“electors who are pledged to their respective parties, but they can vote however they want, even for the opposite party (but that’s very unlikely).”
As you point out later in your article some states have legislated punishments to “faithless electors”. In the 2016 election one “faithless elector” was replaced by the state with a “faithful elector”. That action was challenged and is progressing upward thru the appellate courts.
“As a side note, the winner-take-all system was determined by states, not mandated by the US Constitution. Only Maine and Nevada don’t do this, instead assorting electoral votes proportionate to the popular vote.”
Nevada implements a winner-take-all electoral college. Maine and Nebraska allocate two electoral votes to the candidate winning the statewide popular vote and one electoral vote to each candidate winning a congressional district popular vote.
“Thus, it would be hard for candidates to get a majority as campaigning all over the country and building a large support base was difficult in an age with slower travel.”
During the Constitutional Convention rapid, mass communication was not available. National polling of voters was impractical so representative voting (Electoral College) was implemented.
“The first method is simply having state party officials appoint their electors, while the second is to have people run for the position at party conventions. Basically, the political parties are in charge so that state officials can select electors that represent their interests. But again, the public chooses which slate of electors will vote.”
The states provide significant latitude to recognized state political parties in the manner of elector selection. The political parties provide the list of electors to the Secretary of State. The winning candidate electors travel to the state capitol or some other designated location to vote. Each state vote is recorded on a Certificate of Vote and transmitted to Congress and the National Archives. In many cases, the public is not directly involved in the selection of electors.
“A rebuttal to this claim, however, is that Congresspeople and Senators are voted on by the people, so state governments don’t have a direct say in electing people to Congress.”
Senators were elected by the state legislatures until ratification of the 17th Amendment which upset a delicate balance of power established by the Constitution Convention. Now senators are elected by the public for what they can get from the federal government instead of by state legislators for what is best for the state.
“On election day, once a simple majority of the population votes for Clinton (which is what happened), Clinton wins Illinois. Every vote after that is irrelevant.
You’ve probably heard of “swing” states, which can go either way on election day.”
The implementation of ranked choice voting by the states would ensure election by a majority preference of a candidate and reduce the importance of “swing” states.
“As this is mandated by states, the federal government could pass a law saying that states must use a proportional system”
This would be a constitutional violation of states’ rights and would be successfully challenged in the appellate courts. To implement a federal mandated proportional system requires a constitutional amendment.
“Again, the issue of faithless electors is a sticky point. But if the government decided one way or another what it wanted to do on this issue, it could pass a law (just a law, not an amendment) to either protect or stop faithless electors.”
I disagree! Once again, this would be a violation of states’ rights.
In my opinion the Founders’ main objective in establishing the Electoral College was to attempt to elect the POTUS with a wide spread support of the country’s citizens. Too many people do not realize that our government is a constitutional republic and not a democracy. A major goal of our government is to protect the rights of the individual and prevent tyranny of the minority by the majority.
