THE OLD COLLEGE TRY.

Does the Electoral College need an overhaul?

This year's presidential election has renewed an old debate about an 18th-century institution that critics say is unnecessary, archaic, and even dangerous to the will of the majority--the Electoral College.

That institution acts as an intermediary between the popular vote and the actual selection of a President, and has always had the potential of awarding the presidency to a candidate who did not carry the popular vote. Laurence H. Tribe, an expert on constitutional law at Harvard Law School, has described it as "a train wreck waiting to happen." Twice in the 19th century, in fact, the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the most votes in the Electoral College.

The Electoral College comprises 538 electors--people who are nominated by state parties, committed to their party's presidential nominee, and elected when the voters cast their presidential ballots. Each state gets as many electoral votes as it has members of Congress, so even the smallest state gets three (see Electoral College FAQs, right). Defenders of this system say it gives at least some power to the smaller states, so that campaigns do not become mere mass-media appeals focused on populous areas.

Still, there are many calls for change. Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) has proposed simply abolishing the Electoral College in favor of direct popular election. Another idea would be to keep the Electoral College, but follow the lead of Nebraska and Maine, and apportion votes based on who won the popular vote in each congressional district. This approach would allow the electoral votes to more closely track the popular vote and foster competition within a state. Right now, for example, there is little incentive for a Republican candidate to compete in much of the Northeast or a Democrat in much of the Deep South, although individual congressional districts may be competitive.

There are other schemes, including proportional representation, whereby a state would allocate its electors based on the proportion of the popular vote each candidate has won.

Nobody suggests that achieving any of these reforms would be easy. In 1969, a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives and endorsed by President Richard Nixon. But it was killed in the Senate, largely by Senators from small states and the South.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE FAQS

WHO ARE THESE ELECTORS? The Democratic, Republican, and other parties select the electors, picking loyal and trustworthy party members.

WHAT'S WITH THIS WINNER-TAKE-ALL BUSINESS? A state's electors are a package deal--you can't break them up. On Election Day, you are actually voting for which party's package you want to win in your state, not which candidate. The two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which award two electors to the winner of the statewide vote and one to the winner in each congressional district. The winner-take-all system is what allows the possibility that someone can win a majority of the popular vote and still lose the electoral vote.

WHY DO THE ELECTORS GET TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF US? It's the compromise that the Framers of the Constitution settled on between having the people vote for President and letting Congress do it. The Electoral College incorporates the vote of the people while ensuring that every state is represented with the same number of electors as it has members in Congress. The number of a state's House members reflects the state's population. But because every state, regardless of size, gets two Senators, critics say the Electoral College system favors smaller states.

CAN THE ELECTORS VOTE FOR WHOMEVER THEY WANT? Yes--in theory. Electors were originally conceived as free agents who could vote however they saw fit. But in practice, they rarely break party lines. No renegade elector has ever altered the outcome of an election.

WHEN DOES ALL THIS HAPPEN? States have until December 12 to settle disputes and decide on the winning electors. On December 18, the electors meet in their state capitals to cast their votes, one for President and one for Vice President. The tally is announced to Congress on January 6, and the new President and Vice President are sworn in on January 20.

CLOSE CALLS

If George W. Bush and Al Gore were Olympic swimmers, both would be winners. Their Florida vote percentages are separated by only a matter of thousandths, which is officially a tie in swimming. In the sports world, here's what a margin of victory in the .001 range means, whether in percentages or times.

SWIMMING: A fingernail. That was the edge Sweden's Gunnar Larsson had over American Tim McKee in a 1972 Olympic race, winning by .002 seconds. Officials later decided that recording such a tiny margin could be unfair, and stopped measuring to the thousandth. In 2000, Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall Jr. of the U.S. finished at 21.98 seconds in a race, each earning gold.

BASEBALL: One hit in a season. The Cincinnati Reds' Hal Morris needed that to win the 1991 National League batting title. He was the next batter up when the last game of the season ended, leaving him with a .319 batting average behind the .320 of the Atlanta Braves' Terry Pendleton.

LUGE: The tip of a toe. German luger Silke Kraushaar nipped teammate Barbara Nidernhuber by .002 seconds, after both sledded down the course four times in the 1998 Olympic Games.

DRAG RACING: Three feet. That's all that separated Larry Dixon's racer from Kenny Bernstein's, as both flashed past the finish line at 314 miles per hour last spring, amounting to a .003-second win for Dixon.

FOCUS: How the Electoral College Works

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the Electoral College, why the Founders chose it over popular voting, and what arguments have been advanced for and against it.

Discussion Questions:

* Make arguments for retaining and abolishing the Electoral College.

* Contests like Election 2000 are rare. In 1876 and 1888 one candidate won the electoral vote and the other the popular vote. And in 1824, popular-vote winner Andrew Jackson got more electoral votes than ultimate winner, John Quincy Adams, who was chosen by the House of Representatives. Why do you think this turn of events is so rare?

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Debate: Take students through some of the key points about the Electoral College.

* Origins: Why did the Framers put an intermediary between the popular vote and the actual selection of Presidents? (Because Of the nation's size and the communications of the day, they assumed ordinary people could not know enough about candidates. Is that still true?)

* Winner-Take-All: In our current system, 48 states award all their electoral votes to the state's winner, no mailer how narrow the victory. This fall, for example, that meant that Gore supporters in Texas and Bush supporters in New York could be fairly sure their votes would not be part of their candidate's crucial totals. Is this damaging to voter participation?

* Electors' Choice: Should electors be free to switch sides? A prominent Gore supporter tried to convince members of the Electoral College who were committed to Governor Bush to switch to Gore. Currently, this is legal. Should it be illegal?

* Supporters of the Electoral College say that if it were abolished, presidential candidates would address only the concerns of people who live in populous states. How would students support or oppose this view? How might presidential campaigns be redesigned to prevent this?

Endless Recounts: Supporters of the Electoral College say that at least it narrows the field of possible controversy so that, in a close race, recounts are needed only in the closest states rather than in all 50. Is that a good reason to keep the Electoral College?