5/7 The Hamilton Method
In the midst of the national debate over retaining the Electoral College or replacing it with the popular vote, there are other possible systems that should be considered. Namely, a system that incorporates the framers’ original ideas of decentralization and deliberation. An elector convention, which was debated at the constitutional convention, meets these criteria.
The elector convention system is a body of electors made up of electors, currently 538, from every state. This post will detail how to populate an elector convention. The next post will focus on how an elector convention will function.
The first priority when building a body of electors is the prevention of a majority. If a party or faction is able to establish a majority before electors meet, then deliberation is removed from the process. Party members that control the party will be able to dictate which elector will become president.
This is partially what happens with the modern Electoral College today as electors are told how to vote, a majority is achieved, and possible deliberation in the House of Representatives is prevented.
Without a majority, the various groups of electors must form a coalition in order to achieve 270 votes to choose a president.
How do we prevent an elector majority before a convention meets? Some method that divides the body into many different groups is required. The winner-take-all method creates a majority by giving all electoral votes to a single candidate or party even though they only achieved a plurality of the votes.
Proportional systems, on the other hand, divide the electors very accurately by the number of votes a party received in an election. If a state like Minnesota has ten electoral votes, and a party receives 30% of the vote, they would be awarded three electors.
If small parties are able to achieve one or two electors in many of the states, this will prevent a majority when electors convene at a convention. A proportional voting system must be used to prevent a majority.
There are a variety of proportional systems available but the Hamilton Method is best suited for elections. When dividing electors, it is very common to have unallocated electors and parties to have remainder votes. The Hamilton Method awards the remaining one or two votes to the party or parties with the highest amount of remainder votes.
The Hamilton Method of Apportionment applied to the House of Representatives, courtesy of the Mathematical Association of America.
If the Hamilton Method were adopted to populate an elector convention, there would be a multitude of changes to the presidential electoral system. The Framers’ Method book covers them all in detail which includes the reduction of wasted votes, prevention of fraud, and national security to name a few. However, the next few paragraphs will discuss how this system would prevent tyrannically-minded candidates as well as mitigate populist sentiment among voters.
Under the Hamilton Method, elections are held locally within each state. There is no national election. Within each state, the campaign to win electoral votes is run by each party and by the group of electors themselves. If a state has ten electoral votes, then each party would have a team of ten electors canvassing, running advertisements, and debating within their state. With the Hamilton Method, elections will become group-oriented.
The dynamic of elections will change from the voters and a single candidate to the voters and a group of electors. This prevents the tyrannically minded candidates from entering the race as this type of candidate is not interested in sharing the stage. Groups of electors will also prevent tyrants from joining their group because the group presents a group message, not a message that is oriented around the characteristics of a single person.
Expanding from the state to the country, local elections for electors prevent tyrannically-minded candidates from establishing connections with the entire country. As it stands now, presidential candidates have a national stage simply by entering a campaign. This happens in both the nominating and general elections. This national stage allows tyrants to use their rhetoric on every American throughout the country. Whether their rhetoric is honest or a blatant lie, the tyrannical candidate is able to tap into the emotions of voters everywhere. Populist sentiment promotes populism in voters through the national election.
Even if a tyrant joins a party, dominates their party platform, and campaigns in their local state, they would only capture the attention of their local voters. The tyrant’s powers of populist rhetoric have been removed from national politics.
With thousands of potential electors running locally, statistically speaking there will be a few tyrannically-minded candidates among them. However, the overwhelming majority will understand the rules of this new system and play along as a group to win. Most electors that join an elector convention will have a consensus-oriented mentality when choosing the next president.
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For more details on how the Hamilton Method may be applied to choosing electors for each state, see Chapter 7 of the book, On the Framers’ Method: How the Electoral College Can Defeat Populism and Tyranny.
