National Affairs: REFORMING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

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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.