On the eve of the 2024 presidential election, join Jesse Wegman, author of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College, and professor Robert Hardaway, author of Saving the Electoral College: Why the National Popular Vote Would Undermine Democracy, for a program examining the history and current debate over the Electoral College. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
Video
Podcast
Participants
Robert Hardaway is professor of law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law where he teaches evidence and civil procedure and election law. He is the author of numerous law review articles and books on the Electoral College and election law, including Saving the Electoral College: Why the National Popular Vote Would Undermine Democracy.
Jesse Wegman is a member of the New York Times editorial board, where he has written about the Supreme Court and legal affairs since 2013. He previously worked as a reporter, editor, and producer at outlets including National Public Radio, The New York Observer, Reuters, The Daily Beast, and Newsweek. He is the author of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Robert Hardaway, Saving the Electoral College Why the National Popular Vote Would Undermine Democracy (2019)
- Jesse Wegman, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College (2020)
- Interactive Constitution, Electoral College, Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3
- National Popular Vote
- Ranked Choice Voting
- Interactive Constitution, Article I, Section III, The Senate
- Cass Sunstein, “On Jan. 6, Will Vice President Harris Certify the Election?,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 25, 2024
- Gary Lawson and Jack Beerman, “Congressional Meddling In Presidential Elections: Still Unconstitutional After All These Years; A Comment On Sunstein?” April 2023
- “The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway,” Politico, Oct. 20, 2024
- Moore v. Harper (2023)
Excerpt from Interview: Robert Hardaway argues that the Electoral College, part of a compromise between large and small states, ensures balanced representation in federal elections and warns that abolishing it would undermine the foundational agreement of the Constitution.
Robert Hardaway: Well, they had left the whole question of representation in Congress until the very end, because everyone knew that was going to be the crucial issue. And even George Washington said, I regret having even participated. We're never going to get an agreement between the small states and the large states. The large states wanted to predominate the country. So they insisted that representation in Congress be based on population. The small states were fine, form your own country. And they were. New York and Pennsylvania were setting up tariffs. We were dividing into these kinds of proto-states. And as a result, very few, we didn't want the constitutional convention left to the very end. The question of what kind of representation will be there in Congress. And then it was at the last minute when it was about to break up, people were about to say, there's no compromise, we can't do it, that Benjamin Franklin saved the day.
And he said, let's do both. Let's have a population determine the representation in the lower house. And let's have one state, one vote in the upper. And as part of that grand compromise was the Electoral College that some of the small states like what? At that time it would be like Rhode Island, for example, who said, we're not going to participate in any country where the big states are going to predominate and bully us. We're not going to join. And they said, we'll form our own country. And they had an amalgamation going with some of the small states. And that's when Benjamin Franklin stepped into the fray and said, let's do both. And as part of the grand compromise, we'll have an Electoral College in which some of the small states also get a little extra, just a little extra in presidential elections.
And the New York Times, to their credit, back in 2000, I think it was 2000, said in their editorial that that's one of the reasons why we have an Electoral College. The Electoral College said the New York Times was first and foremost, a compact among states, large and small, designed to ensure that one state or one region did not dominate the others. It was because of the safeguards of balanced federalism, much like the allocation of two senators to each state, regardless of size. And by offering the promise that even the smallest states could keep the balance in close elections, the system made it impossible to ignore them.
Excerpt from Interview: Jesse Wegman argues that the Electoral College delays election results and doesn't offer quicker resolutions than a national popular vote would.
Jesse Wegman: Well, just to give the counter example to what Robert just offered, I think about 1960. In 2000, we knew who had won more votes nationwide on election night, it was Al Gore, it was 30 something days before the Electoral College disputes were resolved in favor of his opponent George W Bush. In 2020, just four years ago, we knew on election night that Joe Biden had won significantly more votes than Donald Trump. It ended up being a margin of 7 million. And yet we waited days to find out the final count in Pennsylvania and Georgia and Arizona. The Electoral College as it runs today, is not allowing us to somehow resolve these disputes more quickly and more easily. If it matters to you in fact, that we have a result on election night, which, you know, is mostly an artifact of the TV age.
You know, before that, people were okay with waiting days, sometimes weeks, for election results to be tabulated and then distributed in the news. So I know we live in the 21st century and people expect quick answers. The quickest answer almost always comes from the national popular vote. I just wanna respond, I'm seeing comments in the thread about, or questions regarding, wouldn't big states just, you know, dominate an election? And if I could just briefly explain why that isn't the case, first of all, as I said earlier, when you say big states or big cities, you're implying that big states or small states as big states or small states have some sort of unique interests that they share with each other, but it's not true.
There are big states with more Democrats like New York and California. There are big states with more Republicans like Texas and Florida. Same with small states. In fact, of the 14 smallest states in the country, seven have Democratic majorities and seven have Republican majorities. There's no common interest among these states. And in fact, the bigger states, even if you were to group them together, don't come anywhere near dominating a national election. In fact, of the hundred biggest states in the country, you have basically the same size, the same number of people as the rural areas of the country. So they kind of offset each other. The election is mostly decided in the suburbs. The bottom line to all of this, all of these statistics, is that why should it matter where you live, in what state, in what city, on the coast, in the middle of the country, rather than just that you are an American citizen whose vote should count no more and no less than anyone else?
Full Transcript
View Transcript (PDF)
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
Stay Connected and Learn More
- Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected]
- Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr.
- Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate.
- Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen.
- Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube.
- Support our important work.
