In the days leading to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, Behrend’s Dr. Robert Speel, Associate Professor of Political Science, presented a lecture that provided insight into the history of the Electoral College and its soundness to determine the President of the United States.
Dr. Speel’s lecture was titled “Electoral College: Past, Present, and Future”, and it was held in the Samuel P. Black III Conference Center in Reed 180 on Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 7 p.m.
The lecture immediately dove into the history of the Electoral College, beginning with the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. In his lecture, Dr. Speel cited how the Framers created the Electoral College because it was believed at the time that average voters could not be trusted to choose the President, as they were expected to be persuaded by emotions and demagoguery.
After detailing the origins of the Electoral College, Dr. Speel began to detail how “the Electoral College no longer works as originally intended.”
Dr. Speel stated how, in modern political times, average voters do choose the President because electors almost always vote according to the people’s actual vote. The rare electors that do not vote in accordance with the people’s vote are commonly referred to as “faithless electors”, and in any one election over the last half century, the number of “faithless electors” can be counted on one’s fingers.
After providing facts to suggest that the Electoral College works differently than it was originally envisioned, Dr. Speel continued to provide facts that debunked popular arguments in favor of keeping the Electoral College.
Many individuals believe that the Electoral College forces presidential candidates to give attention to small states and rural areas. However as Dr. Speel’s presentation suggested, the Electoral College actually forces candidates to campaign primarily in swing states down the stretch and not in a multitude of areas.
One of several other arguments that Dr. Speel’s lecture countered was the idea that the Electoral College ensures equal voting representation. As statistics suggest, this is often not the case. Dr. Speel’s presentation also pulled statistics that exhibited how voter turnout, among other factors, messes up the design of the Electoral College. For example, Oregon--a state with just seven electoral votes--had a higher voter turnout than Kentucky--a state with eight electoral votes.
Not only did the lecture suggest that the Electoral College is outdated, it also provided alternative election methods that may work better for the United States.
One of the most rational methods suggested by Dr. Speel was the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which was created by Stanford University computer science professor John Koza. This method is based on the notion that each state should award its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state popular vote. Essentially, making national popular vote the ultimate decider—a system that would have made Al Gore and Hillary Clinton win their respective elections in 2000 and 2016.
Dr. Speel told the audience that the primary road block in the way of a potential Electoral College reform is that the topic is a partisan issue. Republicans currently side with the argument of keeping the Electoral College, while Democrats side with reforming the Electoral College method. Interestingly enough, Dr. Speel cited a Gallup poll that showed that Americans have statistically shown more disapproval of the Electoral College in 2004 and 2008, when the Electoral College was won without controversy. In 2000 and 2016, however, the Electoral College saw a sizeable shift in support of the Electoral College, especially from Republicans, which further supports the notion that Electoral College reform is a partisan issue.
“The idea that we’ve developed very recently after the Constitution, where we have two strong parties that fight with each other, they [the Framers] did not intend that. They certainly did not intend the type of partisanship we have today,” said Dr. Speel, “where we have one group of people diametrically opposed to everything the other group of people were for. There was more compromise back then.”
Dr. Speel ended his lecture by suggesting that Electoral College reform is not likely to occur in the near future, due to the polarized partisanship in place right now. Dr. Speel also took questions from several audience members about the Electoral College and the process to become an elector.
The lecture was co-sponsored by the Jefferson Educational Society. Also, it was the first event to be held as a part of the Brock Public Policy Fund, named after Rev. Charles Brock. The fund began this year as a part of a donation from Rev. Brock, a Behrend political science faculty member and an Emeritus Fellow and former Director of Ministerial Education at Mansfield College, Oxford University, in England.
“The Public Policy Fund was founded this year for three years. The objective is to increase awareness of public policy issues and to increase public policy research,” said Dr. Eric Corty, Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Brock Public Policy Fund also aims to educate locals on public policy issues specifically relevant in Erie, PA. Additionally, the fund plans to help students attain public policy related internships in the Erie area.
