Efforts to reform the United States Electoral College

An interstate compact proposal, which would bypass the requirement for a constitutional amendment, is at 76% of successful completion as of August 2023[update].

The Electoral College was established by Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution in 1789, as a group of people independent of the government to vote on who should become president in the nation's quadrennial presidential elections.

They cast legally binding votes which, since 1876, have been based on polling taken in each of the 50 constituent states and Washington, D.C.[1] Since 1800, over 700 proposals to reform or eliminate the system have been introduced in Congress.

None of these proposals have received the approval of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states required to amend the Constitution.

The two votes being automatically allocated has allowed for disproportional representation of where people live in favor of the smaller states.

When candidates have high support levels in states with smaller populations and lower support level in more populous ones, such as in the 2016 election, this can have a consequence in which the winner of the national popular vote can lose the electoral vote and not be elected president.

One advocate for the amendments, James Madison, wrote in 1823 that the district plan "was mostly, if not exclusively, in view when the Constitution was framed and adopted.

[citation needed] The Supreme Court summarily refused to hear the case, leaving the question of how to interpret the unexplained denial in doubt.

[20] On October 8, 1969, the New York Times reported that 30 state legislatures were "either certain or likely to approve a constitutional amendment embodying the direct election plan if it passes its final Congressional test in the Senate."

The six members who opposed the plan, Democratic senators James Eastland of Mississippi, John Little McClellan of Arkansas, and Sam Ervin of North Carolina, along with Republican senators Roman Hruska of Nebraska, Hiram Fong of Hawaii, and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, all argued that although the present system had potential loopholes, it had worked well throughout the years.

[22] He called upon President Nixon to attempt to persuade undecided Republican senators to support the proposal.

[23] However, Nixon, while not reneging on his previous endorsement, chose not to make any further personal appeals to back the proposal.

On March 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter of reform to Congress that also included his expression of essentially abolishing the Electoral College.

The letter read in part:My fourth recommendation is that the Congress adopt a Constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of the President.

[30] In a letter to The New York Times, Representative Jonathan B. Bingham (D-New York) highlighted the danger of the "flawed, outdated mechanism of the Electoral College" by underscoring how a shift of fewer than 10,000 votes in two key states would have led to President Gerald Ford being reelected despite Jimmy Carter's nationwide 1.7 million-vote margin.

[36][37][38] On September 14, 2017, Congressman Steve Cohen introduced a concurrent resolution asking that the sense of Congress be expressed that: (1) Congress and the states should consider a constitutional amendment to reform the Electoral College and establish a process for electing the President and Vice President by a national popular vote, and (2) Congress should encourage the states to continue to reform the Electoral College process through such steps as the formation of an interstate compact to award the majority of Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner.

[39] On March 14, 2017, Congressman Jerry Nadler asked unanimous consent that he be considered as the first sponsor of the bill.

[41] Those jurisdictions joining the compact agree to eventually pledge their electors to the winner of the national popular vote.

The compact is based on the current rule in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which gives each state legislature the plenary power to determine how it chooses its electors.

Others have suggested that the compact's legality was strengthened by Chiafalo v. Washington, in which the Supreme Court upheld the power of states to enforce electors' pledges.