DEMOCRATS WERE READY to jettison the Electoral College after the 2000 presidential election. Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote, but George W. Bush took the prize with a razor-thin margin in the Electoral College. Now, with the results of the recent election, maybe the move to abolish this unique institution will abate. President Obama won the College convincingly, 332 to 206, even though his popular vote margin was only a tad above 2%. This gave Obama the look of a very convincing win, far more than the popular vote justified.
We should keep the College because it works for this country; it helps keep the U.S. united. We’re exceptional among the world’s nations in that we didn’t evolve from a common religion, race or ethnic group. We were consciously created with a shared set of ideals encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence.
The U.S. is an extraordinarily heterogeneous country, and our interests and priorities can be sharply divergent. Historically our two main political parties have both been uneasy coalitions of groups of people who may not like each other very much. But our political system brings divergent peoples together for a common purpose. In normal times, for example, Republicans in Iowa—site of the nation’s first presidential caucus—are interested primarily in social issues. In contrast, Republicans in New Hampshire—site of the nation’s first presidential primary—are more interested in economic issues. In fact, the Granite State is one place where a pro-choice referendum would probably win overwhelming support from Republicans.
Another example is the Democratic coalition of Franklin D. Roosevelt that reigned supreme for decades. Its biggest components were made up of urban Catholics plus recent descendants of Eastern European Jews and southern Democrats, who were Protestant and openly racist. Talk about a cultural divide! Yet they all resided under one political tent.
While our politics are noisy and fractious, this system ultimately brings people, however reluctantly, together and thus softens sharp edges. The Electoral College is a key part of this ameliorating paradigm. No candidate can win the White House without a national coalition. Regional and one-issue candidates don’t get very far; their bases are too narrow to win the requisite number of states to garner the necessary 270 electoral votes. In that sense the College is democratic: A candidate has to pay attention to the needs and wants of numerous interests and groups of people.
As we saw with this election, the College often gives a close contest a definitive end, which enables us to put the election behind us and move onward. This has happened many times. In 1960 the popular vote was a virtual tie, but John Kennedy handily beat Richard Nixon in the College, 303 to 219. In 1968 we had another whisker-close popular vote, with only a 0.7% difference. But on the electoral side, Nixon easily beat Hubert Humphrey, 301 to 191. The 1976 popular vote was similar to the narrowness of 2012′s, but the College result was decisive for Jimmy Carter.
The 2000 presidential election was a historical anomaly, one that hadn’t occurred since 1888 and, before that, 1876. In both instances a powerful case can be made that Republicans would have had a popular plurality had the African-American vote not been violently suppressed.
One rap against the College is that it forces candidates to focus on a handful of swing states. But, again, that’s the virtue of a candidate’s having to learn about the particularities of those states when trying to appeal to their voters. It forces candidates to go out into the country more than they would otherwise. Moreover, the particular swing states always change over time.
Trashing the Electoral College as undemocratic has always been an easy thing to do. However, the College is a powerfully positive thing with which we shouldn’t tamper.
Steve Forbes is the co-author of Freedom Manifesto: Why Free Markets Are Moral And Big Government Isn’t.