REFORMING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

A Close Election Gives Old Arguments New Force

"This was a good system in horse-and-buggy days," said Democratic Senate Whip Mike Mansfield last week, "but we ought to bring it up to date." Promptly the Wall Street Journal disputed him: "This system works remarkably well . . . Abolishing it would be one more blow at the federal structure, one more step toward centralization of power in the National Government." In the wake of the 20th century's closest election, politicos and pundits locked anew in an old debate: Should the electoral college be abolished, or reformed to enhance the power of the popular vote?

THE Founding Fathers rejected a popular election for the presidency. ''It would be as unnatural to refer the choice . . . to the people," said Virginia's George Mason, "as it would to refer a trial of colours to a blind man." The Constitutional Convention determined to put the choice in the hands of an elite, struck upon a system of electors that was a compromise between big and small states. Each state would "appoint" a number of electors equal to its total Congressmen and Senators. If no presidential candidate won a clear majority from the electors, the contest would go into the House of Representatives, where each state would have one vote in choosing a President--another concession to the smaller states.

Almost immediately, the cry for change arose. As the two-party system began to evolve, the idealistic concept of elite electors deliberating over the choice of the best man began to fade. Reformers demanded that the electors be chosen and bound by popular vote. State legislatures surrendered their privilege of choosing the electors, gave in to a new system by which political parties nominated electors and the people voted for them. Over the years, the electors became mere automatons to carry out the public will. One by one, the states adopted the custom of casting all their electoral ballots for the candidate who carried a popular plurality, however small. That winner-take-all plan increased the possibility that a candidate could win an electoral majority by hair-breadth victories in big-vote states while still losing the nationwide popular vote.

After popular Andrew Jackson was done out of the presidency in 1824.* the demand for reform intensified. Fuel was added to the flames in 1876, when Democrat Samuel J. Tilden outcounted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in popular votes, but lost on the electoral tally in a contest that reeked of bribery and ballot stuffing. In 1888 Democrat Grover Cleveland won a popular plurality, but Republican Benjamin Harrison carried the college. As years passed, reformers proposed more than 100 constitutional amendments that would change the electoral college system, but conservatives and champions of the federal system scuttled them all.

Today the criticisms are basically the same as a century ago. The electoral college gives disproportionate weight to some voters and virtually disenfranchises others, e.g., the winner-take-all system provides little incentive for Democrats in Republican Vermont or Republicans in Democratic Georgia to go to the polls. Since a state gets as many electors as it has Senators plus Congressmen, the smaller states are favored at the expense of the larger. New York, with 74 times more people than Alaska, has only 15 times more electoral votes. Moreover, the electoral power is the same whether the vote is light or heavy; in 1960 the eleven states of the old Confederacy, where few Negroes are enfranchised, cast only 14% of the popular vote but 24% of the electoral vote. Furthermore, the electoral college cannot keep pace with the nation's population shifts. The 1950 census determined each state's electoral total for 1960. Had the 1960 census figures been used, Richard Nixon would have won ten additional electoral votes. Finally, although custom is strong, only a few states have laws that bind the electors to cast their votes for their party's candidate.

The perennial proposals for reform fall into three general categories:

Popular Vote. Montana Democrat Mansfield is the current leader of the crusade to cast out the college, choose the President by popular plurality. Disadvantage: a national popularity contest would be a body blow to that unique American creation, the federal system, which gives considerable weight to the rights of states.

District Vote. South Dakota's Senator Karl Mundt, a Republican who has long dreamed of uniting Northern and Southern conservatives in a single political party, leads a campaign to bring the presidential election somewhat closer to a proportional vote than it is now. He would divide each state into electoral districts, each nearly equal in population, have the voters in each district choose one elector, plus two "at large'' electors to be selected statewide. Under such a system, says Mundt, "the present inordinate power of organized pressure groups in the big-city states would be reduced to proper proportions."

Proportional Vote. In 1948 then-Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge got widespread support for an amendment specifying that each state's electoral vote be divided in proportion to its popular vote. The Senate in 1950 passed the proposal, but the House Rules Committee blocked it. Principal argument against the proportional system is that splinter parties could gain great power. Had a proportional system prevailed at the times of Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912) and Truman--all of whom won less than a popular majority--the votes of splinter parties would have sent the contests into the House of Representatives. In 1960 a proportional count would have cut Jack Kennedy's electoral margin of victory from 300-223 to 264-259--which, being five votes less than the 269 needed to win, would have cast the election into the House of Representatives.

Every major power bloc has reason to resist reform. Any move toward a popular vote would shear the power of small states. Under either a popular or proportional system, big-city ethnic minorities and labor unions would lose their power to swing entire states. Deep-South Democrats and Farm-Belt Republicans could no longer deliver unbroken chunks of electoral votes--and their power in party councils would diminish.

The Senate, where smaller states have a bigger voice, is unlikely to accept a constitutional amendment to abolish the college. The House, where big-state Representatives loom large, is unlikely to accept the proportional or district system. An equally formidable barrier is that a leading exponent of conserving the electoral system is the man who benefited most from it this year. Said Jack Kennedy in 1956, as he led the Senate fight against a proposal to reform or abolish the electoral college: "[The proposal] would be a breach of the agreement made with the states when they came into the Union . . . When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

*Jackson polled 155,872 votes, John Quincy Adams 105,321, Henry Clay 46,587, W. H. Crawford, 44,282. Since none won a clear majority of electoral votes, the election went to the House, where Clay threw his votes--and victory--to Adams. By no small coincidence, Clay then became Adams' Secretary of State. Later, in 1828 and 1832, Jackson won both the popular and electoral majorities, served two terms as President.

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