Wait...We Don't Have a National Election in the U.S.?

The short answer is NO. I was recently reminded that our constitution at this time very intentionally does not provide for a national election. It requires that we have 51 independent presidential elections - each of the 50 states + Washington D.C. votes for the president and vice-president. It is the electoral college which then considers the 50 states + DC votes who then directly elects the U.S. President and VP.

OK fine. It is was a good reminder that we don't actually have a national election, but I was still feeling sufficiently unclear about why that seemed like a good idea and how that electoral college "thing" is supposed to work.

But first, shouldn't we have a national election in the U.S. for our president and not have this second layer of voting officials in between our votes and the election outcome? Certainly a question worth asking - but one I will leave for experts to help us debate as needed.

What I really needed today, as I suspect many other U.S. voters did as well, was the "electoral college for dummies" version as to the why and how of the electoral college.

Three quick disclaimers. 1) I am a busy guy and I read pretty slow. So I searched on the internet until I found the first coherent + credible explanation of the electoral college system. My source: David Walbert's Does my vote count? Understanding the Electoral College. A great quick read on a deep topic. 2) I am not a constitutional lawyer, political lobbyist, historian or civics expert. So for now I am going with what David Walbert wrote. 3) It doesn't really matter in this case but I am not affiliated with any party. I am from the "may the best candidate with the best ideas for this time win" school of voting.

Back to the task at hand, what follows are a few reminders I found to be the most interesting and relevant to my electoral college confusion. And yes - they were things I was supposed to have learned and retained from my 9th grade Civics class had I been paying attention.

1. It has happened 4 times in U.S. history (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000) that the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the election. The 2000 race was Bush vs. Gore with Gore winning the popular vote by ~500,000 votes. TBD for this election because as of this writing, Clinton has ~290,000 more votes than Trump but Arizona, New Hampshire and Michigan are still too close to call.
2. In an election year in November, the outcome of the popular vote in each state for a ticket (president + VP) determines a slate of electors in each state who in turn make the actual choice of president and vice-president. Each state has as many electors as it has senators and members of the House of Representatives, for a total of 538 (D.C. gets 3 even though it has no elected representatives).
3. In December of a presidential election year, the electors meet in their respective state capitols and cast their votes for president and vice-president. Some states require that the electors have to vote along the majority vote results and some states don't. In January, Congress opens, counts and certifies those electors ballots. If there is no clear majority from the electoral votes or there is a tie, then the House of Representatives selects a president from among the top 5 candidates with the most votes. And each state gets one vote. The Senate elects the VP by the same process. This has only happened once in 1876 and it almost did again in 2000.
4. While electors can vote differently than the popular vote in their state in some (not all) states in theory, in practice electors are pledged to go along with the popular vote of their state and almost always do.

Moving from the basic mechanics of the electoral college to a few important historical points to help explain why the electoral college idea came to be, here is what I learned from David Walbert's piece.

1. During the period when our Constitution was first being drafted, many colonists, including those who penned the constitutional articles, identified themselves not with a nation (which didn't really exist yet), but more strongly with their respective states (Virginia, New York, etc.), and in some cases at that time, also with the British Empire. The framers intention as to create a republic of independent states who agreed to follow a set of of defined laws (the Constitution). In this context, the framers of the Constitution believed that states (not individuals) should elect a president. A "national election" like many of us may think of today, wasn't appropriate for a republic.
2. But there were these two tricky power-balancing problems to be solved if the republic were to function well. First - how much power to give to people (vs. a state) to elect a president and second, how to balance power between bigger states and smaller states. And so, the best idea the framers of the constitution could come up with at that time was the electoral college compromise. The very one we have today and which still confuses me and other voters every time the popular vote is different than the electoral vote.
3. A work in progress. One of the most interesting things David Walbert reminded me of is that the Constitution, and indeed the formation of this new republic of ours - this "united states" - was an experiment. It was literally a work in progress. The founding fathers didn't know for sure that a democracy in this form of a republic of independent states operating with this constitution would work. Its part of the reason why it is possible to make amendments. In the beginning, state legislators voted for electors in their state in independent of the popular vote in their state. Over time, electors got elected because they would vote for a specific ticket (president + VP). By 1832, every state except South Carolina held direct elections for president with the state with electors effectively bound to cast their vote according to the popular vote for that state. To this day, voting for president and VP is still done via 50 separate states plus D.C. voting for our president and VP.

As I suggested at the beginning, whether or not it still makes sense to have our presidential elections operate in this way is an open question. Tip: If you do pursue a better way to vote for president and write a new amendment for our constitution, definitely be sure to use those really useful straw polling techniques to help guide you in understanding how congress is likely vote for your proposed amendment.