![]() ![]() He presented a plan to create districts and hold popular elections to choose electors. When they reconvened the next morning, Wilson had taken Mason’s advice. Virginia’s George Mason thought a popular election “impracticable,” but hoped Wilson would “have time to digest it into his own form.” Another delegate suggested election by the Senate alone, and then the Convention adjourned for the day. Pennsylvania’s James Wilson, on the other hand, called for a popular election. to be chosen by the National Legislature.” When the Constitutional Convention took up the issue for the first time, near the end of its first week of debate, Roger Sherman from Connecticut supported this parliamentary system of election, arguing that the national executive should be “absolutely dependent” on the legislature. The Virginia Plan-the first draft of what would become the new Constitution-called for “a National Executive. Why not a national popular vote for president?ĭelegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 asked themselves the same question, but then rejected a national popular vote along with several other possible modes of presidential election. Every state governor is chosen by a statewide popular vote. What changed along the way? And does it matter? After all, the critics of the Electoral College simply want to elect the president the way we elect most other officials. And today, more than a dozen states have joined in an attempt to hijack the Electoral College as a way to force a national popular vote for president. But by the mid-twentieth century, opponents of the Electoral College nearly convinced Congress to propose an amendment to scrap it. During the debates over ratifying the Constitution, Anti-Federalist opponents of ratification barely mentioned it. ![]() Once upon a time, the Electoral College was not controversial. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C. The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 30, 2019, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. ![]()
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