Abstract
The 2000 presidential election spotlighted an ancient institution and focused attention on the question of whether it should be altered or abolished as America enters the 21st century.
The institution, of course, is the Electoral College, which isn’t even a college, but a process by which the American people choose their president and vice president.
The 2000 election was one of those rare occasions when the winner of the electoral vote garnered fewer popular votes than his rival. The nature of the electoral system is that the popular vote in each state determines the winner of the entire membership of the state’s “college.” Each state is allowed one electoral vote for each representative in the House and one for each of its United States senators.
While Americans were waiting for the resolution of the Florida recount, and first became acquainted with terms such as “hanging chad” and “butterfly ballot,” some were saying that the time had come to abandon the Electoral College. These critics said America should elect the president by direct, popular vote. Indeed, two states — Nebraska and Maine — had tinkered with the electoral system, adopting systems in which the candidate who carried each congressional district earned that vote, and the candidate who carried the state earned the two “senatorial” votes. Since Nebraska’s new law was approved in 1991, the winner of the state-wide popular vote also has carried every congressional district.