughly equal in population.

Nevertheless, there are several aspects of political life in our country today in which that principle is undermined, most especially including: The use of voting machines that count our votes in secret; illegal disenfranchisement of voters that goes unpunished, such as occurred in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio and elsewhere in 2004; the influence of money in politics; corporate monopoly on much of the news that Americans receive, and; redrawing of Congressional districts with the purpose of insuring safe seats for incumbents or advantaging one political party over another.

Another issue that has often been mentioned as undermining the one-person-one-vote principle is one that has been written into the U.S. Constitution – the Electoral College as an institution for choosing our Presidents. That system has been criticized because of the disproportionate amount of influence that it gives to small states and because the one-person-one-vote principle is also undermined when a very small plurality of popular votes in a large state results in the commitment of a huge number of electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state. The bottom line is that the potential always exists for the popular vote winner in a Presidential election to lose the electoral vote, and therefore the Presidency.

As someone who believes in the one-person-one-vote principle for democracy, I agree with those who say that we should abolish the Electoral College (which can only be done through a Constitutional Amendment). However, abolishment of the Electoral College is not near the top of my priority list because, compared with the violations of the one-person-one-vote principle noted above, violations of that principle through the Electoral College rarely occur, and when they do occur it is only in situations where the popular vote is extraordinarily close – less than a 1% margin.

More specifically, of the 46 Presidential elections since 1824, when popular voting for President became commonplace (prior to then, most states specified that state legislators would choose electors in Presidential elections, not ordinary citizens), in only two cases was there a discrepancy between the popular vote and the electoral vote (meaning that the popular vote winner didn’t win the electoral vote), and in both of those cases the difference in the popular vote between the top two candidates was less than 1%. In other words, over 46 Presidential elections in our country, whenever the popular vote margin is greater than 1% the popular vote winner also wins the electoral vote. Let’s consider these elections in more detail:


The history of concordance between popular and electoral votes in U.S. Presidential elections

Two anomalous exceptions
Before describing the concordance between popular and electoral votes in Presidential elections it is necessary to mention two exceptions that are so odd that they deserve to be excluded from such an analysis. In both cases the popular vote winner did in fact also win the electoral vote, but because of anomalies that candidate did not win the election.

In 1824, Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote over John Quincy Adams by 41% to 31%, and Jackson also won a plurality of the electoral vote over Adams by 99-84. However, because there were four major candidates in that race, and because Jackson failed to win a majority of the electoral votes, the election was thrown into the U.S. House of Representatives, in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to our Constitution. The House barely voted for Adams, and he became our next President.

What the election of 1824 showed is that when major 3rd or 4th Party candidates run and win a substantial portion of the electoral vote, the possibility exists that even when a candidate wins both the electoral and the popular vote he may not win the election because, unless he wins a majority of the electoral vote, the election will be decided by a vote of the U.S. House. The election of 1824 remains the only U.S. Presidential election that was decided by the House of Representatives since the passage of the Twelfth Amendment.

In the election of 1876, Samuel Tilden initially won the popular vote by 51% to 48% and the electoral vote by 203-166. However, 19 electoral votes in three of Tilden’s states (FL, SC, LA) were disputed because of alleged (undoubtedly true) election fraud, especially involving voter suppression of the recently freed slaves. Following an intense dispute that threatened to throw our country into its second civil war in eleven years, an Electoral Commission was created to decide the dispute. In a series of 8-7 votes, the Commission decided all issues in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, awarded him all of the disputed electoral votes, and thereby awarded the Presidency to him by a single electoral vote, on March 2, 1877. The official popular vote remained unchanged, however, so then there was an official discrepancy between the popular and the electoral vote.

Blowout popular vote margins (greater than 10%)
So, other than the two anomalous exceptions described above, there have been 44 U.S. Presidential elections that involved popular votes. Of those, I’ll consider 19 of them to be blowouts in the popular vote, defined as a margin between first and second place of 10% or more (the greatest popular vote victory margin was FDR’s 61% to 37% victory in 1936). In every single one of those 19 elections, the percent difference in the electoral vote was even more disproportionate in favor of the popular vote winner than was the popular vote. In 18 of them, the popular vote winner won more than twice as many electoral votes as the second place finisher, the only election closer than that being a 174-114 electoral victory for James Buchanan in 1856. The average margin of electoral vote victory for those 19 elections was 294.

Comfortable popular vote margins (5% to 10%)
I’ll define “comfortable” popular vote margins to be between 5% and 10%. There have been 11 Presidential elections in that category. As with the blowout popular vote victories, all of these comfortable popular vote margins resulted in electoral victories for the popular vote winner that were far more disproportionate than the popular vote margin. In 9 of the 11 elections the electoral vote ratio for the winner was 2:1 or greater, and the closest one was William McKinley’s 292-155 electoral vote victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1900. The average margin of electoral vote victory in these elections was 245.

Close popular vote margins (1% to 5%)
There have been 8 elections with popular vote margins that I’ll define as “close”, meaning 1% to 5%. Again, in each of these elections the electoral vote was more disproportionate in favor of the popular vote winner than was the electoral vote. However, though the popular vote winner won the electoral vote in each of these elections, several of the electoral vote margins were reasonably close and could have gone the other way with the switching of a single state. The average electoral vote margin in these elections was 70.

Miniscule popular vote margins (less than 1%)
It has only been with popular vote margins of less than 1% that we have seen a discordance between the popular and electoral votes in U.S. Presidential elections. There have been 6 elections with less than a 1% popular vote margin. The popular vote winner won the electoral vote (and the Presidency) in 4 of those 6 elections. The two elections where the popular vote winner lost the electoral vote were: 1888, when Grover Cleveland won the popular vote against Benjamin Harrison by 0.8% but lost the electoral vote by 168-233; and 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote by 0.5%, but lost the electoral vote to George Bush by 266-271, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the counting of ballots in Florida be stopped.


Why even moderate popular vote leads routinely translate into electoral blowouts

Thus we see that only when the popular vote margin gets in the lower part of the 1-5% range does the popular vote loser have a reasonable chance at best of winning in the Electoral College, and only when the popular vote margin gets below 1% have we actually seen that happen.

So, why is it that moderate popular vote margins routinely get translated into Electoral College blowouts? The point is that in our country today, despite all the talk of red states and blue states, in a closely contested election there are always a large handful of states in which the vote margins are relatively thin, somewhere in the 0-5% range. With an evenly split national popular vote, approximately half of those electoral votes will go to each candidate. But with a shift in the national popular vote of 5% for example, every state in the country will shift an average of 5%, thereby pushing several of them over the line and resulting in an Electoral College landslide.


The utility of looking at national versus state polls in predicting election outcomes

Because only in the closest of Presidential elections is there ever a disparity between the popular and electoral vote winner, national polls serve as a fairly good guide as a prediction of election victory. They do suffer from some of the same problems that state polls do, including bias due to polling methodology and the fact there is always the possibility that many voters will change their mind between the poll and the election.

National polls have one big advantage over state polls – they are generally much more up to date than any analysis of state polls could be. For example, there are currently 8 major national polls ending within the past 12 days pitting Obama vs. McCain. When 8 polls are combined together, the margin of error becomes much smaller than it is for any of the single polls alone. For example, if the margin of error is 3% for each of the single polls, the margin of error for the 8 polls combined would be about 1%.

In contrast with the national polls, there are currently only 15 state polls completed in the past 12 days in the 14 swing states combined – an average of only about one poll per state. With an average of only one poll per state (and therefore a comparatively large margin of error in most states) in the past 12 days, and with no polls at all in some of those states, our ability to tell where the candidates stand today by looking at state polls is substantially less than our ability to tell where they stand by looking at national polls.


An example – Looking at head to head polling of Obama v. McCain

It is somewhat amazing in my opinion, and a very good harbinger, that in the midst of a hotly contested and sometimes bitter primary battle, and with some major efforts by our corporate news media to paint Barack Obama as some sort of “elitist”, out of touch radical, he has nevertheless gained steadily in the national polls against John McCain. The most recent national polls show Obama leading in 7 of them, with an average lead for the 8 polls of 5%. The margin of error for the 8 polls combined is probably only about 1%.

On the other hand, our ability to ascertain Obama’s standing in the Electoral College is hampered by the paucity of data. If we consider only the last reported poll for each state, Obama appears to be currently losing in the Electoral College because those polls show him losing three states that John Kerry won – Wisconsin (by 4 as of May 5), Michigan (by 1 as of May 7), and New Hampshire (by 6 as of April 30), though he is winning in some states that Kerry lost (IA,CO, and VA).

It is inconceivable that Obama could be losing in the Electoral College to McCain while holding an approximate 5% advantage in national polls. The more reasonable explanation is that the individual state analysis is hampered by a paucity of polling data that is mostly out of date and therefore doesn’t reflect recent Obama gains in national polling.

The problem with state polling, however, improves as we move closer to the election. As we get closer to Election Day more and more state polls are performed in states that are close, so that in the week prior to the election there will probably be several polls released from every swing state. In a very close election (within 1% nationally) with a lot of data from individual swing states, state by state analysis could be more useful in predicting the Electoral College winner than analysis of national polls. I am hopeful, however, that it won’t be that close.

My conservative prediction, based on recent gains in national polling (which I believe Obama will hold or expand) plus the more recent state polls, if election fraud can be kept within reasonable limits: Obama picks up IA, CO, NM, OH, VA, plus one electoral vote in Nebraska, over what Kerry did in 2004, but loses NH – Final electoral vote count: Obama 303 – McCain 235. :)

[Mnemosyne]

1. Excellent piece, Time. I applaud you for all of the effort and for a

very interesting analysis. Thanks!

I have always felt electoral college was the ptb's way of telling us citizens that the affluent know what is best for our ignorant masses.

I lean toward the 'instant run-off' election method more than any other. Of course with clear boxes and paper ballots!

And I love the Canadian system of national 'recall'-type elections. It would have been so wonderful to have had a recall election for *co in June of 2001. :)

[Time for change]

3. Thank you vickiss -- I think that instant runoff is a very good idea when more than 2 candidates are

running. Undoubtedly Al Gore would have won in 2000 with an instant runoff, as neither candidate received a majority vote (in Florida or nationally), and by far most of Nader's votes would have gone to Gore in an instant runoff. In fact, Gore would have won both New Hampshire and Florida, either of which would have given him the election, under that system. Another issue is the winner take all system that we have, even for very narrow victories. It seems like we're setting ourselves up for potential tragedy with such a system, and indeed that's what we got in 2000 and 2004.

With regard to instant recall, I've never heard of that. Yes, that's something that might have worked out very well under Bush/Cheney. But we have something that's just about as good in theory IMO -- it's called impeachment. And it's a national tragedy that it wasn't used and apparently will not be used. I hope that voters send a very loud message to Nancy Pelosi for that.

[phrigndumass]

2. Excellent, bookmarked!

:hi:

[Time for change]

4. Thank you

:hi:

[joreko]

5. National Popular Vote doesn't require amendment

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The bill would make every vote politically relevant in a presidential election. It would make every vote matter.

The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 17 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that needs to be changed in order to have a national popular vote for President. The winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes inside the state) is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is strictly a matter of state law. The winner-take-all rule was not the choice of the Founding Fathers, as indicated by the fact that the winner-take-all rule was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789. The fact that Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by congressional district is another reminder that the Constitution left the matter of awarding electoral votes to the states. All the U.S. Constitution says is "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the states over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.” A federal constitutional amendment is not needed to change state laws.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

[Time for change]

6. How could it not require a Constitutional Amendment to elect our President by popular vote?

According the the 12th Amendment to our Constitution:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President".

The electors are chosen from the states. How could a popular vote for U.S. President be consistent with electors from each state voting for President? Each state could apportion the electoral vote, like NE and ME do now. But how could a national popular vote be consistent with the use of electors from each state?

[FlyingSquirrel]

8. It doesn't get rid of the Electoral College, but it makes it meaningless

The law will kick in for each individual state once enough states to total more than half the Electoral College have passed it. The law says that each individual state will assign its electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote - not the winner in their particular state. Since the law kicks in when enough states have ratified it to control the EC, it follows that the winner of the nationwide popular vote will necessarily be the winner of the Electoral vote.

So whoever wins the nationwide popular vote will win the electoral vote, rendering the Electoral College essentially meaningless, a rubber stamp for the National vote. This will force the candidates to campaign in more states.

So yes, the Constitution would have to be amended to actually get rid of the Electoral College - but not to make it completely meaningless.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/index.php

[Time for change]

11. Ok thanks, I get it

I guess I didn't read Joreko's post carefully enough.

I wonder if this will be easier than a Constitutional amendment. Theoretically it would be, since only half, or maybe even less, of the states would need to pass it. But I'm not sure. Also, I'm not sure if the other states might mount court challenges, claiming that they are being disenfranchised. It doesn't seem to be that they would have a good case for that, but you never know with jerks like Scalia and Thomas on the Court.

[FlyingSquirrel]

13. Interesting thought.

Since the Constitution specifically makes this a "States' right" issue and allows each state to assign Electors however it may choose, and since this law must be passed individually in each state, I don't think the non-ratifying states would be able to really challenge a law in a state other than their own.

It's been introduced in 45 states, but the only ones it has actually been enacted into law in have been Blue states - HI, IL, NJ, MD and passed both houses in VT. So it's clear that there is some resistance in Red states. It's passed 1 house in WA, CA, CO, AR, ME, and NC - CO is getting bluer these days, AR is only blue if you count the Clintons, and NC is not as red as many of the others.

If you total up all the states where the bill is either still seeking sponsors or has been introduced and no action taken, they total 194 EV's.

So this won't be happening anytime soon, but certainly there could be a showdown in the future. I don't think the states would be able to sue other states, but the Republican parties within each state could certainly try to mount challenges.

[Time for change]

12. I get it now, thanks

[Festivito]

7. It doesn't bother me I guess.

Perhaps one man one vote is to be the bedrock for our democracy. But, ideally, the bedrock of democracy could be to randomly pick a president, all citizens being so well informed that any one could take the job -- any time.

If we were to discard the Electoral College, the campaigns would change. And, in the anomalous popular count from Gore versus Bush being more for Gore than the EC count (errantly including Florida) for Bush; had the rules been established prior to the election, rest assured the campaigns would have moved to other states evoking different counts.

Only, instead of having to recount Florida, we'd be recounting the whole large nation. And, we could not even recount Florida, I'm ashamed to say.

The anomalies should not point to ridding US of the EC.

Either way, it doesn't bother me. It just seems a way to keep people from working on the crimes we need to solve and prosecute.

[KSinTX]

9. Great research. Thanks

:kick:ed and rec'd

[Time for change]

16. Thank you -- Some good purple state developments since I wrote this:

Obama up by 9 in an Ohio poll ending 5-18:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ohio.html

Obama up by 5 in New Hampshire poll ending 5-21
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/new_hampshire.html

[bertman]

10. We are a REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY.

We elect representatives (from the "common folk") and senators (from the aristocracy) who represent our interests (or rather, are supposed to). The founders never intended for us to be a one person-one vote democracy. Their intent was to keep the power in the hands of the landed, moneyed elites (damn, I hate that word, but it's appropriate here). They had no reason whatsoever to turn over their power to the rabble. (Read Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" for a more nuanced examination.)

That said, I too have a major problem with how the EC works and I'm glad Time for change has tossed this out for cussin and discussin.


If you want to get a sense of the real workings of a democracy, do some reading on Athens' shifting, sliding, ultimately failed democratic experiment. Thankfully they did provide a rough framework for our founding fathers to use to set up the US of A.

[Time for change]

18. The Warren Supreme Court made it clear that they do believe in one-person-one-vote

In Wesberry v. Sanders:

In reaching its landmark decision, the Supreme Court noted that Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution declares that representatives shall be chosen "by the People of the several States" and shall be "apportioned among the several States...according to their respective Numbers...." These words, the Court held, mean that "as nearly as practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesberry_v._Sanders

[ShadowLiberal]

14. One minor correction, The 1876 election was in a way stolen (lots of dirty tricks on both sides)

In the 1876 election you don't mention one important thing about the 8 to 7 votes that gave the election to Hayes. Originally the group to decide the election was to contain 7 republicans, 7 democrats, and independent Supreme Court Justice David Davis (about the only national figure considered neutral in the race), since they couldn't settle things in congress both parties agreed to this arrangement. It was widely viewed by everyone that all the republicans and democrats would vote along party lines no matter what, making David Davis effectively the guy who would single handedly choose the next president of the United States.

At the last second however, David Davis' home state elected him to the senate (back when the state legislature chose senators). Because of this David Davis was unable to serve on the committee (I'm not quite sure why he couldn't, but the original agreement was the committee to decide the election would contain 5 house members, 5 senate members, and 5 Supreme Court justices). With Davis unable to serve all of a sudden, the only other Supreme Court justices who could replace him were all Republicans, so the Republican Justice considered the most 'neutral' was given Davis' place, and not surprisingly this Republican controlled committee awarded the election to the Republican.

[Time for change]

15. Yes, it was very complicated

I read a whole book on the subject. There is a great deal of evidence that a deal was struck: The Democrats would allow Hayes to be elected, and in return the Republicans would end Reconstruction. That is in fact what happened. Soon after Hayes took office, all Union troops were pulled out of the South, leaving the South a free hand to effectively disenfranchise, repress and terrorize the freed slaves -- which they did for many decades.

[defendandprotect]

17. As long as the Electoral College exists, as Scalia pointed out . . .

the people have no right to elect a president ---

We have to get rid of the Electoral college and move to a popular vote ---