In 2000, then Vice-President Gore defeated then Texas Governor and Republican Presidential nominee George Bush in Maine, 49% to 44%. But unlike in Iowa and Minnesota where Mr. Gore won by slimmer margins and still captured each of the states’ electoral votes, in Maine he was awarded the support of only six of ten electors.

Having electoral votes awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote and individually by district—as they are in Maine and Nebraska—started in Maine in 1972 after reformers argued that the winner-take-all system did not accurately represent the choices of voters. In 1992, Nebraska passed its own amendment to the state constitution and followed suit, though Nebraska’s five electoral votes would never be split until President-elect Obama captured one in 2008.

Since the establishment of new systems in Maine and Nebraska, many who previously voiced opposition to the American Electoral College have used the two states as models for a possible overhaul to the system. And yet despite that more bills have been introduced to Congress seeking to alter the Electoral College than any other single subject, and that the majority of Americans oppose the College, it has remained largely intact.

Even if Mr. Gore’s 2000 electoral loss—though he won the popular vote—proves that the system does not reflect the collective endorsement of the country, it does serve a purpose: it isolates recounts and generally brings a decisive winner. In 2000, when Mr. Gore earned nearly sixty million votes, he led the nationwide popular vote by less than one half of one percent. Had America relied on the popular vote to declare its new President-elect, a national recount or run-off election would have likely been necessary. Either way, after spending tens of millions of dollars and requiring tens of millions of citizens to take time from work, a more satisfactory result might not have been reached. Nonetheless, since Florida became the only state where a winner was too close to call, the College made the state the only place that required a closer counting of ballots. Had the Electoral College found a decisive winner instead—where Florida was not necessary for a candidate to secure 270 electors—a recount would have been completely avoided.

Philosophic battles will persist over the manifestations of American democracy and more bills will come before Congress, some supporting a popular vote system and some looking to modify the electoral system. Thus far the only changes made have been made by states in their individual constitutions. The Electoral College was founded in a now distant country of greater emphasis on the rights of states. But convoluted or not, and whether it should be abolished or not, the system is not necessarily the dinosaur that most people think it is.

-David Lamb

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