It is too difficult to get rid of the Electoral College

The argument

The argument against abolishing the Electoral College made here is about feasibility rather than merit: it does not claim the institution is well designed, only that the effort required to remove it would not succeed and would consume resources better spent elsewhere. The obstacle is constitutional. To reform or abolish the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, which means a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress followed by ratification by three quarters of the states. Proponents point to how rarely that threshold has been cleared: it has happened only twenty-seven times since the United States was founded more than two hundred years ago, and most of those amendments addressed matters far less contested than the mechanism by which presidents are chosen. Two features of the present moment are said to make the threshold harder still. The first is polarisation among voters and the political deadlock in Congress that accompanies it, which raises the difficulty of assembling supermajorities for any measure, let alone one with direct partisan consequences. The second is self-interest: both major parties benefit from the existing arrangement in ways they can calculate, and an amendment requiring supermajority support cannot pass over the objection of either. Abolition therefore needs the assent of the actors with the clearest reason to withhold it. There is also no groundswell to overcome that resistance, since there is not currently a majority in favour of abolishing the Electoral College, and an amendment needs far more than a bare majority to proceed. The conclusion drawn is practical. A campaign that must clear two supermajority hurdles, against the interests of both parties and without majority public support behind it, is unlikely to succeed however strong the case for it. The time and political capital it would absorb could better be used to address more pressing issues that can actually be advanced, which is why proponents argue for keeping the Electoral College.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument answers a question about what should happen with a prediction about what will. Difficulty of enactment is a fact about political feasibility, not a reason to favour the institution, and taken as a general principle it would retire every reform argument ever made: abolishing slavery, extending the franchise and enfranchising women were all, at the time, harder than this. A defence of keeping the Electoral College has to say something good about the Electoral College, and this one says nothing. The amendment record is also presented as evidence for the wrong conclusion. Twenty-seven successful amendments is twenty-seven proofs that the bar can be cleared, and several concern presidential selection directly — the Twelfth restructured how electors vote, the Twenty-Second capped terms, the Twenty-Third gave the District electors, the Twenty-Fifth rewrote succession. The mechanism the argument calls prohibitive has repeatedly been used on precisely this part of the constitution. The amendment route is not the only one either. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact aims to bind participating states to award electors to the national vote winner once signatories reach a majority of the electoral college, which requires no amendment at all. Whatever its merits, its existence refutes the claim that only the hardest available path is available. The claim about public opinion is also less settled than stated: surveys have found majorities favouring a national popular vote at many points, and majorities in any case shift. Finally, the closing move — that time would be better spent elsewhere — is an argument about agenda-setting that would apply equally to almost any constitutional question, and it concedes the debate rather than joining it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Twenty-seven successful amendments demonstrate that the threshold can be met rather than that it cannot, and several concern presidential selection specifically — the Twelfth restructuring how electors vote, the Twenty-Second, Twenty-Third and Twenty-Fifth all amending this part of the constitution; the amendment route is also not the only one, since the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would operate through state law once signatories reach a majority of electors. [Rejecting P2] Current majorities are contingent and shifting, and surveys have found majorities favouring a national popular vote at many points; a claim about present political conditions cannot establish a permanent obstacle. [Rejecting C] The conclusion does not follow from the premises: difficulty of enactment is a fact about feasibility rather than a reason to favour an institution, and as a general principle it would retire every reform argument, including those for abolishing slavery and extending the franchise — a defence of keeping the Electoral College needs to say something in its favour, which this argument does not attempt.