Pictured above is the 1933 Ohio Electoral College standing on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse. Bruce Gaumer (with glasses) is in the second row, middle, between railings.
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The Electoral College has come under fire in recent weeks, especially since campaigning for the 2020 presidential primary has begun. More than 20 Democrat hopefuls have declared their intention to vie for the nomination, and several of them have targeted the presidential election system as something they would change.
Some of them want to abolish it outright and let the popular vote decide who wins. Others have proposed drastic changes to its method of operation.
The system for electing the president and vice president was included in the Constitution and ratified in 1787 by the Founding Fathers. It has evolved over the decades since then, becoming known as the Electoral College.
Basically it provides that each state selects a group of electors who in turn vote for president and vice president. So even though the voters in all states cast ballots for the their choice, in effect they are voting for these electors. It’s an indirect election system. It’s not as complicated as it sounds because the electors of the political party that prevails in each state are supposed to vote for the two candidates of that party. In short, if the Democrats have the majority vote in Ohio, then the state’s Electoral College delegation is comprised of Democrat electors who are committed to vote for the party’s ticket. If the Republicans win, their electors vote for their party’s candidates.
My grandfather, Bruce B. Gaumer, founder of the Marysville Journal-Tribune, was a Democrat elector in 1933, voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt for his first term as president. As far as could be determined, there is only one other person from Union County who was a member of the Ohio Electoral College, and that was a local attorney named Delbert W. Ayers who was an elector in 1893.
The number of electors in each state is determined by the number of that state’s members of Congress in both the Senate and House of Representatives. So, using Ohio again as an example, it has two senators and 16 representatives for a total of 18 electors. Less populated states have fewer (Montana has three) and more populated states have a higher number (California has 55). The total is 538 for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., so 270 are needed to win.
It’s obvious that smaller states have an advantage, just like they do in Congress, since every state has two senators. However, it’s that result that finally produced agreement on the Constitution.
There was fierce debate in 1787 on the makeup of Congress. Smaller states were fearful of being controlled by the larger ones and refused to ratify the document. Finally a compromise was reached so that two chambers of Congress were created – the House of Representatives based on population and the Senate with each state having the same number.
That same fear is present today, only involving different states. Whereas in 1787, Virginia and Pennsylvania were the largest states, now, it’s New York and California. And those who oppose any change to the Electoral College point to the possible domination of such states if the popular vote alone is used in the election process.
The reason the Democrat candidates are proposing change is twofold. First, since the inception of the Electoral College system, only four times has the candidate with less popular votes won – 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison), 2000 (George W. Bush) and 2016 (Donald Trump). All of the winners were Republicans.
Second, most of the large cities and heavily populated metropolitan areas in the U.S. have a higher number of Democrat voters as opposed to Republicans. Consequently, the Democrat Party would have a much better chance of winning each election if only the popular vote controlled the outcome.
Change is difficult to affect, especially when it takes a Constitutional Amendment to do so, as in this situation. Consequently, even if a Democrat who has proposed altering or abolishing the Electoral College wins the 2020 presidential election, such a change, although not impossible, is unlikely.