Required Required Reading for Essay B 2000-2001

The Election Process

Over the years there have been calls for every conceivable election reform. The reforms of the seventies were an attempt to make the nominating process more open and democratic and they have done that, but the price has been increased inefficiency and waste. In the eighties Congress considered bills to substitute direct elections for the Electoral College, to provide public financing for campaigns and to limit contributions and spending—with various results.

Too many people of all ages have become disillusioned with our politicians and yet we are uncertain how to detect genuinely honorable statesmen. We have been deceived too many times before and do not wish to be considered gullible and naive.

It is hard to see through the flim-flam in order to distinguish the genuine from the fake. We cannot let our chief executive be elected on a manufactured image, but we no longer know whom to believe and cannot trust our heart and sense.

Many people believe that education makes politics and voting easier to understand and is the single most important variable in increasing citizen participation in the election process. A well-informed and responsible electorate is the underlying basis for the American system.

But more formal education isn't necessarily the answer. Professors Raymond Wolfinger of U.C. Berkeley and Steven Rosenstone of Yale believe an individual's life experiences are a substitute for education. They admit students tend to vote more often than their non-student counterparts, but they see a distinct correlation between a rise in age and a rise in voter turnout. Their studies tended to debunk the theory that young people are encouraged to vote as they assume adult roles. The professors found, if anything, young marrieds voted less often than their single student counterparts. The Professors also found that people with lots of free time do not vote in greater percentage than the rest of society. Rather, the unemployed tended to vote less, distracted, no doubt, by other concerns. There was no evidence that low voter turnout is related to disaffection with our political system. It was found that people who expressed alienation voted in the same numbers as the general population. On the other hand, it appeared that those with a stake in the patronage system, where political issues were likely to affect their own jobs, had above average voter turnouts.

Those without a high school diploma, below the median income, youngest, oldest, unemployed, single and blacks shared a reduction in voter strength also. However, those with college degrees, higher incomes, government employees and those that stayed put over three years all had greater strength at the polls than their share of the population would indicate. In general, voters are amazingly close to representing the views of the non-voter population.

Those most likely to be underrepresented are people who lack opinions... Both self-described liberals and conservatives are slightly over-represented at the polls at the expense of moderates and people who say they have no ideological tendency... As long as attitudes on issues are so weakly related to social class and race, the poor and minorities will find enough allies to avoid political weakness in proportion to their own voting rates.

Political analysts tell us that the American voter shuns ideologues in favor of pragmatists; their concern is not whether a proposal is consistent or right; the concern is whether a proposal works. The way to the popularity of both parties is their appeal to moderates and their association with ideas that work.

Ronald Reagan was able to convince voters that he was not as advertised by his opponents. Ronald Reagan knew the American people, as any successful politician must, and was well aware of the American tendency to overlook just about anything as long as it works. Ideologues believe that if something is contrary to principle it cannot work, even if appearances show otherwise. William Schneider gave the Republicans and their reaction to FDR' s New Deal as an example in his article for the January 1987 Atlantic Monthly: “They claimed that the New Deal could not work because it was wrong; it entailed an unprecedented growth of government and threatened tremendous inflation.”

In 1888 Lord Bryce observed that "great men don't become presidents," and that's good because we don't know how to tell great men from con artists. The good news is that all we need is decent men and women and apparently the office itself (all political offices) can make the man or the woman. It is true that the type of person who will conform to our present election requirements is not likely to be the type of person we would want as the head of the nation. Some people believe we have an Alice-in-Wonderland scenario where the only candidates worth electing are those who refuse to run. Many potential candidates balk at the prospect of incurring the large debts that are often necessary in order to compete in the lengthy, expensive campaigns of today. The Supreme Court has ruled that to curtail campaigning would be an abridgment of our guaranteed right to free speech. Try to imagine an America where it would be illegal for anyone to talk about running for office until three months before the election! The challenge is to get the best people at the helm for the right reasons. Perhaps we need to rotate public officials more frequently so that more who desire to serve can have the opportunity.

The much loved and greatly respected late Senator Sam Ervin once said, "If men and women of capacity refuse to take part in politics and government, they condemn themselves, as well as the people, to the punishment of living under bad government." A paraphrase perhaps of "The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men." (Plato, 4th century BC.) There's nothing new under the sun. (Who said that?)

In The American Commonwealth, written in 1896, Lord Bryce noted that when it comes to a choice between a meritorious candidate or a meritorious President, the former would always win out. Lord Bryce thought that meant Americans were doomed to suffer under second rate leaders. He observed that obscure men tend to make fewer enemies and for that reason make better candidates.

If a warning were televised stating that only those with hides as thick as a rhinoceros should become political candidates, it might save not only the feelings of potential candidates but also the country. According to political writer, William Schneider,

The greatest tragedies as Presidents--Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter--were all deeply insecure men, who worried incessantly about their reputations, made lists of enemies and carried polls around in their pockets. Psychological security may be the most important characteristic to look for in a presidential candidate. …Candidates for president these days must sacrifice dignity as well as privacy. They have to spend their time suffering fools gladly and being badgered by arrogant twenty-year-olds with questionnaires. 

In his April 2, 1987, letter notifying supporters of his decision not to run for the 1988 Republican nomination, Mr. Rumsfeld, a former congressman, former director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, ex-Ambassador to NATO, former White House chief of staff, one time Defense Secretary and Chairman of one of America's largest companies, provided evidence of the nation's loss in his verdict. He had considered the race because of:

…a desire to see our country and our people realize our true potential as a humane and positive force in the world, and my conviction that values have consequences for our country's future…The cost of a Presidential campaign is enormous... In the past, funds could be raised far along in a campaign, as a candidate gained visibility and public interest heightened. Today, the money must come heavily up front.

Laurence Barrett talks about

…the Shrinkage Phenomenon, a mysterious effect that diminishes prospects' stature as soon as they enter the race. …There is also the obverse effect, an optical illusion called the Sidelines Magnifier. When the Cuomos and Bradleys and Nunns stay out wrapped in the dignity of duty or humility, they seem so much grander than those scurrying after votes and donations.

Some may have opted to stay out of the 2000 presidential race realizing that the nation has gone through the longest economic expansion in history and a recession is overdue. After all, who wants to preside over a catastrophe? If that is indeed their thinking, then these non-candidates should have consulted their history books. Crisis is opportunity; it fosters great leaders. Lincoln, who won the presidency with the lowest popular vote ever, earned his place as one of the nation's greatest leaders by presiding over total chaos. FDR can thank the economic turmoil of his presidency for his reputation.

Most people are too busy with their work, family and friends to stop and on their own analyze where America as a nation is headed and whether or not they approve. But because politicians are notoriously short-sighted, seeing only from one election to the next, it is up to the people to take that long-range view to see that the America they envision is preserved for future generations. Adlai Stevenson once said, "I'm not an old experienced hand at politics. But I am seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

Voters should ask the current presidential candidates for their game plans issue by issue. What we need is an election based not on charisma as much as character, not on rhetoric as much as research, not on promises as much as policies. (The preceding sentence is proof that political rhetoric rubs off as well as wears thin.)

The Electoral College

“The electoral college method of electing a president of the United States is archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, indirect and dangerous,” according to William Gossett, the American Bar Association president in 1968.  He pointed out that in fifteen elections, a shift of less than one percent of the national vote would have elected the candidate who lost the popular vote.

When our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787 they considered three methods of choosing the president: election by Congress, election by the various state governments and election by the people. The Electoral College was a compromise measure, allowing each state to decide how its citizens would choose electors, who in turn would cast ballots for one state resident and one non-resident. Originally Article 11 Section 1:2 of the U.S. Constitution provided that the candidate with the highest number of votes should be president and the runner up, vice-president. If there were no majority, the Senate would choose from the top five candidates. This provision was changed during the course of the Constitutional Convention and the House was substituted for the Senate, as it was thought to be more representative of the people. The House specified that members were to vote by states.

Perhaps the best argument for an Electoral College was laid out by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers Number 68. The first major problem occurred in the election of 1796, which resulted in the election of John Adams, a Federalist, as president, and Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, as vice president. The 1796 election was marked by another first: a Federalist elector bolted and voted for Thomas Jefferson. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr wound up in a tie and the president had to be chosen by the House of Representatives. This led to passage of the 12th Amendment in 1804 which mandated that electors vote separately for President and Vice President. It was decided that a candidate had to receive an absolute majority of electoral votes to be declared a winner. Since 1790, the House has grown from 65 to 435 members and the Senate from 26 to 100. The same number of electors as congressional representatives are allotted to each state for a total of 535 with three added for the District of Columbia via the 23rd Amendment. The attitude of members has changed from looking on service as a temporary civic duty to a lifelong attractive career.

Election reform proposals have been around as long as the Constitution, but few have become amendments to the Constitution. In 1808 the proposal to choose the President by lot first surfaced, to reoccur unsuccessfully in 1844 and 1846. Originally the candidates to be chosen by lot were to come from retiring Senators; in later proposals the states were each to elect a native-son candidate.

In 1816 the first direct-vote plan was proposed by Senator Abner Lacock of Pennsylvania and was defeated 21 to 12. In 1820 the second faithless elector deprived James Monroe of a unanimous vote in the Electoral College by giving John Quincy Adams, a non-candidate, his only electoral vote. In 1822 it was proposed that the president be chosen by four regions on a rotating basis.

In 1824 four candidates received Electoral College votes, but none a majority: Andrew Jackson = 99, John Quincy Adams = 84, William Crawford = 41 and Henry Clay = 37. The House awarded Adams 13 states and Jackson 7, which meant that although Jackson got more popular votes and a plurality o f Electoral College votes, Adams wound up with the presidency. Naturally Andrew Jackson became a strong opponent of the Electoral College. Even though he was elected the next time around in 1828, he continued to call for its abolishment.

In 1826 Representative Charles Haynes of Georgia first introduced the automatic plan whereby all of a state’s electoral votes would automatically be cast for the candidate who received the highest popular vote. The automatic plan keeps the winner-take-all provision of our present system but abrogates the office of presidential elector. All of a state' s votes would automatically be awarded to the ticket that carried that state's popular vote. Most automatic plans have their own unique contingency election plans. The automatic plan is the most moderate of all reform proposals and is opposed mainly because the changes it calls for are so slight that many believe the reform is not worth the effort and cost required to get the necessary constitutional amendment. Another plan would keep the Electoral College but eliminate the winner-take-all provision and its bias toward urban power and against minority parties. This plan would eliminate the electors themselves and assign electoral votes to candidates on the basis of popular votes received.

In 1848 Representative William Lawrence of New York introduced the proportional plan which called for a division of each state's Electoral College votes according to the popular vote received by each party. Under the proportional plan, urban areas lose power, as they would with any plan other than the current winner-take-all system, and third parties are encouraged.

But despite the number of ideas advanced, the old Electoral College system continued.

Although it is unusual, it is not unique to gain election to the presidency with less than a majority of the popular vote. James Garfield won the presidency by a margin of only 0.1 percent of the popular vote, which amounted to 9,457 votes in 1880.The following presidents received less than a majority of the popular vote:

1824 John Quincy Adams                     37 percent

1844 J. Polk                                         49.6 percent

1848 Z. Taylor                                     47.3 percent

1856 J. Buchanan                                 45.6 percent

1860 A. Lincoln                                   39.8 percent

1876 R. Hayes                                     47.9 percent

1880 J. Garfield                                    48.3 percent

1884 G. Cleveland                               48.5 percent

1888 B. Harrison                                  47.8 percent

1892 G. Cleveland                               48.6 percent

1912 W. Wilson                                   42.0 percent

1916 W. Wilson                                   49.0 percent

1948 H. Truman                                   49.5 percent

1960 J. Kennedy                                  49.7 percent

1968 R. Nixon                                     43.4 percent

Five of the presidents who were unable to poll a majority are honored in the ranks of the nation' s ten greatest presidents, while Ulysses S. Grant, who won a second term with 55.6 percent of the popular vote, and Warren Harding, who won with 60.3 percent, are numbered among the nation's worst presidents. Richard Nixon in 1972 received 60.69 percent of the popular vote, rivaling FDR's second win, yet he was forced to resign from office.

Some experts believe the winner-take-a1l system gives too much leverage to a few popular votes in low turnout states, small states and large pivotal states, which in turn gives ethnic minorities, and others who tend to congregate in urban areas, power beyond their numbers in presidential elections. This, they say, tends to influence candidates toward liberal domestic policies and makes them more internationalist in foreign policy--either good or bad depending on your point of view. Others claim direct elections would dilute this leverage and the minority vote could be lost under winner-take-a1l. Suppose A gets 40 percent, B gets 35 percent, C gets 25 percent. A ends up with everything and 60 percent of the voters are disenfranchised. In the past this has given the minority party little incentive to campaign in some areas, knowing votes won't count for much.

The winner-take-a1l system is used in every state but Maine. Maine in 1969 adopted a district plan whereby two electors are chosen on a statewide popular level and one is chosen from each of Maine's two congressional districts.

Although results from the popular vote are known in November, according to Article II Section 1:3 of the Constitution, "The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States." That day has been set as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. In January the votes are counted before both Houses and the results are officially announced.

Updates

How should the popular vote be aggregated? Existing Electoral College and automatic plans say by states themselves; the district plan says by state subdivision; the Proportional plan says by party vote by states and the direct-vote plan says by the entire nation.

The proportional plan was raised again by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts in 1941 but didn't go anywhere until 1948 when Ed Gossett of Texas joined with the Massachusetts Senator as co-sponsor. In 1950 the Senate approved the plan 64 to 27 but it couldn't get by the House. A few years later Senators Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and Price Daniel of Texas proposed another version of the proportional plan which was loudly opposed by Senator John F. Kennedy who had ousted Senator Lodge in 1952. Proponents say this plan is the only electoral reform measure that would preserve the existing national-state relationship and at the same time reflect the popular vote outcome more closely. They are correct about the federal system but wrong in saying that the plan would assure victory to the popular vote winner.

Sayre and Parrish claim under the proportional plan, for instance, Richard Nixon in 1960 would have received 1.759 of Vermont' s three electoral votes and John F. Kennedy would have received 1.240 of Vermont' s three electoral votes, giving Nixon an edge of only 0.519 in Vermont. In New York, Nixon would have received 22.3 and John F. Kennedy would have received 22.7, thus giving Kennedy an edge of 0.4 in New York. Sayre and Parrish's point is that under the proportional plan, a small homogeneous state could yield more to a candidate than could a large diverse state. A proportional plan would distort the nationwide popular vote total. Under the proportional plan, the margin of victory of every president would have been decreased between 1864 and 1968 with the exception of Woodrow Wilson, whose margin would have been increased. The trouble with the proportional plan is that it doesn't satisfy any group; The direct-vote plan goes further, the district plan satisfies conservatives better and our present system already occupies the middle ground.

In 1956 a proposal was offered in the Senate which would have permitted each state to choose between a district plan and a proportional plan. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that it would have enhanced the power of the states and generally been too complicated. Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota and Representative Frederic Coudert of New York presented the district plan again, whereby electoral votes are allocated by districts within the various states. Proponents of the plan wanted to see less preference given to urban areas and hoped to fragment the power of the largest states. For instance, in 1968 California's forty electoral votes went to Nixon, under the winner-take-all plan. Under a district plan, other things being equal, Hubert Humphrey might have gotten seventeen of California' s electoral votes and Nixon only twenty-three. California would have advanced Nixon by only six votes instead of forty. In 1968 Kansas gave all seven of its votes to Nixon, which would have made Kansas politically more important to Nixon than California under the district plan. The district plan would encourage minor party candidates, giving them a chance to get at least a few electoral votes, and would elevate local leaders at the expense of national party officials.

The emphasis on local constituencies, on bringing government home to the people and giving a greater sense of worth to individual citizens is either a plus or a minus depending on your political philosophy. The biggest problem lies with the increased incentive to gerrymandering. District lines would become more important than ever, opening areas of potential contention. In 1970, Sayre and Parrish feared the district plan would reverse the system which has always ensured that the winner in our presidential contests has received a greater margin in electoral than in popular votes, and that it would make presidential races closer, possibly throwing more decisions to Congress and thus undermining the presidency. They warned that a vote for the district plan would be a vote against the balance of power which makes our system of government unique.

In 1970 Senator Thomas Eagleton suggested it should not be enough to carry the popular vote, the candidate must also carry a majority of states or plurality in a group of states with more than 50 percent of the total vote. President Harrison in 1888 would have passed both tests as he carried twenty out of thirty-eight states.

Senator Birch Bayh pointed out under the present system it is theorectica1ly possible for a candidate to capture eleven of the largest states and Washington, D.C., to win an electoral majority, leaving thirty-nine states without a voice in the process—even if all thirty-nine states were unanimously against the candidate.

Other critics point to the distortions which occur because electoral votes are distributed among the states according to the decennial census which quickly becomes outdated. Still others say the Electoral College endangers the two-party system and encourages third party strategy to win concessions from major candidates.

In 1968 Senator Birch Bayh advocated abandoning the Electoral College and having the team with the most popular votes nationwide declared winners. He suggested a popular majority would not be necessary but that any majority of at least 40 percent should win. In case of a tie there would be a run-off between the two top pairs (pair and team refer to the office of President and Vice President). This would extend the one person one vote principle, and enhance the two-party system.

The American Institute of Public Opinion asked before and after the 1968 election, "Would you approve or disapprove of an amendment to the Constitution which would do away with the Electoral College and base the election of a president on the total vote cast throughout the nation?" Before the 1968 election, 66 percent approved; after, 81 percent approved.

1968 was the year Richard Nixon won the presidency with only 43.4 percent of the popular vote to Hubert Humphrey's 42.7 percent and George Wallace's 13.5 percent. But even with a direct vote Humphrey would have lost by 510,000 votes out of 73.2 million cast. Advocates of direct elections claim such a system would always ensure that the candidate with the greatest popular vote would win the office of president, that it would give equal weight to every vote, it would do away with the faithless elector problem, would reduce the chance of fraud, would encourage greater participation and place the election more fully into the hands of the people where it belongs. Quite an impressive list to commend the direct-vote plan.

A direct plurality system is used in the states to elect their governors who seem to have little trouble governing. This would seem to refute the argument used by those who claim that winning with a mere plurality of the votes, and especially winning after a run-off contest, would undermine or at least render more precarious the constituency base of the president.

An amendment to abolish the Electoral College system, almost identical to the Bayh Plan, passed the House 339 to 70 and it looked as if the 91st Congress was going to resolve this on-going issue. However, the Senate failed to follow through and the furor over electoral reform continued into 1970. Opponents could not accept the unfavorable impact the direct-vote plan would have on the two-party system. They thought the direct vote would encourage minority parties because there would be a greater probability that two major parties would not receive a majority. They maintained the Bayh Plan would make actual voting more important than population and would give less voice to the poor non-voters represented by the weighted urban vote. A candidate, if elected on popular vote alone, could conceivably win on the votes of special interests; for example, on the labor vote, business vote, pro-life vote or, as Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew did in 1968, on the law and order vote.

In their 1970 book Voting For President, William Sayre and Judith Parrish claim the direct vote would weaken the power of the states and strengthen the national government. State borders would be irrelevant in elections and probably federal standards of eligibility would eventually be determined to make the presidential choices uniform. Federal employees would end up tallying a national vote and all election officials would end up working for federal rather than state governments.

On March 5, 1970, Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri introduced the Federal System Plan. It provided for direct-vote election of the plurality winner as long as he carried: (1) more than one-half the states; (2) a plurality in states with over one-half the voters; or (3) a majority of the electoral votes, awarded on a state general-ticket basis.

If there were no winner, votes won by minor candidates would be allocated to the top two contestants in proportion to their showing in each state, and the electoral-vote majority winner would be declared President.

Also in 1970, Senator Joseph Tydings of Maryland and Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan presented a plan to do away with run-off elections. It provided that if there were no 40 percent popular plurality winner, then a majority of electoral votes would be sufficient to elect. These were compromise systems--not the first and surely not the last.

The Case For The Electoral College

Judith Best in her 1971 book, The Case Against Direct Election of The President, says:

The prospect of winning the popular but not the electoral vote spurs those parties to seek the support of broad cross sections of the nation. The risk of a runner-up presidency may not be too great a price to pay for a system which minimizes conflicts, promises stability, suppresses factions, promotes moderation, and requires a broad base of support.

Besides, with only two major parties, a majority is almost assured. The House only had to choose the president in 1800 and 1825 and the Senate was called upon only once, in 1837 when, by a vote of 22 to 16, they selected Richard Johnson as Martin Van Buren's vice president.

In 1948 one of Tennessee's electors bolted and voted for Strom Thurmond, as did electors from Alabama, but, as in 1796 and 1820, it didn't affect the outcome of the election and the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled national parties could not control the vote of electors. In 1956 another Alabama elector bolted and cast his vote for Alabama Judge Walter Jones and Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia, but again, since Eisenhower won 457 out of 531 electoral votes, the Alabama defection had no bearing on the election's ultimate outcome. In 1960 a Republican elector refused to cast his vote for Nixon and, like the others, his defection did not distort election results. Most recently, in 1972, a Virginia elector defected to the Libertarian candidate.

The electoral-vote system conveys an aura of legitimacy to the popular vote mandate, and many believe it is responsible for the political stability the United States enjoys in its government. No one denies the inequality in individual voting power that it creates, but that may not be all bad. Extreme views are purged by the system, which overall does a good job of balancing power between urban and rural areas and in general nurtures our moderate two-party system. It should be remembered that the executive is only one branch of government and that the legislative branch tends to over represent rural at the expense of urban populations. As Judith Best points out on page 159 of The Case Against Direct Election of the President:

The power system is federal, decentralized, Madisonian and, to a degree usually unrecognized, approaches a system of unanimous consent. The nation has sought and largely achieved a system that reflects the views and interests of broad cross sections of the polity.

Ms. Best suggests that a "Madisonian system of concurrent majorities" is best judged on its results.

Concurrent majorities are typically American; they intentionally counter the majoritarian principle of assigning equal weight to every vote. No one denies political equality is a goal under the Constitution, but it is not the only goal. The present system has been designed to reflect broad interests, not to merge minority interests into the vast majority. It depends on what is meant by "the will of the people." The majority is one segment of "the people" and not the whole. America is not a pure democracy, a nation of majority rule, but a democratic republic, a representative government with an elaborate system of checks and balances.

Judith Best points out that three-quarters of states required for ratification means one-quarter plus one state weigh more than the votes in three-quarters of the states minus one. Think about it. She says:

The list of constitutional limitations on the majority is a long one, including the Supreme Court, the Senate, the guarantee of at least one congressman to each state and the extraordinary majorities required for the Senate to convict those impeached by the House, for Congress to expel one of its members and for Congress to override a presidential veto. In addition, the Constitution places certain limitations on even a unanimous Congress, restrictions designed to protect individuals and minorities, such as the provisions respecting the writ of habeas corpus, the bill of attainder and ex post facto laws. Other restrictions are placed directly on the states.

Our forefathers realized the dangers inherent in pluralistic democracy--tyranny by the majority—and developed our elaborate system of checks and balances to forestall it.

At the invitation of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., sixteen experts gathered on February 6, 1969, to discuss the ideal system of electing the president. They agreed on the following points: (1) the need for a quick decision and clear-cut winner; (2) the victor should be the peoples' choice winner of the most popular votes; (3) the president-elect should have a mandate to govern, a legitimacy which comes from a good margin of victory; and (4) the ideal system should not undermine the two-party system. All agreed that the method of electing the president holds broad implications for the political system as a whole.

Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama told the Judiciary Center on October 1987, when explaining his reason for deciding to vote against Judge Bork's confirmation to the Supreme Court, "When in doubt, don't." That may or may not be good advice, but so far it is being followed regarding election reform. The Electoral College and the winner-take-a1l system continues to be criticized but not changed.

Reading Based On:

1. 1876 Samuel Tilden (D)-50.9 percent of popular vote; Rutherford Hayes (R)-47.9 percent of popular vote. Votes were contested in the South and some hanky panky went on to give Hayes all of Oregon's votes. The Electoral College showed Tilden-84, Hayes-185. A Commission was appointed to look into the matter because the House was controlled by Democrats. The election of 1876 was definitely under a "cloud of fraud."

2. Voting For President, by Wallace Sayre and Judith Parrish, p. 54. The authors favor the winner-take-a1l system because it works. The popular vote by states has not deprived the popular vote winner of the presidency since 1888.

3. The Case Against Direct Election of the President, by Judith Best, p. 217.

4. Who Votes (1980), by Raymond Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone, p. 105.

5. Wall Street Journal, April 15, 1987, article by David Shribman

6..Atlantic Monthly, January 1987, "The New Shape of American Politics" by William Schneider, p. 14.

7. The American Deflcit: FuIfillment of A Prophecy? by Helen P. Rogers.

8. Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, Chapter entitled "Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority Upon the National Character of the Americans"

9. The Commonwealth, September 14, 1987, p. 403.

10. Congressional Quarterly, June 27, 1987, "'Congress & the Country" by Alan Ehrenhalt, p. 1415.

11. Time, Sept. 7, 1987, "The Year of the Refusniks" by Laurence Barrett.

12. C-SPAN, Sept. 7, 1987, featured a panel of political pollsters.

Questions to be answered after the required reading has been completed:

1.       How and when did the United States elect a president and vice president of different parties? Name them and their respective parties. 

2.       Describe four ways that were suggested to elect the President between 1808 and 1846.

3.       Name five U. S. Presidents who were elected with less than a popular vote.     

4.       Describe the winner-take-all system. Which states use this system?

5.       When do electors vote and when are the results known?

6.       What affect would substituting a direct popular vote for the Electoral College have on third party candidates?  Why?

7.       Give four arguments for and against a direct vote system.

8.       Describe the differences between the district plan, the proportional plan and the winner-take-all plan.
 

9.       State the four points experts in 1969 agreed should be included in an ideal plan for electing U.S. Presidents.

10. What did Democrats mean when they claimed some votes in Florida had never been counted; not even once?
      What did Republicans mean when they claimed these votes in Florida had  been counted two or three times?    Which party do you believe and why?

 11. Do you think Florida and the U.S. Supreme Courts politicized their decisions? Explain. Did you read the court decisions posted on many sites on the Internet?