[EL] Check out Could Pennsylvania Republicans end the electoral college as we know

[John Koza]

Although only three states used the winner-take-all method of allocating electoral votes in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789, other states began to gravitate to the winner-take-all rule because the dominant party of a state typically wanted to maximize the number of electoral votes that it could deliver to its presidential nominee.  Jefferson lost the nation’s first competitive presidential election in 1796 by three electoral votes.  That election made it clear that the district system diminished a state’s political influence because it fragmented a state’s electoral votes. As historian Noble Cunningham wrote in History of American Presidential Elections 1878–2001 (pages 104-105): 

“The presidential election of 1796 had been extremely close, and in examining the results of that contest Republican Party managers had been struck by the fact that Adams’ 3-vote margin of victory in the electoral college could be attributed to 1 vote from Pennsylvania, 1 from Virginia, and 1 from North Carolina. In each of these states, the Republicans had won an impressive victory, amassing in the three states a total of 45 electoral votes. The loss of 3 votes in these strongly Jeffersonian states was due to the district method of electing presidential electors. In looking for ways to improve their chances for victory in the next presidential election, Republican managers thus turned their attention to state election laws.”

On January 12, 1800, Thomas Jefferson (the losing Republican[1] candidate from the 1796 election) wrote James Monroe (then a member of the legislature in Jefferson’s home state of Virginia): 

“On the subject of an election by a general ticket [the statewide winner-take-all rule], or by districts, most persons here seem to have made up their minds. All agree that an election by districts would be best, if it could be general; but while 10 states chuse either by their legislatures or by a general ticket, it is folly & worse than folly for the other 6. not to do it.”[2] 

Thus, although the statewide winner-take-all system may not have been “best,” Virginia changed from its original district system to the winner-take-all system, thereby ensuring Jefferson 100% of his home state’s electoral votes in the 1800 elections.

 

Over a period of years, more and more states gravitated to the statewide winner-take-all rule to avoid the “folly” of fragmenting their electoral votes. By 1836, all but one state had adopted the statewide winner-take-all rule. Except for Florida in 1868, Colorado in 1876, and Michigan in 1892, all states used the statewide winner-take-all rule between 1860 and 1972. Maine used the district approach starting in 1972. Nebraska started using it in 1992. 

 

Dr. John R. Koza, Chair

National Popular Vote

Box 1441

Los Altos Hills, California 94023 USA

Phone: 650-941-0336

Fax: 650-941-9430

Email: john at johnkoza.com

URL: www.johnkoza.com 

URL: www.NationalPopularVote.com


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[1] Jeffersonians were originally called Anti-Federalists, later Republicans or Democratic-Republicans, and eventually Democrats. 

[2] The January 12, 1800 letter is discussed in greater detail and quoted in its entirety in section 2.2.3. Ford, Paul Leicester. 1905. The Works of Thomas Jefferson. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 9:90. 

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