The Crumbling Case for the Electoral College

"The 36-day fight over Florida was just a symptom of the underlying problem. "If we selected presidents like we select governors, senators, representatives, and virtually every elected official in the United States, Al Gore would have been elected president -- no matter which chads were counted in Florida," notes George C. Edwards III in his new book, Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. But we don't select presidents by a simple vote of the people. We conduct elections in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and typically award candidates electoral votes only if they win an entire state. The overall popular vote is irrelevant. All that counts is the Electoral College, in which each state gets as many votes as it has members of Congress. I wrote in defense of the Electoral College in 2000, but Mr. Edwards, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, has forced me to reconsider. Upon reconsideration, I think the critics have the better argument. [more ]