Constitution Day: Recommended Books - Electoral College and Voting

The Electoral College has played an important role in presidential politics since our nation's founding, but surprisingly little information exists about precisely how it affects campaign strategy. Daron R. Shaw, a scholar who also worked as a strategist in both Bush-Cheney campaigns, has written the first book to go inside the past two presidential elections and reveal how the race to 270 was won--and lost.  Shaw's nonpartisan study lays out how both the Democrats and the Republicans developed strategies to win decisive electoral votes by targeting specific states and media markets. Drawing on his own experience with Republican battle plans, candidate schedules, and advertising purchases--plus key contacts in the Gore and Kerry camps--Shaw goes on to show that both sides used information on weekly shifts in candidate support to reallocate media buys and schedule appearances. Most importantly, he uses strikingly original research to prove that these carefully constructed plans significantly affected voters' preferences and opinions--not in huge numbers, but enough to shift critical votes in key battlegrounds.  Bridging the gap between those who study campaigns and those who conduct them, The Race to 270 will provide political scientists and practitioners alike with fresh insights about the new strategies that stem from one of our oldest institutions.

The electoral college system has evolved continuously since the first presidential election. Despite a number of close contests, this arrangement has selected the candidate with the most popular votes in 48 of 52 presidential elections since the current voting system was established. Three times, however, candidates were elected who won fewer popular votes than their opponents (1876, 1888, 2000). These controversial elections occurred because the system requires a majority of electoral, not popular, votes to win the presidency. This book examines the history of the electoral college, contemporary analysis and possible reform proposals.

What is the Electoral College, and do the American people really need it? Should the popular vote determine the winner in any given presidential election? This anthology examines the origin and purpose of the Electoral College and offers balanced arguments for and against its use in the general election process. Readers will see how the Electoral College and popular vote can function harmoniously together, as well as examples supporting the viewpoint that the system has broken down and doesn't reflect the popular will.

"Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America's 'core democratic principles' and should be done away with..." --Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question--and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans--Republicans and Democrats alike--find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed--now.Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist andNew York Timeseditorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. InLet the People Pick the Presidenthe shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count--and restore belief in our democratic system.

The Electoral College that governs America has been with us since 1804, when Thomas Jefferson's supporters redesigned it for his re-election. The Jeffersonians were motivated by the principle of majority rule. Gone were the days when a president would be elected by acclamation, as GeorgeWashington had been. Instead, given the emergence of intense two-party competition, the Jeffersonians wanted to make sure that the Electoral College awarded the presidency to the candidate of the majority, rather than minority, party. They also envisioned that a candidate would win by amassing amajority of Electoral College votes secured from states where the candidate's party was in the majority.For most of American history, this system has worked as intended, producing presidents who won Electoral College victories derived from state-based majorities. In the last quarter-century, however, there have been three significant aberrations from the Jeffersonian design: 1992, 2000, and 2016. Ineach of these years, the Electoral College victory depended on states where the winner received only a minority of votes.In this authoritative history of the American Electoral College system, Edward Foley analyzes the consequences of the unparalleled departure from the Jeffersonians' original intent - and delineates what we can do about it. He explains how states, by simply changing their Electoral Collegeprocedures, could restore the original Jeffersonian commitment to majority rule. There are various ways to do this, all of which comply with the Constitution. If only a few states had done so before 2016, the outcome might have been different. Doing so before future elections can prevent anothervictory that, contrary to the original Jeffersonian intent, a majority of voters did not want.