Fordham Law School Professor John D. Feerick renewed his five-decades-long call to abolish the electoral college, while also outlining a series of major proposals for change, during an event on October 26 titled “The Electoral College on the Eve of Election 2016.” The event was hosted by the Feerick Center for Social Justice and the Hellenic Bar Association.
The electoral college, a body of 538 “electors” selected in each state by voters, provides the 270 electoral votes necessary to become president. But that doesn’t mean the electoral college represents the will of the majority, the popular vote.
In 1969, Feerick, in his then capacity as advisor to the American Bar Association Commission on Electoral Reform, led efforts to have Congress replace the electoral college, which he argued had outlived its usefulness, in favor of a direct election of the president and vice president. While that movement did not bring forth the desired changes, Feerick’s views and his hope for reform have remained steadfast through the years.
“Not only have reasons for the electoral college long since vanished but the institution has not fulfilled the design of the framers,” said Feerick, Norris Professor of Law and former dean of Fordham Law from 1982 to 2002. “Today it represents little more than an archaic and undemocratic counting device. There is no good reason for retaining such a formula of electing the president of the United States.”
Instead, the electoral college discourages voter turnout, limits campaigns and nominations to large states, and places an undue premium on the effects of fraud, accident, and other factors because a state’s electoral voters may depend on a few popular votes, Feerick noted. Also, electors are not bound to support their state’s chosen candidate, a rare occurrence but one that bears watching in 2016.
Feerick outlined five alternatives to the electoral college.
The direct election plan would allow voters to cast a direct vote for president, as they do for the Senate and House of Representatives, and would require a majority vote, leaving open the possibility of a runoff. The proportional vote and district plan would do away with winner-take-all results in states, instead awarding votes in proportion to statewide tallies and based upon congressional districts, respectively.
Meanwhile, the unit vote plan would eliminate electors and credit all electoral votes in a state to the candidate who won the popular vote in said state. Lastly, the national popular vote interstate compact is a pact among 10 states and the District of Columbia—a collection that accounts for 165 electoral votes, or 30.7 percent—that pledges all electoral votes to the candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote.
Prior to Feerick’s remarks, alumnus Nicholas Karambelas ’78, an expert on the electoral college and founding partner of the Washington, D.C.-based firm Sfikas and Karambelas LLP, provided a thorough explanation of the body’s history, how it works in the present day, and what would happen if a dispute arose among the “electors.” Washington Lawyer magazine published Karambelas’s article “Election 2016 and the Electoral College: The Number is 270” in its July/August 2016 edition.
Karambelas also discussed presidential succession via the 25th Amendment. Feerick was involved in the amendment’s writing and passage and later authored the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, The Twenty Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Earliest Applications.
Contrary to popular belief, neither Clinton nor Trump will emerge victorious on Tuesday, November 8. “There is no president elected on election night. All we’ve done is elected ‘electors,’” Karambelas said, noting the electors would cast their votes on December 19, at which time one of the candidates would more than likely become the winner.
The electoral college event was part of the Feerick Center’s Election Series, which will continue on Thursday, November 3, with “The U.S. Vice President in the Modern World,” featuring St. Louis Law Professor Joel Goldstein.