Constitutionality and Campaigning in Every State
Claim: The Founding Fathers designed the Electoral College not to be representative of individual citizens, but rather the collective interests of all 50 states.
Reality: This claim is both historically inaccurate and ignores the reality of our state-by-state winner-take-all method.
The Founding Fathers never decided how presidential electors should be chosen. Instead, they left the matter to the states, (1) as it remains today. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68 in 1788: (2)
“A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations” [emphasis added]
It’s clear that the Electoral College was designed to be a deliberative body, whose choices in candidates would be somewhat independent of their states’ citizens. The Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is, instead, the product of decades of change stemming from the emergence of political parties in 1796 (3) and the later adoption of winner-take-all statutes in most states.
National Popular Vote does not allow candidates to ignore a majority of states; in fact, it does the opposite.
The current method assigns inordinate amounts of power to tightly contested battleground states. Ohio, for example, was privileged to have 73 of the 253 post-convention campaign events in 2012, while 39 non-battleground states received none. (3)
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will force candidates to campaign in even the most partisan states, because winning by an extra 5% or losing by just 1-2% would impact the outcome of an election.
References
(1) U.S. Constitution, Article II, section I, clauses 1 and 2. https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/provisions
(2) Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 68. The Federalist. George W. Carey and James McClellan. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001. 351–52. Print. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0218
(3) Koza, John R., et al. Every Vote Equal: A State Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote, 4th ed., National Popular Vote Press, 2013, pp. 367–443. http://www.every-vote-equal.com/