Harvard bookstore continues to bring authors and their work to our community and our new Digital Community during these challenging times. Every week will be hosting events here on just like always had schedule will appear on our website harvard. Com and you can sign up for our email newsletter for more updates. This evenings discussion will conclude with just in time for your questions and if you have a question for our figure at anytime during the talks to, click on the q a but the bottom of the screen and we will get through as many questions as time allows. In the chat ill be hosting, ill be posting a link to purchase why do we still have the Electoral College on harvard. Com as well as a to donate in support of this series in our store. Your purchases and financial contributions events in a possible and help to ensure the future of a landmark independent bookstore. We thank you so much for showing up and tuning in support of our authors and the incredible staff of booksellers at Harvard Bookstore. We sincerely appreciate your support nowand always. And finally as you may have experienced in virtual gatherings recently, technical issues may arise. If they do we will do ourbest to resolve them quickly. Thank you for your patience and your understanding. And now, im pleased to introduce our speakers. Alexander keyssar is the author of numerous books including the right to vote with was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times book tries and one beverage award for the american historical association. He is matthew w starling junior professor of history and social policy at the john f. Kennedy school of government at harvard university. Miles rappaport is senior fellow in american democracy at Harvard Kennedy schools ash center for democratic governance and innovation and is a longtime organizer, policy advocate and elected official. Prior to his appointment to the hash center he was most recently resident of the independent Grassroots Organization common cause. For 13 years, he had the Public Policy center fema and served as connecticuts secretary of state. Tonight they will be discussing alexs new book why do we still have the Electoral College in which he explains the persistence of this arcane institution chases the american president. Examines the history of the Electoral College, the failed attempts to reform or abolish it and why efforts for reform i received so little attention from ponderous for the last 40 years. Lawrence lessig praises this as a brilliantcontribution to a critical debate , just in time to help guide effective reform now im honored to turn things over to our speakers. The digital podium is yours. Alexander admires. Neil. Let me thank you andalso the Harvard Bookstore for making this possible tonight. Thanks to all of you joining us tonight. I think it will be in the discussion and especially thanks to alexwriting this remarkable look. Ill just say ive been a friend and a fan of the professors work for years. We have both been involved in the democracy reform. Trying to make a democracy that is inclusive for everyone and a fair playing field. The right to vote, his previous book that no reference as an anchor and really the framer if i can use that term for the fields understanding of the nations troubled fraud history about the right to vote. This i believe ill show you both, why do we have the Electoral College will have the same rural i think has the explanation of the history practice and possibilities for change for the Electoral College. The same speaking of the book the timing is everything and this book is perfectly time. I always say theres more interest in issues of how we do our democracy than ever before and ivebeen in this field for a good 35 years. We are facing more challenges to our democratic structures than ever and the same time, i think there is more interest and more energy for democracy reform and ive ever seen as well. Just quickly i think thereare 2 kinds of challenges. One, are the kind of in the challenges that were facing in this incredibly related moment just for an example, the president of the United States decides he wants to postpone the election because maybe it really problematic. Or state that are trying to make it really difficult for people to vote whether by mail or in person. Or this the obvious issue of trying to figure out how to do an election under the conditionsof a serious candidate. Those are the kind of issues but there was a long term structural issues that have been with us for a long time and i we both, is voting so like what should we think of it as a civic duty. What about the Campaign Finance system which has forced the wealthy formany years. What about the undemocratic nature of the u. S. Senate. If we are rapidly approaching a point where 70 percent of the people will have 30 percent of the senators and 30 percent of the people will have 90 percent of the senators but having the entire list, heading the packet. Using both of other state narrows the election to a small number of socalled battleground states and lastly, into elections already in the 20th century, 21stcentury out of five from that 40 percent of the elections. The Electoral College has delivered the presidency to someone who has lost the popular vote. So that seems like a pretty risk indictment of this longstanding institution. Which leads vastly the question of why we still have the Electoral College. As alex has been kind of a person who has taken on these big issues for his whole career, let me ask you alex, what motivated you to really get in here and write this book. Before addressing the question let me thank you for the generous introduction and thoughtful introduction and let me thank the bookstore for sponsoring this event. Im very grateful that they have done so. To write the book i think it happened in two stages. The first stage was simply the 2000 election when the person who won the most votes did not become president. And thats set off questions in my mind as in everyones, why do wedo it like this . And what happened is the second stage with for a number of years was i began reading around, looking around trying to understand the history of the institution and i came across a number of actors that seem to magnify thepuzzle. What went on was the fact that there were 800 to 900 constitutional amendments introduced in the congress to modify or get rid of the Electoral College. By someones estimate 10 percent of all constitutional amendments in the last several hundred years been about theElectoral College. There was a longstanding interest but i also discovered that on six occasions, one ranch of Congress Actually approved constitutional amendments by the requisite two thirds vote so that interested me and surprised me. I also learned opinion polls indicate overwhelmingly that the American People are in favor of a National Popular vote. Opinion polls start in the 1940s. Admittedly that takes a debt after the 2016 election when republicans certainly went from being in favor of Electoral College reform by a margin of 58 percent favored reform and 2 weeks later only 19 percent were in favor of reform. I think that may creep back up. The basic fact was Public Opinion had favored this. So we have this long history of dysfunction, attempted reforms, Public Opinion and the final thing which really got me going was uncovering, i thought, it took me a while to fully figure this out but the conventional answers to the questions, the longstanding conventional answer is youll have to Electoral College reform because of a small state, the small states have an increment of Electoral Reform because they dont want to get rid of it by National Popular vote. Turns out thats not true. Its a convenient answer. To disguise some things that are made a little bit less principled looking. So with all of those discoveries, it presented a puzzle to me. Why do we have and it became a scholarly inquiry that i think member the question that a couple of hundred million americans asked themselves every four years which is why do we elect cabinets this way. Lets take us back, youre a historian. Lets go back actually in the Constitutional Convention which was the liberation have taken on an aura of sanctity. You would think the selection of president s took place would be the subject of a lot of deep and thorough thinking but from the book it seems like quite the case. So tell us how the Electoral College came to the Constitutional Convention. Exactly. They were befuddled by the question of how to choose a chief executive in the articles of confederation which is what created the constitution was no separate executive branch and the really have malls to do this. When a convention convened in philadelphia in 87, the people option which most people seem to favor was that congress would choose the president. And on several occasions in the course of the summer they had quotes and a majority or sort of majority said yes, congress should use the president. And then the next day or a couple days later they would start saying no, thats really not a good idea because then we dont have separation of powers were going to have corruption. They went around and around. And talk about having a National Popular vote talk about governors using the president. They could not come to a resolution read and then were not too late august and they still dont have an answer. Philadelphia in august isvery hot. And it was that summer. They were tired. And under pressure so begin what conveners often do. They left on vacation and left a committee to iron out theunfinished parts. Committee which consisted of 11 people in each state was the group that came with the Electoral College. And you know, there are many things contribute to read i think the best way to understand what they came up with was that it was going on this default notion congress to choose the president but that it should be corrupt and what understanding is with the Electoral College is a wreck replica of congress. It is, it has the same number of representatives and senators from each state, the number of a number of votes in a state and its a replica of congress that performs only one function and then disbands and thus it cant be corrupt. Thats how they came up with. Interesting and you send by the way the small state versus big state was not the only issue. Let me ask you, at the moment in this country we are realizing just how many things need to be reviewed or looked at a new through the lens of racism and Structural Racism andslavery. So im guessing that looked at with that perspective there are a lot of things that come up about the Electoral College so how do you think it looks when you think about it and what impacts for the issue of race and racism have on the electoralcollege . The impact is enormous. Not to say, im in disagreement among historians but im not one of those who claim that the institution was created to legislate order, i dont get through. Its 3 5 clause which was already in the compromise was imported into the allocation of Electoral College votes it wasnt the reason for 30 bucks certainly during the fourth end of the century there was the possible consideration of a Natural National possible popular vote but the most powerful story about the impact of race on electoral politics reform comes from about 1880s into the 1970s. And you know, the core fact there is that southern politicians were almost uniformly firmly and ferociously oppose to a National Popular vote. Why . The prefix clause was on. Africanamericans were franchise and then theywere disenfranchised. At that point , southern whites benefited from what i call the five fifths clause. In effect Southern States that representation in Congress Electoral votes in proportion to the state entire population, white and black but onlywhites were permitted to vote. This became greatly disproportionate to southern whites. And they feared and i think theoretically if the country adopted a National Popular vote, they would surrender a great deal of that. There are two things, one was that it put pressure on them to enfranchise africanamericans as they did not want to do then the second was that it would diminish their class. Because the Electoral College , i think it was a slightly different angle, stated in a slightly different way and the Electoral College influence of the state depends on its population. In the National Popular vote the influence of the state depends on how many people turn out to vote. And those southern whites benefited from and they basically kept the ideaof a National Popular vote off the table. For many years and then ended and i talk about this later, derailed the episode of when we became close as to getting vote and i can talk about this people are interested in question many other episodes. Why did you pick a few examples of times when reform was serious option and tell us what happened . I should grant you cant stay until sunday morning but let me pick two examples. One has to do with state reform and the other is federal reform. There is one reform states can undertake by themselves which is they can get rid of winner take all. Winner take all is not in the constitution. States have retained the power to decide how the electoral votes will be allocated. The 1830s it becomes pretty much the rule. What happened the end of the 19th century is an extraordinary episode that takes place in michigan which is been a republican dominated majority state like most states of the midwest tended to go 5545 republicans. When the democrats gained control of one point in the 1890s the first thing to do was is to end what the call the Electoral College. And to create a district system so if you won a certain district you got that electoral vote and then it would basically split the electoral vote in the state. Its an age old proposal. James mattis in the 1820s was in favor of it. Jefferson was in favor of it. Notably it had been the preferred sort of option among republicans in congress in the 1870s. This happens in 1891 in michigan and what happened is in the entire republican establishment a michigan and in the country turns against this. They denounce this reform called a minor law after john minor was a very minor figure in history, and they denounced this law as a crime against democracy. The president Benjamin Harrison gets involved and start crusading against it. They fight in the course. They lose, basically argued you could only use winner take all. They lose that in michigan courts and the end of having an emergency convening of the United StatesSupreme Court just before the 1892 election to fight over this issue. They say you cant allow district elections. The question that occurred, one comment to make about this story which ties into the previous theme is why these republicans who favored district elections at 1877 were treated like the plague, partner expression, in the 1890s. The answer was that in the intervening 20 years basically 15 years, the south had become 100 solidly democratic. And in effect banished republicans as well as africanamericans so that district systems were created, it would be no gains for the republicans in the south, and they would probably lose 45 of electoral votes. That the earned in new york. The conclusion of the Republican Party was they would never again when a president election. Thats one episode. And then what happens in michigan is republicans come back in to power and they are still enraged about this attempted reform that they punish the democrats, gerrymandered then come passed all sorts of Voter Suppression laws aimed at immigrant workers were voting democratic and the reading solidly empower in michigan for the next 50 years. Democrats dont get out until the new deal. Second episode may seem substantially this takes place in the 1960s. For various reasons having to do with a sincere commitment to democratic values, but also having to do with the fear of George Wallace becoming a kingmaker in Elections Come support for National Popular vote for jettisoning the Electoral College completely coming up with a National Popular vote, gross to ministry through 1960. Most populous support. The chamber of commerce as well as the aflcio. Basically those organizations agreed on anything is unlikely. They all favored Electoral College reform. In 1969 the the