1787—at least two Framers, including James Madison, stated that national popular vote was not possible because of the interests of the slave states. On principle, Madison would have preferred a national popular vote
the fundamental tension was between the northern and southern states, the slave states and the non-slave states
the 3/5 compromise was demanded by the slave states to preserve political power in the House of Representatives and was later incorporated into the Electoral College
1800—John Adams would have won w/o the 3/5 compromise. Jefferson was said to have been carried into the White House on the backs of slaves. Fifteen (15) Electoral College votes were cast by white southern state electors on behalf of 500,000 enslaved African Americans
1803—12th amendment. Northern states tried to remove the 3/5 compromise. Slave states refused.
1816—Proposal to elect the president by national popular vote rebuffed by southern states: “It has pleased God to give the Southern country a population anomalous, having the double character of person and property.” For another 150 years, the nation’s racial politics prevented the idea of a national popular vote from being anything more than a side-show in efforts to reform the Electoral College. Keyssar, 177, 373-74.
From 1789 to 1860—All but two presidents were slave holders. Numerous national leaders, including Speakers of the House and Justices of the Supreme Court, were slave holders.
Post 1865—African-Americans were now fully counted, but voting was suppressed. By the 1890s with the triumph of the “Redemption,” suppression was universal through the Old Confederacy. The power of the white supremacist establishment was only enhanced.
1876—The Electoral College crisis itself centered on whether to reject votes from slates of electors in states that had violently suppressed the African American vote. Thus, in a New York Times article in October 1876, former Confederate Brigadier General Wade Hampton III is quoted as follows:
“South Carolina is a white man’s state, and in spite of nigger majorities the Democrats are going to rule it. . . . That policy [the ‘shotgun policy’] is to plainly tell the negroes that the Whites are again in command of the state. . . We must warn the leaders that ‘the tall poppies will fall first.’ . . . We must be prepared to shoot rather than be prevented from redeeming the State from Radical rule.” Wegman, 112. It is estimated that 150 Blacks were killed in the ensuing violence. Wikipedia.
1876-1965— The compromise that ultimately resolved the 1876 Electoral College crisis led to abandonment of Reconstruction and almost a century of racial subjugation. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which required that a state’s representation in Congress (and thus in the Electoral College) be reduced if the right to vote was “denied” or “in any way abridged” was never enforced.
1890s—With the “Redemption” complete, the Democratic Party controlled the “solid South.” The Republican Party, which previously had been a proponent of district-based selection of electors as a reform measure, pivoted to be a firm supporter of “winner-take-all,” which was seen as necessary to counterbalance the solid South.
1891-92—The “Miner” law controversy in Michigan illustrated the fault lines. The Democratic Party briefly ascended to power in Michigan and promptly adopted a district-based system for appointing electors. The, ultimately short-lived, system was challenged by the Republicans in a furiously contested case that the Supreme Court decided in October 1892 (McPherson v. Blacker). Keyssar, 131-143.
1890s-1940s—The utter suppression of the Black vote continued as Jim Crow was enshrined in state constitutions, laws and society. The Redemption had been “swift and brutal.” Wegman, 117. The president of the Mississippi state constitutional convention stated frankly: “Let us tell the truth. . . .We came here to exclude the Negro.” In 1904 Delaware cast roughly the same number of votes for Congress as Georgia, but Delaware elected one representative to Georgia’s eleven; in the Electoral College, Delaware cast 3 votes to Georgia’s 13. Ohio cast as many votes for president as nine southern states; Ohio appointed 23 electors; the nine southern states appointed 99. From 1908 to 1948, 44% of all minority votes in the country were not represented by a single electoral vote. By the 1940s, approximately 3% of the Black voting age population in the South was registered to vote. Wegman, 118.
1944—The issue of race and the Electoral College emerged in the Democratic Party, with southern Democrats in open rebellion against progressive policies of the Roosevelt administration, threatening to withhold electoral votes if policies did not change and casting votes at the national convention for Virginia Senator Harry Byrd, an outspoken critic of desegregation. Keyssar 146-47. The rebellion fizzled.
1948—Dixiecrat rebellion. Southern Democrats formed the States Rights Democratic Party for the sole purpose of preserving segregation and white supremacy. The strategy was to win enough electoral votes to deny any party a majority and throw the selection of the President into the House of Representatives, precipitate a crisis, and bargain to block progress on civil rights. Keyssar, 147-48.
1949-50—Lodge-Gossett proposal for proportional allocation of Electoral College passed the Senate; however, on closer analysis, it was rejected in the House over concerns that, like district-based proposals from the 1890s, it would strengthen the South—which vigorously opposed measures to expand voting rights for Blacks—and emasculate the Republican Party. Keyssar, 149-162.
1968—George Wallace’s overtly racist third party campaign mirrored the Dixiecrat effort from 1948. Wallace hoped to precipitate an Electoral College crisis and procure concessions to halt progress on civil rights, as had happened in the Electoral College crisis of 1876 and as had been attempted in 1948..
1960-1968—Electoral College dynamics led the Republican Party to change positions from being a leading proponent of civil rights to taking on the mantle of southern opposition to further progress and support for southern Civil War generals, monuments and the Confederate flag.
1969-1970—Partly in revulsion at George Wallace’s campaign tactics, a resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and implement a national popular vote for president passed the House of Representative by a wide margin with strong bi-partisan support. A white supremacist filibuster blocked Senator Birch Bayh’s companion resolution and saved the Electoral College
2010-2020—The Republican Party has actively opposed efforts to implement a national popular vote for president. Instead, in several select states Republican Party leaders have supported the district system, whose unfair results, when applied on a selective basis, have been rejected by Thomas Jefferson circa 1800, the Republican Party from the 1890s through the 1950s, and opponents of the 1950 Lodge-Gossett proposal. As for the contemporary proposals, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, explained:
“Inevitably, given the concentration of Democratic and minority voters in cities, this would produce a wildly unfair structural bias toward Republican presidential candidates. Add to this the gerrymandering produced by party control of the redistricting process in those states, and it would amount to a breathtakingly misguided attempt to tilt the rules away from a popular vote for president.” Waldman, The Fight to Vote (2017) 248.
2018-2020—The Making Every Vote Count (MEVC) blog contains numerous posts showing the Electoral College’s continuing structural defects that disadvantage Blacks. Candidate and president Trump’s overt and dog-whistle campaign of division and racial politics is enabled by, and made possible only by, the Electoral College/battleground state structure of presidential elections.
End notes:
This chronology was compiled by Mark Bohnhorst, Chair, Presidential Elections Team, Minnesota Citizens for Clean Elections (MNCCE). Mr. Bohnhorst bears sole responsibility.
The chronology is grounded in general reading in the field over the last 3+ years, which includes the numerous entries in the MEVC blog. References to Keyssar are to
Alexander Keysaar, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College (2020). References to Wegman are to Jesse Wegman, Let the People Pick the President: the case for abolishing the Electoral College (2020). Both are excellent.