Any middle schooler who pays attention in civics class can tell you that here in the United States, we do not directly elect our president. Instead, we elect people to sit in the Electoral College, and it is the Electoral College who in turn selects our president.
Our Founding Fathers actually intended for the Electoral College to be an actual group of people, who would meet after the election, deliberate and vote on who they, the electors, wanted to be president. It was meant to protect the process from demagoguery, and the passions of the masses.
But that is not how it works today. In every state, except Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the popular vote wins that state's Electoral College delegation. So in effect, the U.S. presidential election becomes fifty-one separate elections (although the District of Columbia is not a state, it does get to participate in the Electoral College).
Not all of those separate elections are equal. Each state gets that same number of electors as the number of representatives that the state has in the House of Representatives, plus two to represent the state's Senate delegation. The District of Columbia gets three electors. States with large House delegations get more electors. But since each state is guaranteed at least three electors, voters in smaller states, like Utah and Wyoming, wind up with a disproportionately large say in who our next president will be.
Every four years, we hear arguments that the Electoral College distorts the popular vote. It is anti-democratic, and as such it should be eliminated in favor of direct election of the president. Indeed, twice in U.S. history a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote.
This year, there is an outside shot that no one will win a majority of the Electoral College vote, and that an independent candidate could become our president.
The Constitution provides that a person must win a majority of the Electoral College to win the presidency. If no one wins a majority, the choice for the next president goes to the House of Representatives. But, the House votes by state delegation, where each state gets one vote. And, when each state votes, they can only select a person who has won at least one Electoral college vote.
For the most part, the United States has a two party system. That is, when a person is voting for president, they are mostly voting for a Republican or a Democrat. As long as only the candidates from the two parties receive votes in the Electoral College, then one of them will likely win a majority. There are scenarios where the two major party candidates can tie in the Electoral College. But those are unlikely scenarios.
However, the equation changes if a third party candidate were to win the popular vote in just one state. If that were to happen, then it could be possible for none of the candidates to win a majority in the Electoral College, and therefore throw the race to the House.
This year, there are a lot of voters who are dissatisfied with both nominees from the major parties. However, because the U.S. electoral system is rigged to favor Republicans and Democrats, most voters view third party candidates as a wasted vote. Thus, even if they do not like either candidate, they choose the candidate they dislike more, and vote for the opponent.
But things are a little different this year. In the latest polls an independent candidate, Evan McMullin, is leading both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the popular vote in Utah. Thus, there is a realistic chance that for the first time in over a hundred years, a candidate who is neither a Democrat nor a Republican could win a state's entire delegation to the Electoral College. If the math were to work out in the rest of the states, there is an outside chance that neither Clinton nor Trump will win a majority of the Electoral College.
All things being equal, this would normally favor the Republican candidate. It would mean that the vote would go to the House, with each state getting one vote. Even if the Republicans lose the House in the congressional elections, Democrats will likely be concentrated in the populous states, such as New York, California and Pennsylvania. As far as state delegations are concerned, the majority will likely favor Republicans.
But, whether they say it publicly or not, Republican leadership does not like Donald Trump. He was the outsider who cashed in on his name recognition and the popular discontent with politicians in general to win the Republican nomination. His temperament and the perception of his chauvinism has made him a damaged candidate. Indeed, after recordings of Trump's vile comments on women were released, some Republican candidates, including Speaker Paul Ryan, have refused to campaign for him. Republican leadership may be eager to throw Trump under the bus if the opportunity were to come and choose a different candidate.
And there is where the Electoral College could save the republic. If Evan McMullin were to win Utah, and if neither Trump nor Hillary won the majority of the Electoral College, it could give Republican leaders a real chance to reject the two major party candidates, viewed as severely flawed by many Americans, and make a more rational choice. One could only hope.
By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.
