Toward Electoral Excellence

How can we avoid repeating the disaster of the 2016 election? (That is, assuming we actually HAVE another presidential election and that Trump doesn't stage a coup or something.) How can we elect Presidents who are sane, moderate, law-abiding, and qualified for the job?

Many Democrats now think the Electoral College should be replaced with a direct nationwide popular vote. This will never happen, because Republicans -- even the most reasonable moderate Republicans -- will never agree to it. A direct national popular vote would pretty much guarantee that almost all our Presidents would be Democrats, which is why Democrats like the idea and Republicans don't. Furthermore, a direct popular vote would not eliminate our system's current vulnerability to allowing someone as glaringly unfit as Trump to be elected President.

So, is there any other solution that would eliminate that vulnerability and could conceivably be agreed on by the more reasonable moderate Republicans, as well as by many Democrats?

We think there's a solution that will not only keep out future Trumps, but give us much better-qualified Presidents than we've ever had before.

Instead of getting rid of the Electoral College, we favor the exact opposite: strengthen the Electoral College to function more like what the Founding Fathers intended. We favor a constitutional amendment that would make the Electoral College become a full-fledged deliberative body, like a specialized parallel Congress, which is itself elected by the people but does all the work of electing the President, rather than rubber-stamping a popular vote by people in their states.

The founding fathers did not intend that the electors would just rubber-stamp a popular vote by people of their state. As Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist paper #68:

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.

In our opinion, the 2016 election has proven Hamilton correct that the very idea of the citizenry as a whole electing the President is a bad idea. The average citizen is just not in a good position to make an informed decision on whom to hire for the toughest, most important, and most powerful job on the planet. That hiring decision needs to be made by people who can interview the candidates in person and who have time for a thorough investigation of the candidates’ backgrounds.

Hence we favor a constitutional amendment requiring that presidential electors not be bound to vote for a specific candidate, but, instead, should be elected as individuals by the people of each state, similarly to the way Senators and Representatives are elected: one elector to be elected by the people of each congressional district, plus two electors to be elected by the people of each entire state.

We think the electors should have a one-year term of office that begins one year before the President’s four-year term begins, to give the electors plenty of time to (1) make any needed procedural decisions and organize themselves into any needed committees and/or caucuses, (2) accept applications from and screen preliminary presidential candidates, and then (3) hold as many rounds of voting as are needed to elect both a President and a Vice President by some large supermajority (at least 2/3, maybe even 3/4) that would be specified in the proposed constitutional amendment.

The requirement of a large supermajority would make it highly likely that whoever gets elected President would be a law-abiding, fair-minded moderate who can be trusted by both progressives and conservatives to respect those parts of the Constitution that are important to each side. In other words, we would have what in other countries is referred to as a "unity government."

It would also be the best way to ensure, as Alexander Hamilton hoped for the Electoral College, "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." We would end up with Presidents who are MUCH better qualified than the vast majority of Presidents we've had so far. Trump would never have even been considered. Most of our other recent Presidents would probably not have been regarded as sufficiently qualified either.

The current electoral system inherently favors demagogues and con artists -- or, as Hamilton called them, people with "Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity." To some extent, this has always been a problem with our system, but it has gotten worse in recent decades as our country has gotten more and more democratic. In many ways our ever-increasing democracy has been a very good thing. But, as far as presidential elections are concerned, we need the system to become LESS democratic while at the same time preserveing and strengthening the essential virtues of democracy: a government accountable to ALL its people, not just to the wealthy and privileged, and a government which upholds the rule of law rather than the personal whims or personal financial interests of whoever happens to be running the government.

The proposed system would vastly reduce the role of money in politics. Instead of spending millions of dollars on campaigns, a would-be presidential candidate would just submit a resume, accompanied by a petition with some minimum number of signatures, to some designated committee of the Electoral College. The electors themselves would need to spend money on their own campaigns to become electors, and the presidential candidates would need to pay their own travel expenses for interviews and hearings, but in both cases the money amounts would be much smaller than what is currently spent on presidential elections.

If the President is required to be elected by a large supermajority of the electors, this would also reduce the role of political parties in electing the President. The electors themselves would still be affiliated with political parties, just like members of Congress are, but a bipartisan (or multipartisan) consensus would be necessary to elect the President. Such a consensus would not only result in better-qualified Presidents, but would also have two other very beneficial effects on our political system:

In order for the Electoral College to function well as a deliberative body, it would also be a good idea for the proposed constitutional amendment to repeal the current constitutional requirement (in Article II, section 1, and again in the 12th Amendment) that the electors meet "in their respective states" rather than all in one place. The proposed multiple rounds of voting could happen more efficiently if the electors were meeting all in one place. Ditto for any committees that are formed to handle the initial screening of prospective candidates.

According to Alexander Hamiltion in Federalist paper #68, the reasons for the requirement of meeting separately in each state, rather than all in one place, were (1) to reduce the risk of spreading contagious diseases ("heats and ferments") and (2) to make it logistically harder for anyone, especially a foreign government, to bribe or otherwise unduly influence a large number of the electors. Both these reasons seem rather quaint in today's era of daily international air travel.

We favor repealing the constitutional requirement that the electors meet separately in each state, but not adding a constitutional requirement that they meet all in one place either. The specifics of how and where the Electoral College meets could be left up to Congress to decide.

There should also be vigilant measures taken to prevent bribery and foreign influence, but these too are best decided by Congress rather than in the Constitution, because the most effective ways to prevent them will likely keep changing as technology evolves.

Likewise, some of the other procedural details we suggested above, such as how a prospective candidate goes about asking to be considered by the Electoral College, or the formation of committees, need not be part of the proposed consitutional amendment. They could be decided either by congressional legislation or by the Electoral College itself before they start accepting applications from candidates.

How you can help make this happen

If you favor such a constitutional amendment, please contact your congressional Representative and Senators about it. You can find your Representative here and your two Senators here. (On each of those two web pages, use the form at the top right corner.)

We would suggest that you write something like the following, preferably adding some BRIEF personal thoughts of your own:

To make sure we never again elect a President as unfit as Trump, and to make sure our future Presidents are both highly qualified and fair-minded moderates, we need a constitutional amendment to reform the Electoral College to function closer to the way the Founding Fathers intended: with the electors themselves actually choosing the President. We need a constitutional amendment that will say something like this:

Electors must not be bound in advance to vote for any specific candidate.

Electors are to be elected the same way congressional Representatives and Senators are elected: one by the people in each congressional district, and two by the people in each state.

Both the President and the Vice President are to be elected by some specified large supermajority of the electors. (Maybe 3/4 for the President and 2/3 for the Vice President?)

The electors are to vote repeatedly until the target supermajorities are reached.

Electors are to have a one-year term of office which begins a full year before the President's four-year term of office begins (to ensure enough time for preliminary screening of prospective Presidential candidates plus the multiple rounds of voting).

The previous constitutional requirement that the electors meet in their respective states, rather than all in one place, is to be repealed.

Congress shall have the power to pass laws governing the conduct of the Electoral College.

For more about this idea, please see:
http://www.electoralexcellence.org/

(It is strongly recommended that you copy-paste the URL http://www.electoralexcellence.org/ into your email, rather than hand-copy it.)

IMPORTANT: If you send email to your Senators and/or Representative, please be sure to include your name and home address (the address at which you are registered to vote), to let them know that you are one of their constituents.

Also, please share this page with friends and family, especially anyone you know who is knowledgeable about politics and wants this country to be run by competent, fair-minded people.

If you have feedback or would like to help us organize, please contact us here. We would especially appreciate hearing from (1) constitutional lawyers willing to advise us pro bono on the precise wording of the proposed amendment, (2) political scholars and people associated with think tanks that might be interested in studying the implications of the proposed amendment, and (3) political activists interested in advocating the proposed amendment or some variant thereof.

Toward Electoral Excellence

A proposed amendment to the U.S.A.'s Constitution to reform the electoral college

How you can help make this happen