Americans have never fully embraced the Electoral College. And why should they? The system treats votes unequally, giving them more or less weight based on where voters live. It encourages campaigns to focus their efforts on a handful of swing states and encourages presidential candidates to skew public policy to benefit them. And as it has five times, the Electoral College can enable the candidate who loses the popular vote to win the presidency. In these consequential ways, the Electoral College system undermines our core democratic values.
In line with its mission to promote a fair and robust democracy, the Brennan Center for Justice supports amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College. We also support the National Popular Vote Compact, an agreement among the states to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The Brennan Center will continue to educate the public and policymakers in the effort to have every vote counted equally.
