U.S. Sen. Bob Dole’s disdain for Electoral College in presidential elections still matter of debate
U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, a Kansas Republican who died in 2021, was among a minority of federal lawmakers who seek to repeal the Electoral College and elect presidents by national popular vote. In this news release archived by the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, Dole uses humor and history to summarize his critique of the Electoral College. (Dole Archives, University of Kansas)
TOPEKA — The late U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas supported a constitutional amendment abandoning the Electoral College in the election of U.S. presidents and implementing a process of choosing the nation’s chief executive by national popular vote.
In 1979, Dole was frustrated by the U.S. Senate’s deflection of an amendment that would have shifted the process to direct election of presidents. In his unsuccessful campaign for reform, Dole pointed out the 1976 presidential race could have resulted in an Electoral College victory for Republican Gerald Ford and defeat for Democrat Jimmy Carter with a shift of fewer than 10,000 votes in key states. That would have occurred despite Carter’s overall 1.7 million vote plurality.
“I believe it would have been viewed as a betrayal of the American system of democracy,” said Dole, who was Ford’s vice presidential running mate. “Direct election would prevent this potential nightmare from occurring.”
So far, the outcome feared by Dole occurred five times in U.S. history — three times in the 1800s and twice in the past 25 years.
Despite Dole’s belief the presidential candidate who received the largest number of popular votes should win the presidential election, the Electoral College has persisted. The staying power of the Electoral College was a point of contention during a recent debate at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. During a trial-like forum, attorneys delivered opposing arguments on the topic and presented expert witnesses to bolster their cases.
Bubba vs. socialists
Ed Duckers, a partner in a California law firm and KU graduate, said repeal of the Electoral College would distort contests for president, and vice president, by abandoning a system that compelled candidates to seek broad appeal across the United States.
Direct election would trigger an avalanche of presidential aspirants anchored to a relatively small number of urban centers harboring millions of votes while sparsely populated states would mostly be ignored, he said.
“It’s going to lead to more polarizing and extreme candidates where the Republicans are about nothing but Texas and Bubba in the South and the Democrats are about nothing but (New York City Mayor-elect) Zohran (Mamdani) and socialists in the Northeast and California,” Duckers said.
He asserted liberals were keen to topple the Electoral College because in 2000 Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush. In 2016, the same occurred when Republican Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Both outcomes produced protracted turmoil in the United States.
“Why? Why? Why?” Duckers said. “Well, the why is because their team lost in 2000 and then lost in 2016. That is not a good reason to throw this country into turmoil by changing the way we elect presidents.”
The process of declaring a winner in a U.S. presidential race requires state-by-state popular elections among presidential candidates every four years. The states and the District of Columbia convert those results into electoral votes. There are a total of 538 votes in the Electoral College, and a 270-vote majority secures victory. Each state’s winning candidate can expect to claim all of that state’s electoral votes, except in Maine and Nebraska.
Pedro Irigonegaray, a Kansas trial attorney for more than 50 years, said the Electoral College should be repealed and replaced by a direct election. He said the Electoral College was flawed when adopted by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The approach wasn’t the result of farsighted political design or anchored to constitutional theory, he said.
He said it was the product of demands by slave-owning states for more influence in elections by counting slaves as three-fifths of a person when allocating electors in the Electoral College.
“They didn’t want anyone else to vote except white men who were landowners,” Irigonegaray said. “The Electoral College is antiquated. It doesn’t work.”
He said the Electoral College undermined majority rule and depressed voter turnout in states solidly Republican or Democratic as candidates focused on the handful of swing states.
“I trust the American people. I value their intelligence. I value their vote,” Irigonegaray said. “This is not Republicans versus Democrats. This is about the American value for the right to vote.”
‘It can be dangerous’
Linsey Moddelmog, a professor of political science at Washburn University in Topeka, said polling indicated a majority of Republicans and Democrats supported abolition of the Electoral College. Repeal of the Electoral College made sense because the system was “not democratic,” she said.
“No other presidential system in the world uses an Electoral College,” she said. “It can be dangerous. Elections need to have clear and authentic and legitimate results.”
Moddelmog said there was risk presidential candidates would call upon supporters to rebel if the Electoral College didn’t go their way. She said the evidence was response to Trump’s reelection loss in 2020, including the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A mob of Trump supporters broke through security personnel and entered the building in an attempt to prevent a joint session of Congress from counting Electoral College votes to affirm election of Democrat Joe Biden.
During cross-examination by Duckers, Moddelmog said she wasn’t concerned a move to the popular vote would incentivize billionaires to derail the democratic process by intensifying funding to third-party or independent candidates.
“I do believe that there are third-party candidates that would run. What I don’t believe is that they will ruin elections,” she said.
Jeff Jackson, dean of the Washburn University law school, said framers of the U.S. Constitution arrived at the Electoral College by default because all other ideas were rejected. They settled on creation of a deliberative body of people chosen by states to determine the president, he said.
“What they couldn’t foresee was the rise of political parties and they couldn’t foresee the fact that Americans wanted to vote,” he said.
Subsequent reforms opened voting to former slaves as well as women. The United States eliminated poll taxes disadvantaging those not owning land and the voting age was lowered. Federal civil rights laws regarding voting were enforced.
But, Jackson said, that wasn’t sufficient to correct festering wounds of the Electoral College.
“The problem is all of these Band-Aids are still hobbled by the fact that we have the Electoral College, which means as long as the Electoral College exists some people’s votes are always going to count more than others,” Jackson said.
Save the Electoral College
Trent England, executive director of Save Our States, an organization originally dedicated to preserving the Electoral College but expanded to lobby on state and federal policy on health care, foreign threats as well as diversity, equity and inclusion. He’s affiliated with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, which was founded by a chairman of the Heritage Foundation.
He said he launched Save Our States because “there needed to be a principled, historically grounded defense of the Electoral College.”
“The founders really focused on the fact that what matters about an election system is more than just how we feel about it or whether our side is winning. What matters is, over time, how does it shape your politics, right?” he said.
England said a national popular election for president would inevitably be managed by the federal government, which he would oppose because that function should be left to states. Presidential contests would be nothing more than popularity contests that rewarded people for rallying their core constituency rather than securing bipartisan alliances, he said.
“The Electoral College forces candidates who want to win the presidency to build the truly nationwide coalition and to have much more legitimacy,” he said.
He said Trump was able to go 2-1 in presidential campaigns because he was able to win over voters who were unmoved by Republican presidential nominees John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Tara Ross, author of the 2019 book “Why We Need the Electoral College,” said the Electoral College had proven its worth for more than 200 years.
“The Electoral College should be kept. The Electoral College is not partisan. It serves our country,” she said.
During cross-examination of Ross, Irigonegaray asked her about her volunteer work for Save Our States, which he said characterized DEI as a bad idea that advanced policies harmful to the economy, divided the nation and violated laws. Irigonegaray’s question centered on the nation’s long history of placing barriers in front of qualified women and minorities.
“I think we should judge people based on merit,” Cross said. “I’d rather have a color-blind society.”
“What if as a result of bigotry and ignorance, those individuals and minorities have not been provided, historically, the benefits that they deserve?” Irigonegaray said.
Ross: “I think this is kind of racist, to be honest, to say that people cannot achieve things because of the color of the skin.”
“I didn’t say that,” Irigonegaray said. “What I said was, as a consequence of bigotry, ignorance and abuse, many qualified women, Black men, Black women and minorities have been denied the prerequisite merit, talent and intelligence to perform work.”
Ross’ rebuttal: “Are we talking about this because you can’t actually ask me a question about the Electoral College that will stump me?”