Posted on: Sunday, October 31, 2004

ISLAND VOICES
Don't bet on changing the Electoral College

By James V. Hall

Recently I participated in a political forum at the University of Hawai'i. The major topic of the evening was the Electoral College and whether or not to abandon this archaic practice. My response was "Love it the way it is, it will never change!"

My interest was heightened in 1988 when I became a George H.W. Bush elector. I didn't get to cast my vote because Bush didn't carry Ha-wai'i. The system favors Republicans because it is usually the larger states with big cities that go Democrat and the smaller states without huge metropolitan populations that go Republican. Basically, it is a big-state vs. small-state issue.

That was exactly the reason our founding fathers established the Electoral College, part of a compromise reached in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. The smaller states were in favor of a one-house national legislature with representatives selected by state legislatures. Each state would cast one vote.

The larger states supported a bicameral legislature where all representation would be based on population. The convention became deadlocked for months until a compromise proposal was submitted creating the bicameral national legislature we have today. Since the Electoral College was based on this compromise, it, too, became part of our Constitution.

Amending the Constitution is a daunting task because any amendment has to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures. Small states would be reluctant to give up the little clout that the system provides them.

Someone at UH asked: "Why don't we change it? It violates the one-man, one-vote criterion established by the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr." My response was that dumping the Electoral College on that basis meant the U.S. Senate would also have to be dispensed with because it doesn't follow the one-man, one-vote formula, either.

Years ago, the Hawai'i state Senate was composed of 15 senators from the Neighbor Islands and 10 from O'ahu, home of 79 percent of the population. The originators of this plan were echoing the national setup. However, this was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Burns v. Richardson (1965).

One loophole in the Electoral College system is that there is no prohibition against "faithless electors" who vote for someone other than the candidate who carried the state. Twenty-four states have requirements that the electors must do so; however, the punishment is not severe. There have been 156 "faithless electors" throughout history — 71 because the original candidate died before the day the electors cast their votes. The other 82 were changed on the personal initiative of the elector.

One Bush elector this year declared that he didn't like either candidate, and so he might not vote at all. Maine and Nebraska use the District Plan giving two votes to whoever carries the state plus one vote for every congressional district they carry. Colorado residents will vote on dividing the electoral votes according to the percentage each candidate receives.

State law governs that and may be the only way the Electoral College will change. But don't bet on it.

James V. Hall is a Honolulu-based writer and political researcher. He wrote this article for The Advertiser.