• Background: 2000 Presidential Election
• Reform Options: Electoral Vote Allocation, college abolition, prioritize national vote
• Recent Legislation: National Popular Vote Bill in Maryland, support elsewhere

Background

• The 2000 presidential election is remembered as one of the most controversial in recent history. The outcome of the electoral college vote in that election spurred a national movement for reform. Al Gore led the nationwide popular vote by 537,179, but the election went to George W. Bush who won a greater number of electoral votes.
• The controversy began in the state of Florida after it became clear that Bush had not won the election by thousands of votes, but by only about 500. Florida's winner-takes-all electoral vote system gives all electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote rather than giving each candidate the percentage of votes. In this case, whoever won the electoral votes in Florida would win the national election. At the same time, the legitimacy of votes were contested because of the design of the ballots. Since the popular vote was so close, Florida counties started to recount the ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all recounts were to stop. With slight and highly disputed majority, Bush received all of Florida's electoral votes which put him ahead of his opponent in the electoral college.
• The 2000 election drew attention to several features of the American electoral system. One feature is the "winner-takes-all" electoral system, otherwise known as "plurality" voting or "first past the post". This method of electing people to office is used in most states and counties in the U.S. It widely criticized for preventing the entrance of third-party candidates since it requires plurality of votes. The electoral college system has also received a lot of criticism since the 2000 election.
• 2000 was not the first election where the candidate receiving the most votes lost the presidential election. The first was the 1824 election where John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson, despite their respective popular votes being 113,112 to 151,271. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden by one electoral vote, despite losing by 250,000 popular votes. The third time was the election of 1888, where Benjamin Harrison lost by 90,000 votes, but went on to defeat Grover Cleveland.

Reform Options

• Several reform options are available, however some are more politically feasible than others. According to Constitutional law, eliminating the electoral college altogether would necessitate a vote to change the Constitution by each state legislature. Many reformists do not believe that abolishment is as achievable, but the constitution does gives states the power to select a method for allocating electoral votes. Currently, 48 states and the District of Columbia use the winner-takes-all method to allocate electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine use the district method, which gives two electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote and the rest of the votes are given to the winner in each district. Another possibility for allocating electoral votes is by proportional vote, wherein each candidate would receive electoral votes according to the percentage of the popular vote.
• Options without an electoral college include direct election with plurality rule and direct election with a runoff vote between the top candidates.
• The most serious national reform movement is the "National Popular Vote". It commits the electoral votes in each participating state to winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the statewide popular vote.

Recent Legislation

• In April 2007, Maryland became the first state to fully enact a National Popular Vote bill. As of September 2007, 11 state legislative chambers have passed the bill (Arkansas House, Colorado Senate, and North Carolina Senate as well as both houses in Hawaii, Illinois, California and Maryland).