Week of starting specifically about the Electoral College, what it is, how it works, why why mostrtant, political scholars hate the Electoral College. Hopefully you have read most of the book so far, if not, all of it. You get an argument against the Electoral College, but its a useful book because he lays out all of the common arguments for think isl, which i helpful for allowing each person to make up their own mind about what they think about this institution generally speaking. I do a whole week on this one elect thes how we president , but very few americans understand the process. Theou take a course in american presidency, you should probably walk away understanding how this process works. But also because its really important in how it structures how elections turnout. We started our discussions of president ial nominations by talking about the history of nominations and taking a relatively deep diving to the process rules of nominations today. We start out president ial nominations by taking a deeper dive into the single most important institutional process that affects how we elect a president. Youre reading for this week was why the Electoral College is bad for america. Im sure dr. Edwards has made a good amount of money on this by now. Book edwards explains how the Electoral College system works. He highlights key problems and lays out a response to the typical arguments in favor. Today we will focus on how the system works, with the outcomes of the Electoral College intended to look like. We will turn towards arguments about pros and cons of the Electoral College, and consequences of the Electoral College of how candidates campaign, and how president ial campaigns tend to shape out. Today i want to make sure you understand the system, where it came from and how it works. It tends to be more involved than people think. Why did we have the Electoral College in the first place . A lot of that stems from there being a desire among many of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention to compromise and come to some sort of resolution regarding setting out with the terms would be for their new constitutional government. We talked about this earlier in the semester. One of the concerns was that they needed to come to a compromise and produce a new document, a new constitutional document by the time they were done in philadelphia. All of them were somewhat inclined towards compromise. There is a fear at the time that as the convention failed to produce a political system for the u. S. , the country would splinter into regional parts, and it would be more easily conquered by european powers, who essentially are sitting across the atlantic and eyeing the United States for political dysfunction. That inclination to compromise went to a clear acquiescence to interests of certain states, including smaller state interests. Thoseanted to ensure smaller states, as well as the slave states, wanted to ensure their voices were amplified in the new governmental system. They pushed hard and consistently on that point throughout the debate on most things, including on the debate over how to select the president. I told you during the second week of class, most of the debate at the Constitutional Convention centered on how the president would be elected. Convention spent 22 combined days debating this topic, and took more than 30 different votes on 30 competing proposals and amendments to proposals about how they would do this election. Days and 30ose 22 votes, there are options debated for how we would elect a president. There were three main camps, with also some other various sub and compromises thrown out there. There were three main avenues that work considered or advocated by different delegates at the convention. One option was to have the president selected by congress. The house or the senate would meet to consider candidates and cast votes to directly select the executive. This was sounding like a parliamentary system where the or wasinister is formerly a member of the National Legislator and is designated as their leader, either by the Majority Party or coalition and assumes executive office. Another option was at the president should be elected not by the congress, but by the state legislator said state legislators. They would take a vote on their preferred candidates, whichever candidate got the most states would become the new president. The third mate option that was considered was from a subset of members of the convention who wanted a direct popular vote for president , largely arguing that that was the only way to ensure the president ial office had any sort of separation from being inclined to just be dominated by the states or the congress. Proposals. Was other Alexander Hamilton made a proposal about Something Like the Electoral College, but an Electoral College that would choose a president for life and pick a new one when the president died. There were a lot of different ideas about who would be the president and how would we get. O the president there were certain concerns that drove the tenor of these debates. There were certain things that many of the founders were concerned about achieving, or through the method of president ial election. We will run through some of these. One of these concerns was avoiding what they referred to as legislative intrigue. The concern was making sure there was president ial independence. Legislative intrigue was a term at the time for kings among members of congress to select certain president s. To select a president that would empower those specific members of Congress Rather than selecting a president who would do a good job or achieve certain policy aims. This ties into president ial independence. There was concern that if the election of the president was driven by congressional injury, you would have a reality where whoever was selected would be entirely dependent on the congress to maintain their time in office. That because he would have this language about impeachment in the constitution, congressional selection would ultimately mean that a congressman born over the presence of the presidency, threatened to impeach the president every time they did not do what they wanted because they have the power to vote and put them in office and remove them from office. That was seen as too dependent on the office. They also wanted a system in which the president had some separation and independence from the legislator. Which were two things that worked against direct election by the congress. Another concern was voter colloquialism, and that the founders were concerned that the country was too large and people would be too uninformed of their potential leaders from any other state. So if you did a direct election by state, what you would get would be 13 states that would choose 13 different president s, then you would be deadlocked with 13 candidates coming in a closet i tied a quasitie. Who were concerned about voter colloquialism wanted the public to have some boys, but they wanted a system that would force the consideration of candidates with a broader national reputation. So you had to do something beyond just direct election in order to get to a place where people would be looking the on their own state borders. They were also concerned about there being a need for intermediaries between the public and the president , reflection of the presidency. A lot of the president s wanted direct selection and were advocates of direct moxie. Other direct democracy. Others were concerned that if they selected them directly they would make unwise choices. You needed some sort of system that had intermediaries between the public and the election and the president. You can see these next two concerns, voter colloquialism and the need for intermediaries pushed back against direct election. There was also fears of president ial powers. There were different beliefs about what would allow for a more empowered or less empowered president. Some thought that direct election of the president would make the president to powerful, because in the president would be the only person to have the full mantle of the public. Others thought a president would be to powerful as they were indirectly selected as well. Were theiration size key concerns. Small states wanted to be sure their voices were heard in the new government. And that the articles of consideration be made known. Small states would dominate the process because every state, regardless of population size had one voice vote. Most decisions in the articles of Confederation Congress required two thirds to three quarters of the Articles Congress to be in agreement for anything to happen. States largely had veto power over anything larger states wanted to do, and fairly outsized power, given most of the population lived in four states at the time of the articles of confederation. The Electoral College structure gave small states a bigger voice than they would have had under direct election. Billy gave them a smaller voice than they might have had from some forms of congressional selection or forms of state legislative selection. Small states were not happy with the Electoral College compromise, which we will talk about. When the Electoral College failed, the house of representatives elect the president. That was the key given to the small states to get them to sign on to the agreement. Many founders thought the Electoral College would never produce a majority winner after george washington, and the house of representatives would select the president every time. There were concerns of slave states. Slave states worked hard to ensure they were overrepresented in the new government and other parts of the constitution, as you likely know. There is the 3 5 compromise that went into the u. S. Constitution. The coming of each slave within person state is 3 5 of a for allocating seats in the congressional house of representatives. Would lose that boost if there was direct population. Reflectedsystem that congressional apportionment back into the president so they would have a larger voice and president ial selection relative to their population as well. Finally, the shortterm concerns, there was fatigue, the Convention Delegates wanted to get there within your system. They were concerned failure was the worst popular option. That led to people who wanted a different outcome to act we estimate concerns of slave states, small states, or people who had strong opinions. And they were willing to walk away from the convention if they did not get what they wanted. Those concerns ended up with an elect girl college system. Electoral college system. The Electoral College did not achieve anyones ideals for what the election of the president would be, but it did reflect key concerns on the previous slide. He gave each faction something they wanted, a popular vote and allocating the states empowered to give congress a final say. No one was fully happy with it, but it was something that no one was upset enough about to walk away from the convention. Plenty of delegates walked away from the convention. You had a good number that refused to sign the final document. Walk away over the Electoral College, they walked away over broader issues. On to running through how the Electoral College works from start to finish, does anybody have any questions that they want answers to, in terms of clarification or otherwise . I have a quick question. Fathers which group was in favor of the direct popular vote . Prof. Curry its hard to categorize them in any way other than saying the ones who are more committed to direct democracy. They did not come from any ,pecific parts of the country they kind of were randomly distributed. That factionr of and these were the people we satisfied with the constitution in many respects the leader of that faction was really george mason, was upset from day one at the convention because he was hoping to go there and push for a system of government that was legislatively driven to have peter apportionment your pureintment apportionment and those ideas are compromised tours delegates who are concerned about more immediate power concerns for specific constituencies or states. Does that make sense . Student totally. Thanks. Prof. Curry youd have to read my James Madison notes to know who people were individually. Worked really hard in shaping the system to be more democratic than it might have otherwise been without him. He was very influential and pushed really hard and refused to sign it in the end. But he made it look a lot better than it could have. Other questions . I have a question, if thats ok . A 3 5etty familiar with compromise and i understand what it is, but i was curious of how it came to 3 5 . Ts super specific dont really is, i know why had to be 3 5. Prof. Curry i am not sure if anyone knows why it was 3 5. We have very limited notetaking on the nature of the debates. A varied from moment to moment because there were a handful of people who were delegates who duringjournal or a diary it, most of those are very spotty. You might have days and their diary just said, attended convention today. Took about as complete notes as he could, but it was him scribbling 18 hours a day while things were going on. He did not always capture what everyone said in every moment. You have him talking about them debating things like a 3 5 compromise, but not going into the different specific fractions. Ths mustve sounded good to everyone. They would decide if the number sounded satisfactory to everyone. Also things like why twoyear terms for the house . Some would say for in people would say thats too much or too long, someone would propose one in someone would say thats not want about so someone would say to and they would say thats good. It was just a matter of the Southern States saying the south came with the proposal that slaves counted as full individuals. There were some members who wanted them not to count at all, so i guess 3 5ths was good enough for everyone to say fine. But why 3 5ths probably remains a mystery, unless someone has done some good historical work that i dont know about. Other questions . Operate. Lets run through how the Electoral College works stepbystep and from 30,000 feet. How does it work today . Lets talk about how it worked in 1789 lets talk about how it works now. Have 538 electoral votes as part of the college. Two, plus thes number of house seats. Ofh member has four members the house of representatives, plus the two senators every state has, there are 60 electoral votes in the Electoral College. Another state has 10 house members would have 12 electoral votes. It is almost roughly proportional to the size of the state by population, but with smaller states waited a bit heavier because they get the twoseat used with the two vote boost no matter how small they are, and then the consequently larger states ratchet it down because its not proportional. The district of columbia gets three votes, no matter what, under the constitutional amendment. I dont remember now. I think maybe 1970s the district of columbia did not get to vote in president ial elections or have any votes in the Electoral College. That was an amendment tacked on that washington, d. C. Would get three. It became awkward because washington, d. C. May be large enough to have the regular apportionment scheme to have four votes, but they would enter three. Beenngton, d. C. Has always andr our nonrepresentative the United States. To win you have to get a majority of the votes, which is 270. 538 is the total number of votes, so you can have a tie. For the Electoral College to come out to 269269. Thats a nightmare for everybody, but you need to 70 at minimum to become a 270 at minimum to becoming president. If you had three candidates getting electoral votes, you could have it split in such a way that no one gets a majority and nobody wins at the Electoral College stage. Votes each many state gets, its reallocated every 10 years, just like we reallocated house seats based on the census every 10 years because the formula is two plus the number of house seats. So if you were to pick up seats in the coming sensors, which is unlikely to do, but you can go from having six electoral votes to having seven. Some could gain or lose just like they gain or lose in the house of representatives. , votesl is said and done are capped by the 538 electors in order for there to be a winner. This is essentially what the outcome can look like. This is what we call a cartographic of the 2016 electoral vote from the Electoral College. Notice, itthings to shows the size of the states based on the number of votes, whether within based on the land area. It an accurate its an accurate representation. It allows you more clearly to see that decisiveness or nondecisiveness of an Electoral College outcome. You slowly landslide on here. Lights upe it entirely. But in a close election might 2016 you see fairly close sizes between the blue and the red states because it was a fairly close election. Something else you will notice is that there are a number of people who got electoral votes who were not Hillary Clinton or donald trump. Constitution,the the Electoral College electors can vote for whoever they want. In addition to the 227 votes for clinton and the 304 votes for trump, you had a number of people receive votes, which you see