Electoral College system of electing President and the Vice President is one of the widely contentious aspects of the U.S. Constitution. The proposal to amend the Electoral College outpace any other constitutional proposed amendments. At least one in every eleven constitutional change proposals have called for reforming or eliminating the Electoral College system.  Out of the numerous proposed changes of the Electoral College, the passage of the 12^th amendment in 1804 was the only one. The Electoral College has resisted constitutional amendments throughout U.S. history. Under the current electoral laws, every state in the U.S. has electoral votes. The electoral votes are equivalent to the states’ House representatives and two of its senators. The United States has 538 electoral votes broken down into 100 senators, 435 House of Representatives and 3 for Washington D.C according to the 23^rd amendment. A presidential candidate who gets the majority of the electoral votes wins the presidency even if he or she loses popular votes. There are many structural and constitutional shortcomings of the Electoral College process. Electoral College process leads to the following deficiencies: the election of minority president, voter under-and-over representation, and nascent party system and the growth of partisanship.

Critics of the Electoral College argue that the process can lead to the election of a minority as opposed to majority president as required in a democratic electoral system. Minority present, in this case, is one who losses the popular votes but wins the majority of electoral votes. For instance, the 1800s is marked in the history of the United States as the period when the nation elected the highest number of minority presidents because of the Electoral College system. Adams Quincy, 1824, and Hayes Rutherford and Benjamin Harrison 1876 and 1888 respectively were all favoured by Electoral College process. President John Quincy lost the majority of both electoral and popular votes to his principal opponent Andrew Jackson. However, John Quincy was chosen to be the president through contingent election since both were running as Democratic-Republicans. In the 1876 election, Rutherford Hayes, a Republican lost majority popular votes to the significant opponent Samuel J. Tilden from the Democrat party but won the presidency by a difference of only one electoral vote. During the 1888 election, Republican Benjamin Harrison won by the majority of electoral votes despite losing popular votes.

The most recent case the spark intense debate to switch to the popular voting system for the presidency is the 2000 election. The 2000 American election was the first scenario in 112 years when both the President and the Vice President garners more electoral votes than popular votes in a highly contested election. Gore and Lieberman won the popular votes by 50,992,335 compared to 50,455,156 for Bush W. Bush and Cheney. However, Gore and Lieberman lost the electoral votes, thus losing the presidency. Proponents of the contingent electoral process a component of Electoral College maintain that the system is undemocratic since its push the choice of presidency one step away from the voters. For instances, the house representatives are at will to choose the president and vice president without the consideration of the winners of popular votes in their states, district or the entire nation. The contingent election has also been criticised due to its failure to account for the number of popular votes and population difference in various states. The law provides contingent election where no candidate garner majority of electoral votes. It is regarded as an indirect election of the president. For instance, in the 1824 election, no candidate gathered the majority of electoral votes, thus forcing the Congress to conduct a contingent election. All in all, the Electoral College system potentially violates the fundamental universal principle of democracy which requires a candidate with popular votes to be elected. Thus, many scholars propose for the need to replace the Electoral College system with the popular votes (one man one vote) in the presidential election.

Voter under-and-over representation is another issue concerning the Electoral College process and the reason why many scholars, politicians and research proposes the amendment of the electoral laws. The Electoral College approach does not consider the shift in population which occurs in almost every census. Most researchers, scholars and political commentators have argued that the populous states are more favoured by electoral vote system compared to smaller ones. Some scholars maintain that the Electoral College system does not conform to one man one vote theory of democracy. For instance, the 1787 constitutional convention passed a compromised electoral system which gives less populous states three electoral votes, that is one representative and two senators irrespective of the size of the population making such states over-represented sometimes. Because the electoral college votes are equivalent to the number of House representative and the Senate from each state, the electoral college voting system thus appears to favour small states and at the same time encourages over-representation of smaller and less populous states. For instance, in the tightly contested 2000 election Wyoming, smallest state cast three electoral votes and a total of 218,351 popular votes. The outcome can be translated into one electoral vote per 72,784 voters.

On the one hand, California, the most populous state cast 54 Electoral College votes and a total of 10,965,856 popular votes. The outcome can be translated to mean that one electoral vote represents 203,071.30 Californian voters. Thus, smaller states are overly represented than populous states based on electoral voter allocation relative to the total population.

However, the theory has been disputed by some scholars who argued that more populous states control larger blocs of electoral votes than smaller states, thus enjoy more voting advantage. For instance, the winner-takes-it-all methods used to allocate electoral votes makes it possible for larger states to influence blocs with more massive electoral votes. For example, a voter in California 2000 presidential election could influence 54 electoral votes compared to 3 electoral votes for a voter in Wyoming State in the same election. Therefore despite the over-representation in smaller states (Two senates and one house representative in each state), first six larger states in terms of electoral votes such as California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois respectively enjoy more voting power. The district of Colombia and other smaller states are all disadvantaged. Some scholars argue that the only way ensures equal representation in the presidential election is to adopt the popular vote (one man one vote) system where every citizen get similar chance to elect the president and the vice president.

Last but not least, the nascent party system and the growth of partisanship is another shortcoming for the Electoral College system and why many people feel that popular votes should be the way. The 12^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the presidential electors to meet in their states and votes using secret ballot for a President and Vice President. The candidate should not come from the same state as the electors. The amendment offers no further clarification beyond this directive. The bill in its best required the electors to be free agents and faith representatives of their communities by electing a president and vice president whom they think carries the best interest of the people.

However, the formulators failed to account for or anticipate the possibility of a nascent party process and the growth of partisanship that emerged as early as when President Washington assumed the office the second term. The responsibilities of the electors changed from objective judge to an agent loyal to the party who is expected to vote for the preferred candidate for the party until partisanship is a more significant challenge with the Electoral College system and undermines the democratic principle of a popular vote. Some states such as Colombia attempt to bring together the electors through several means including taking an oath to vote for a candidate designated by the elector’s party. In the case of Ray v. Blair for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court considered it as a state-delegated authority when political parties request an elector to vote for the party’s preferred candidate. However, the Supreme Court failed to rule on the constitutionality of the state to bind the electors. Nonetheless, some scholars have argued that subjecting electors to pledges is constitutionally unenforceable.

Electoral College system of electing President and the Vice President is one of the widely controversial aspects of the U.S. Constitution with at least one in every eleven constitutional change proposals proposing for its reform or elimination. The proponents of the Electoral College system cites many issues associated with the process such as voter under-and-over representation, and nascent party system and the growth of partisanship.

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