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Representation in the Electoral College: How do states compare?

The 2020 election will be the last of the decade before electoral votes are reallocated based on Census results. See how the current distribution of the nation’s 538 electoral votes compares to the number of people living in all 50 states and Washington, DC.

Published on Thu, August 13, 2020 2:49PM PDT | Updated Tue, February 6, 2024 12:54PM PST

How does the Electoral College work?

Every four years, 538 electors hailing from all 50 states plus Washington, DC cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States. A candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes to win each race. In this system, known as the Electoral College , each state gets the same number of electors as it has members of Congress — one for each member in the House of Representatives and one for each of the state’s two senators. This means that each state is guaranteed a minimum of three electors, regardless of population size. It also means that there is always a total of 538 electors, or equivalently, 538 electoral votes — that’s the sum of 435 voting members of the House, 100 senators, and three electors assigned to Washington, DC.

So, when voters cast ballots for president and vice president on Election Day, they’re actually voting for a slate of electors who have pledged to vote for their favored candidates. Most states (with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska) use a “winner-take-all” system of choosing electors, meaning that — assuming electors vote according to their pledges — all of the state’s electoral votes are cast for the candidate that wins the majority of the state’s popular vote.

Electoral votes and population: Why one electoral vote accounts for 193,000 people in Wyoming and over 700,000 people in Texas or California.

Generally, states that are home to more people control more electoral votes. California — the largest state by population — has 55 electoral votes, while Wyoming — the smallest — has the minimum allocation of three. But because electoral votes are allocated according to seats in Congress, where each state holds two Senate seats regardless of population size, electoral representation varies quite a bit across states.

One way to think about electoral representation is to consider how many people each electoral vote represents, based on a state’s population. According to 2018 population estimates, one electoral vote in Wyoming accounts for around 193,000 people, while a vote in Texas or California accounts for over 700,000. For context, if all 538 electoral votes were distributed evenly among the US population, each vote would represent about 607,000 people.

Another way of thinking about electoral representation is to consider the difference between a state’s share of the nation’s total population and its share of all electoral votes. For example, Wyoming makes up about 0.18% of the US population but controls 0.56% of all electoral votes. This difference may seem minuscule, but it translates to approximately two additional electoral votes for Wyoming, relative to its population share. If Wyoming’s electoral share aligned with its share of the US population, it would have 0.18% of all 538 votes, which is about one electoral vote — but because votes are allocated based on seats in Congress, the state has the minimum of three votes in the Electoral College.

On the other end of the spectrum, California represents 12.1% of the US population and has 10.2% of all electoral votes. This means California controls roughly 10 fewer votes in the Electoral College than it would if votes were allocated based on population alone (because 12.1% of the total 538 votes is about 65 electoral votes, but California currently controls 55). For context, 10 votes is equivalent to the entire electoral share assigned to states like Maryland, Minnesota, and Missouri. It’s also the same as the combined vote shares of Iowa and Maine, or of all three states of Montana, Delaware, and Idaho.

Total population helps determine how electoral votes are allocated, but eligible voters determine how the votes are cast.

These examples demonstrate electoral representation based on each state’s share of the national population, and that’s because states receive representation in both the House of Representatives and the Electoral College according to the total resident population , not just according to how many voters live in the state. The resident population is all who live in the state at the time of the Census count, including both citizen and noncitizen residents, and both adults and children. Still, another way to view electoral representation is to see how the distribution of electoral votes compares to the distribution of eligible voters among states.

When determined according to the voting-eligible population nationwide, electoral representation looks a bit more equal across states. In particular, the two most populous states — California and Texas — are underrepresented by fewer votes when looking at representation among the voting-eligible population instead of the total resident population. These large states have higher proportions of non-citizen adults and a lower median age than many other states, so their shares of the voting-eligible population are smaller than their shares of the total US population. For example, California makes up 12.1% of the total US population but 11% of the citizen voting-age population; so by total population share, the state is about 10 votes underrepresented in the Electoral College, but by its share of eligible voters, the difference is closer to four votes.

What if electoral vote shares were equal to population shares in every state?

It’s important to note that even if electoral votes were allocated exactly according to each state’s share of the US population or share of eligible voters, the electoral process would not resemble a national popular vote . This is because of the winner-take-all rule for choosing state electors, currently used by 48 states and Washington, DC. According to this rule, all electoral votes go toward the candidate that earns the most votes in the state’s general election; therefore, votes cast for any other candidate do not earn any of the state’s electoral votes.

In other words, according to the winner-take-all policy, a candidate may earn 49.9% of a state’s popular vote and earn 0% of the state’s electoral votes. This explains how a candidate may win the national popular vote but, by failing to earn 270 electoral votes, may still lose the presidential election in the Electoral College — a scenario which has occurred in five US presidential elections, including the most recent election in 2016.

After this November's election, electoral votes will be reallocated based on Census results.

The total of 538 electoral votes is fixed, but how these votes are distributed between states can change as a result of the decennial Census . Every 10 years, the results of the Census determine how seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned, and states may gain or lose electoral votes accordingly. This November’s election will be the last of the decade before the reallocation of electoral votes.

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The Electoral College Explained

It’s the Electoral College, not the national popular vote, that determines who wins the presidency.

By Allyson Waller

It remains one of the most surprising facts about voting in the United States: While the popular vote elects members of Congress, mayors, governors, state legislators and even more obscure local officials, it does not determine the winner of the presidency , the highest office in the land.

That important decision ultimately falls to the Electoral College . When Americans cast their ballots, they are actually voting for a slate of electors appointed by their state’s political parties who are pledged to support that party’s candidate. (They don’t always do so.)

This leads to an intense focus on battleground states , as candidates look to boost their electoral advantage by targeting states that can help them reach the needed 270 votes of the 538 up for grabs. The Electoral College also inspires many what-if scenarios, some of them more likely than others.

Where does the 2020 electoral count stand?

On Dec. 14, as electors gathered across the country to cast their ballots, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had earned 306 electoral votes , 36 more than needed to win. President Trump had earned 232 electoral votes. Mr. Biden was leading in the popular vote, with more than 81 million votes. More than 74 million votes had been counted for Mr. Trump.

The New York Times called the last two states on its map on Nov. 13: Georgia’s 16 electoral votes for Mr. Biden and North Carolina’s 15 for Mr. Trump.

Can a president lose the popular vote but still win the election?

Yes, and that is what happened in 2016: Although Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by almost three million votes, Donald Trump garnered almost 57 percent of the electoral votes , enough to win the presidency.

The same thing happened in 2000. Although Al Gore won the popular vote, George W. Bush earned more electoral votes after a contested Florida recount and a Supreme Court decision .

And in 1888, Benjamin Harrison defeated the incumbent president, Grover Cleveland, in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote. Cleveland ran again four years later and won back the White House.

Other presidents who lost the popular vote but won the presidency include John Quincy Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes in the elections of 1824 and 1876.

The House of Representatives picked Adams over Andrew Jackson, who won the popular vote but only a plurality of the Electoral College. A special commission named by the House chose Hayes over Samuel J. Tilden, after 20 electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were disputed.

The Electoral College has also awarded the presidency to candidates with a plurality of the popular vote (under 50 percent) in a number of cases, notably Abraham Lincoln in 1860, John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

What happens in a tie?

Because there is now an even number of electoral votes, a tie is feasible. If that happens in the Electoral College, then the decision goes to the newly seated House of Representatives, with each state voting as a unit.

Although it’s not detailed in the Constitution, each state delegation would vote on which candidate to support as a group, with the plurality carrying the day, said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. If there is a tie vote in a state’s delegation, the state’s vote would not count. A presidential candidate needs at least 26 votes to win.

Currently , Republicans control 26 state delegations, while Democrats control 22. Pennsylvania is tied between Republican and Democratic representatives, and Michigan has seven Democrats, six Republicans and one independent. That could change on Nov. 3 of course, because all House seats are up for election.

The decision on vice president goes to the newly elected Senate, with each senator casting a vote. Ultimately, any disputes about the procedure could land everything in the Supreme Court.

What if electors break their pledge?

People call them “faithless electors.” In 2016, seven electors — 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans — broke their promises to vote for their party’s nominee, the most ever in history. They voted for a variety of candidates not on the ballot: Bernie Sanders, Colin Powell and Ron Paul, among others. It did not change the outcome.

Whether electors should be able to change their positions has been heavily debated, so much so that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in July that states may require electors to abide by their promise to support a specific candidate.

Some scholars have said they do not wholeheartedly agree with the decision, arguing that it endangers an elector’s freedom to make decisions they want and that electors are usually picked for their loyalty to a candidate or party.

“They will do as promised if the candidates do a very good job vetting them and picking people who are rock-solid,” Professor Amar said.

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws that require electors to vote for their pledged candidate. Some states replace electors and cancel their votes if they break their pledge.

Certain penalties exist in other states. In New Mexico , electors can be charged with a felony if they abandon their pledge, and in Oklahoma a faithless elector could face a misdemeanor charge.

How did this system evolve?

The Electoral College was born at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

The nation’s founders hoped to quell the formation of powerful factions and political parties, and they wanted a mechanism that did not rely solely on popular majorities or Congress. Despite the name, it is not a college in the modern educational sense , but refers to a collegium or group of colleagues.

The system had some unusual results from the start, as evident in the election of 1800 , a tie in which Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received an equal number of electoral votes. Congress broke the tie, and Jefferson became president and Burr became vice president. (Until the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804, the candidate with the second-highest number of electoral votes became vice president.)

Today, electors meet in their respective states on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December — Dec. 14 this year — to cast separate ballots for president and vice president, with the candidates who receive a majority of votes being elected.

Electors are chosen every four years in the months leading up to Election Day by their respective state’s political parties. Processes vary from state to state, with some choosing electors during state Republican and Democratic conventions. Some states list electors’ names on the general election ballot.

The process of choosing electors can be an “insider’s game,” said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore and the author of “What You Need to Know About Voting and Why.” They are often state legislators, party leaders or donors, she said.

How many electoral votes does it take to win?

The important number is 270. A total of 538 electoral votes are in play across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The total number of electoral votes assigned to each state varies depending on population, but each state has at least three, and the District of Columbia has had three electors since 1961.

Are all states winner-take-all?

Most are, and it helps to think of voting on a state-by-state basis, Professor Amar said.

“It’s just like in tennis,” he said. “It’s how many sets you win and not how many games or points you win. You have to win the set, and in our system, you have to win the state.”

Two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska , which rely on congressional districts to divvy up electoral votes. The winner of the state’s popular vote gets two electoral votes, and one vote is awarded to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district.

There are arguments that the states with smaller populations are overrepresented in the Electoral College, because every state gets at least 3 electors regardless of population. In a stark example, sparsely populated Wyoming has three votes and a population of about 580,000, giving its individual voters far more clout in the election than their millions of counterparts in densely populated states like Florida, California and New York. And the American citizens who live in territories like Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are not represented by any electors.

“When you talk about the Electoral College shaping the election, it shapes the election all the time because it puts the focus on certain states and not others,” said Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard University.

Will the system ever change?

For years there have been debates about abolishing the Electoral College entirely, with the 2016 election bringing the debate back to the surface. It was even a talking point among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates .

The idea has public support, but faces a partisan divide, since Republicans currently benefit from the electoral clout of less populous, rural states.

Gallup reports 61 percent of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans.

One route would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

Some hope to reduce the Electoral College’s importance without an amendment. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, which together control 196 electoral votes, have signed on to an interstate compact in which they pledge to grant their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. (Voters in one of those states, Colorado, on Nov. 3 backed membership in the compact after opponents of the measure collected enough signatures to put the law on the ballot as a referendum.) The local laws would take effect only once the compact has enough states to total 270 electoral votes.

Lastly, an election-related case could find its way to the Supreme Court, which would lend greater importance to the judicial makeup of the court , Professor Wehle said.

“It only takes five people with life tenure to actually amend this Constitution through a judicial opinion,” she said.

Allyson Waller is part of the 2020-2021 New York Times Fellowship class and is a general assignment reporter on the Express desk. More about Allyson Waller

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Electoral College

The Electoral College decides who will be elected president and vice president of the U.S. Learn who is involved and how the process works.

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is not a physical place. It is a process which includes the:

• Selection of electors
• Meeting of electors who cast votes for the president and vice president
• Counting of the electors’ votes by Congress

In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen through the Electoral College process.

Who is in the Electoral College?

Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all. Find out how many electoral votes each state gets.

Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state. Learn more about how electors are chosen.

How does the Electoral College process work?

After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system.

A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors—to win the presidential election.

In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states. See the Electoral College timeline of events for the 2020 election.

While the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state's popular vote, some states do. The rare elector who votes for someone else may be fined, disqualified and replaced by a substitute elector, or potentially even prosecuted by their state.

Learn more about how the Electoral College works.

Unusual Electoral College scenarios

Winning the popular vote but losing the election.

It is possible to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote . This happened in 2016, 2000, and three times in the 1800s.

What happens if no candidate wins the majority of electoral votes?

If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes,  the vote goes to the House of Representatives .

This has happened twice. The first time was following the 1800 presidential election, when the House chose Thomas Jefferson. And following the 1824 presidential election, the House selected John Quincy Adams as president.

How to change the Electoral College

The Electoral College process is in the U.S. Constitution. It would take a constitutional amendment to change the process. For more information, contact your U.S. senator or your U.S. representative .

LAST UPDATED: March 14, 2024

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The Electoral College Explained

A national popular vote would help ensure that every vote counts equally, making American democracy more representative.

• Electoral College Reform

In the United States, the presidency is decided not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College — an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes yields results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters. On five occasions, including in two of the last six elections, candidates have won the Electoral College, and thus the presidency, despite losing the nationwide popular vote. 

The Electoral College has racist origins — when established, it applied the three-fifths clause, which gave a long-term electoral advantage to slave states in the South — and continues to dilute the political power of voters of color. It incentivizes presidential campaigns to focus on a relatively small number of “swing states.” Together, these dynamics have spurred debate about the system’s democratic legitimacy.

To make the United States a more representative democracy, reformers are pushing for the presidency to be decided instead by the national popular vote, which would help ensure that every voter counts equally.

What is the Electoral College and how does it work?

The Electoral College is a group of intermediaries designated by the Constitution to select the president and vice president of the United States. Each of the 50 states is allocated presidential electors  equal to the number of its representatives and senators . The ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 allowed citizens in the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections as well; they have consistently had three electors.

In total, the Electoral College comprises  538 members . A presidential candidate must win a majority of the electoral votes cast to win — at least 270 if all 538 electors vote.

The Constitution grants state legislatures the power to decide how to appoint their electors. Initially, a number of state legislatures directly  selected their electors , but during the 19th century they transitioned to the popular vote, which is now used by  all 50 states . In other words, each awards its electoral votes to the presidential candidate chosen by the state’s voters.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia use a winner-take-all system, awarding all of their electoral votes to the popular vote winner in the state. Maine and Nebraska award one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of their congressional districts and their remaining two electoral votes to the statewide winner. Under this system, those two states sometimes split their electoral votes among candidates.

In the months leading up to the general election, the political parties in each state typically nominate their own slates of would-be electors. The state’s popular vote determines which party’s slates will be made electors. Members of the Electoral College  meet and vote in their respective states  on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December after Election Day. Then, on January 6, a joint session of Congress meets at the Capitol to count the electoral votes and declare the outcome of the election, paving the way for the presidential inauguration on January 20.

How was the Electoral College established?

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 settled on the Electoral College as a compromise between delegates who thought Congress should select the president and others who favored a direct nationwide popular vote. Instead, state legislatures were entrusted with appointing electors.

Article II  of the Constitution, which established the executive branch of the federal government, outlined the framers’ plan for the electing the president and vice president. Under this plan, each elector cast two votes for president; the candidate who received the most votes became the president, with the second-place finisher becoming vice president — which led to administrations in which political opponents served in those roles. The process was overhauled in 1804 with the ratification of the  12th Amendment , which required electors to cast votes separately for president and vice president. 

How did slavery shape the Electoral College?

At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the northern states and southern states had  roughly equal populations . However, nonvoting enslaved people made up about one-third of the southern states’ population. As a result, delegates from the South objected to a direct popular vote in presidential elections, which would have given their states less electoral representation.

The debate contributed to the convention’s eventual decision to establish the Electoral College, which applied the  three-fifths compromise  that had already been devised for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. Three out of five enslaved people were counted as part of a state’s total population, though they were nonetheless prohibited from voting.

Wilfred U. Codrington III, an assistant professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and a Brennan Center fellow,  writes  that the South’s electoral advantage contributed to an “almost uninterrupted trend” of presidential election wins by southern slaveholders and their northern sympathizers throughout the first half of the 19th century. After the Civil War, in 1876, a contested Electoral College outcome was settled by a compromise in which the House awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency with the understanding that he would withdraw military forces from the Southern states. This led to the end of Reconstruction and paved the way for racial segregation under Jim Crow laws.

Today, Codrington argues, the Electoral College continues to dilute the political power of Black voters: “Because the concentration of black people is highest in the South, their preferred presidential candidate is virtually assured to lose their home states’ electoral votes. Despite black voting patterns to the contrary, five of the six states whose populations are 25 percent or more black have been reliably red in recent presidential elections. … Under the Electoral College, black votes are submerged.”

What are faithless electors?  

Ever since the 19th century reforms, states have expected their electors to honor the will of the voters. In other words, electors are now pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state. However, the Constitution does not require them to do so, which allows for scenarios in which “faithless electors” have voted against the popular vote winner in their states. As of 2016, there have been  90 faithless electoral votes  cast out of 23,507 in total across all presidential elections. The 2016 election saw a record-breaking  seven faithless electors , including three who voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was not a presidential candidate at the time.  

Currently, 33 states and the District of Columbia  require their presidential electors  to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Only 5 states, however, impose a penalty on faithless electors, and only 14 states provide for faithless electors to be removed or for their votes to be canceled. In July 2020, the Supreme Court  unanimously upheld  existing state laws that punish or remove faithless electors.

What happens if no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes?

If no ticket wins a majority of Electoral College votes, the presidential election is  sent to the House of Representatives  for a runoff. Unlike typical House practice, however, each state only gets one vote, decided by the party that controls the state’s House delegation. Meanwhile, the vice-presidential race is decided in the Senate, where each member has one vote. This scenario  has not transpired since 1836 , when the Senate was tasked with selecting the vice president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

Are Electoral College votes distributed equally between states?

Each state is allocated a number of electoral votes based on the total size of its congressional delegation. This benefits smaller states, which have at least three electoral votes — including two electoral votes tied to their two Senate seats, which are guaranteed even if they have a small population and thus a small House delegation. Based on population trends, those disparities will likely increase as the most populous states are expected to account for an even greater share of the U.S. population in the decades ahead. 

What did the 2020 election reveal about the Electoral College?

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump and his allies fueled an effort to overturn the results of the election, spreading repeated lies about widespread voter fraud. This included attempts by a number of state legislatures to nullify some of their states’ votes, which often targeted jurisdictions with large numbers of Black voters. Additionally, during the certification process for the election, some members of Congress also objected to the Electoral College results, attempting to throw out electors from certain states. While these efforts ultimately failed, they revealed yet another vulnerability of the election system that stems from the Electoral College.

The  Electoral Count Reform Act , enacted in 2023, addresses these problems. Among other things, it clarifies which state officials have the power to appoint electors, and it bars any changes to that process after Election Day, preventing state legislatures from setting aside results they do not like. The new law also raises the threshold for consideration of objections to electoral votes. It is now one-fifth of each chamber instead of one senator and one representative.  Click here for more on the changes made by the Electoral Count Reform Act.

What are ways to reform the Electoral College to make presidential elections more democratic?

Abolishing the Electoral College outright would require a constitutional amendment. As a workaround, scholars and activist groups have rallied behind the  National Popular Vote Interstate Compact  (NPV), an effort that started after the 2000 election. Under it, participating states would  commit to awarding their electoral votes  to the winner of the national popular vote.

In other words, the NPV would formally retain the Electoral College but render it moot, ensuring that the winner of the national popular vote also wins the presidency. If enacted, the NPV would incentivize presidential candidates to expand their campaign efforts nationwide, rather than focus only on a small number of swing states.

For the NPV to take effect, it must first be adopted by states that control at least 270 electoral votes. In 2007, Maryland became the first state to enact the compact. As of 2019, a total of 19 states and Washington, DC, which collectively account for 196 electoral votes, have joined.

The public has consistently supported a nationwide popular vote. A 2020 poll by Pew Research Center, for example, found that  58 percent of adults  prefer a system in which the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins the presidency.

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A simplified explanation of the Electoral College

Answers to your questions about this American institution.

• Marie Rossiter
• November 5, 2020

As the United States continues to wait for the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, we’re all tracking the Electoral College count. But what is the Electoral College, anyway?

Our system doesn’t seem so complicated: We cast our votes for a candidate. Why isn’t the outcome based on the popular vote? Why do we even need the Electoral College? And where did it come from?

Here’s a quick primer on the Electoral College and how it figures in our elections every four years.

What Is The Electoral College?

The Electoral College is a system put into place by our founding fathers following the American Revolution. As part of the U.S. Constitution — Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 , to be precise — the government set up a system of electors who would act as the representatives for the voters in each state. The electors cast the final vote for the country’s president.

So when you vote for president, you’re technically voting for an elector to cast an electoral vote for you.

How Many Electors Are In The Electoral College System?

There are a total of 538 total electors in the Electoral College. Each state gets an elector for each representative they have in Congress — both senators plus every House member.

This is known as an indirect popular election. Our founding fathers came up with this system, in part, to help states with a smaller population still have a sense that their voices were equally valued compared to larger states with more people.

Other framers felt that such a decision as important as a nation’s president shouldn’t be left up to a simple majority vote . They thought there should be a buffer between the people and the direct decision to the presidency.

How Many Electors Does A Candidate Need To Win The Presidency?

The magic number for any presidential candidate is 270 electors to win the election. These are the numbers every news outlet talks about throughout election night (and into the days that follow). It’s a simple majority: divide the 538 total electors by two, then add one for the majority.

How Do States Allocate Electors?

Most states have a winner take all policy. If the candidate wins the overall popular vote in the state, he or she wins all of that state’s electoral votes. There are two exceptions to this rule: Maine and Nebraska. These states allocate two electoral votes for the state’s winner of the popular vote, plus one electoral vote for the winner of the popular vote in each Congressional district, according to 270 to Win .

The winner-take-all system means that it doesn’t matter if a candidate wins a commanding lead in a state or just barely squeaks into the majority. That candidate gets all of the electoral votes for the state regardless — which is how we’ve ended up with candidates who won the Electoral College but not the popular vote.

How Many Times Has A Candidate Won The Electoral College But Lost The Popular Vote?

It’s happened five times in our history :

• 1824: John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson in the Electoral College
• 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden
• 1888: Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland
• 2000: George W. Bush defeated Al Gore
• 2016: Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton

Once A Candidate Reaches 270 Electoral Votes, Is The Election Over?

No. Here’s the even crazier part of our Electoral College system: Even after every single voter’s ballot is counted, the presidential election is not officially over. That doesn’t happen until the electors cast their ballots, which will happen this year on Dec. 14 .

That’s because our constitution mandates that “on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States.”

Can We Change The Electoral College?

The only way to change our presidential election process is through a constitutional amendment — which is difficult to do. This is why some opponents of the Electoral College system have come up with a workaround — the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. When a state joins the compact, it agrees to cast its electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, thus undercutting the Electoral College. Fifteen states have joined the compact; a 16th, Colorado, voted on whether to join the compact on the 2020 ballot, but the results weren’t in at publication time.

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Why Was the Electoral College Created?

By: Dave Roos

Updated: December 14, 2020 | Original: July 15, 2019

Five times in history, presidential candidates have won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College . This has led some to question why Americans use this system to elect their presidents in the first place.

Among the many thorny questions debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention , one of the hardest to resolve was how to elect the president. The Founding Fathers debated for months, with some arguing that Congress should pick the president and others insistent on a democratic popular vote.

Their compromise is known as the Electoral College.

What Is the Electoral College?

The system calls for the creation, every four years, of a temporary group of electors equal to the total number of representatives in Congress. Technically, it is these electors, and not the American people, who vote for the president. In modern elections, the first candidate to get 270 of the 538 total electoral votes wins the White House.

The Electoral College was never intended to be the “perfect” system for picking the president, says George Edwards III , emeritus political science professor at Texas A&M University.

“It wasn’t like the Founders said, ‘Hey, what a great idea! This is the preferred way to select the chief executive, period,’” says Edwards. “They were tired, impatient, frustrated. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.”

Electoral College: A System Born of Compromise

At the time of the Philadelphia convention, no other country in the world directly elected its chief executive, so the delegates were wading into uncharted territory. Further complicating the task was a deep-rooted distrust of executive power. After all, the fledgling nation had just fought its way out from under a tyrannical king and overreaching colonial governors. They didn’t want another despot on their hands.

One group of delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldn’t have anything to do with picking the president. Too much opportunity for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches.

Another camp was dead set against letting the people elect the president by a straight popular vote. First, they thought 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong “democratic mob” steering the country astray. And third, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

Out of those drawn-out debates came a compromise based on the idea of electoral intermediaries. These intermediaries wouldn’t be picked by Congress or elected by the people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent “electors” who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

Slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise

But determining exactly how many electors to assign to each state was another sticking point. Here the divide was between slave-owning and non-slave-owning states. It was the same issue that plagued the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives: should or shouldn’t the Founders include slaves in counting a state’s population?

In 1787, roughly 40 percent of people living in the Southern states were enslaved Black people, who couldn’t vote. James Madison from Virginia—where enslaved people accounted for 60 percent of the population—knew that either a direct presidential election, or one with electors divvied up according to free white residents only, wouldn’t fly in the South.

“The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States,” said Madison, “and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.”

The result was the controversial “three-fifths compromise,” in which three-fifths of the enslaved Black population would be counted toward allocating representatives and electors and calculating federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Southern states would ratify the Constitution and gave Virginia, home to more than 200,000 slaves, a quarter (12) of the total electoral votes required to win the presidency (46).

Did you know? For 32 of the United States’ first 36 years, a slave-holding Virginian occupied the White House (John Adams from Massachusetts was the exception).

Not only was the creation of the Electoral College in part a political workaround for the persistence of slavery in the United States, but almost none of the Founding Fathers’ assumptions about the electoral system proved true.

For starters, there were no political parties in 1787. The drafters of the Constitution assumed that electors would vote according to their individual discretion, not the dictates of a state or national party. Today, most electors are bound to vote for their party’s candidate.

And even more important, the Constitution says nothing about how the states should allot their electoral votes. The assumption was that each elector’s vote would be counted. But over time, all but two states (Maine and Nebraska) passed laws to give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote count. Any semblance of elector independence has been fully wiped out.

The Founders also assumed that most elections would ultimately be decided by neither the people nor the electors, but by the House of Representatives. According to the Constitution, if no single candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes, the decision goes to the House, where each state gets one vote.

After the unanimous election of George Washington as the nation’s first president, the Founders figured that consequent elections would feature tons of candidates who would divide up the electoral pie into tiny chunks, giving Congress a chance to pick the winner. But as soon as national political parties formed, the number of presidential candidates shrank. Only two U.S. elections have been decided by the House and the last one was in 1824.

Why We Still Use the Electoral College

So why does the Electoral College still exist, despite its contentious origins and awkward fit with modern politics? The party in power typically benefits from the existence of the Electoral College, says Edwards, and the minority party has little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states. 

Columnist George Will shudders to think of what would have happened in the 1960 election if there had been no Electoral College.

“ John F. Kennedy ’s popular vote margin over Richard M. Nixon was just 118,574,” writes Will. “If all 68,838,219 popular votes had been poured into a single national bucket, there would have been powerful incentives to challenge the results in many of the nation’s 170,000 precincts.”

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Electoral College

Roles and Responsibilities in the Electoral College Process

The term “State” includes the District of Columbia, and the term “Executive” includes State Governors and the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The electors

On the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States. Read more about the qualifications and selection of the electors and restrictions , if any, on how they may vote.

The U.S. Constitution and Federal law place certain Presidential election responsibilities on State executives and the electors for President and Vice President.

Appoint electors

The Constitution and Federal law generally do not prescribe the method of appointment, but there are some requirements. States are required to appoint electors in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to Election Day. Electors must be appointed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (Election Day*).

*States that appoint electors by popular vote (currently all) may include a modified voting period necessitated by force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic as part of ‘election day’.

In most States, the political parties nominate slates of electors at State conventions or central committee meetings. Then the voters of each State choose the electors by voting for their preferred candidates in the state-wide general election. While State laws on the appointment of electors may vary, in general the slate of electors that wins the popular vote is appointed by the State's Executive.

Under the Constitution and Federal law, State legislatures have broad powers to direct the process for selecting electors, as long as that process is in place before Election Day, with one exception regarding the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution provides that “no Senator, Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” may be appointed as an elector.

Prepare the Certificate of Ascertainment

After the general election, the Executive of each State prepares seven (7) original Certificates of Ascertainment listing the persons appointed as electors. The Executive is required to issue a Certificate no later than 6 days before the electors meet. Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Ascertainment, so the format can vary from State to State. However, Federal law requires that each Certificate of Ascertainment must:

• list the names of the electors chosen by the voters and the number of votes received.
• list the names of all other candidates for elector and the number of votes received.
• be signed by the Executive and carry the seal of the State.
• contain at least one security feature, as determined by the State, for purposes of verifying the authenticity of the certificate.

Note : Federal law prescribes an expedited procedure for resolving disputes before this deadline (see 3 U.S.C. §5).

Distribute the Certificate of Ascertainment

Each State must send one Certificate of Ascertainment to the Archivist of the United States at OFR immediately after the general election results are finalized.

Each State must retain the other six originals and provide them to the electors for the State’s meeting of the electors.

Hold the Meeting of electors

On the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States. The State legislature designates where in the State the meeting will take place, usually in the State capital. At this meeting, the electors cast their votes for President and Vice President.

If any electors are unable to carry out their duties on the day of the Electoral College meeting, each State appoints substitute electors following its own laws and procedures.

The meeting location and all procedures (including for appointing substitute electors) must be in place before election day.

There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their States. But some States do have specific voting requirements.

Prepare the Certificate of Vote

Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Vote, so the format can vary from State to State. The electors must execute six Certificates of Vote. Federal law requires that each Certificate of Vote must:

• list all persons who received electoral votes for President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
• list all persons who received votes for Vice President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
• not contain the names of persons who did not receive electoral votes.
• be signed by all of the electors.
• be attached to an original Certificates of Ascertainment retained by the State.
• must be sealed up and certified by the electors, after being paired with the Certificate of Ascertainment, as containing the list of electoral votes of that State for President and Vice President.

Distribute the Paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment

Each State must send the six pairs of Certificates to designated Federal and State officials immediately after the meeting of the electors.

When the paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment have been delivered to the designated Federal and State officials, the States' Electoral College duties are complete.

OFR and NARA

The Archivist of the United States is required by law to perform certain functions relating to the Electoral College (3 U.S.C. §§ 6, 11, 12, 13). The Archivist has delegated the authority to carry out the administration of the Electoral College process to the Director of the Federal Register.

Before Election Day

In the months leading up to Election Day of each Presidential election year, the Archivist sends a letter to the Executive of each State referencing the States’ responsibilities regarding the Electoral College and directing them to this website. OFR prepares to receive the Electoral College Certificates from the States and contacts Congressional staff to make arrangements for the delivery of the Electoral College Certificates to Congress.

During the weeks immediately before and after the general election, OFR interacts with each State to identify those responsible for the Electoral College process within that State.

Receipt of Certificates of Ascertainment

Certificates of Ascertainment should begin arriving at NARA and OFR within a few weeks following election day. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Ascertainment, OFR notifies the State's point(s) of contact about the problem. After the Certificates of Ascertainment have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on this website.

Receipt of Certificates of Vote

Certificates of Vote begin arriving at NARA and OFR shortly after the meeting of the electors. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Vote it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Vote it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial legal sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Vote, OFR notifies the State's point(s) of contact about the problem. After the Certificates of Vote have been determined to be facially sufficient, OFR posts them on its website.

Certificates of Vote Subject to the Call of the President of the Senate

OFR holds one of the two original Certificate of Vote pairs subject to the call of the President of the Senate in case one or more of the Certificates of Vote fail to reach the Senate on time. If the Archivist does not receive a Certificate of Vote from a State by a week after the meeting of the electors, OFR calls that State's point(s) of contact to make sure the Certificates of Vote were sent and asks the State to trace the package. If OFR does not receive any Certificates of Vote from a State by the deadline for receipt of electoral votes (the fourth Wednesday in December), OFR gets a duplicate original from the chief election officer of the State or the Federal District judge (3 U.S.C. §§ 12 and 13).

Preserving Certificates

After Congress has met in joint session for the official counting of electoral votes, all Certificates of Ascertainment and Certificates of Vote remain available for public inspection at OFR for one year and then are transferred to NARA for permanent retention.

House and Senate staff meet with OFR staff to inspect the Certificates of Vote in late December. If any State’s Certificate fails to reach the President of the Senate, the President of the Senate calls on OFR to deliver duplicate originals in its possession to complete the set held by Congress.

Congress meets in joint session in the House of Representatives on January 6 to count the electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer, whose powers are limited by Federal statute to performing ministerial duties. The President of the Senate opens the votes of the States in alphabetical order, and hands them to the appointed Tellers, who announce the results out loud. The President of the Senate then calls for any objections.

To be recognized, an objection must:

• be submitted in writing
• be signed by at least one-fifth of the House and one-fifth of the Senate
• a. the electors of the State were not lawfully certified under a Certificate of Ascertainment, or
• b. the vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given.

If an objection is recognized, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits of any objections, following the process set out in 3 U.S.C. §§  15 and 17 . After all the votes are recorded and counted, the President of the Senate declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States. Read more about the qualifications and selection of the electors and restrictions , if any, on how they may vote.

The States*

• Certificates of Ascertainment
• Meeting of electors
• Certificates of Vote

*On this page, "State" includes the District of Columbia and "Governor" includes the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The Constitution and Federal law do not prescribe the method of appointment other than requiring that electors must be appointed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (Election Day). In most States, the political parties nominate slates of electors at State conventions or central committee meetings. Then the citizens of each State appoint the electors by popular vote in the state-wide general election. However, State laws on the appointment of electors may vary.

Under the Constitution, State legislatures have broad powers to direct the process for selecting electors, with one exception regarding the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 provides that “no Senator, Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” may be appointed as an elector.

After the general election, the Governor of each State prepares at least seven** original Certificates of Ascertainment listing the persons appointed as electors. Since Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Ascertainment, the format can vary from State to State. However, Federal law requires that each Certificate of Ascertainment must:

• be signed by the Governor and carry the seal of the State.

**States have the option of creating nine original Certificates or seven original Certificates and two certified copies. They then send three original Certificates or one Certificate along with the two certified copies.

Each State must send at least one Certificate of Ascertainment to the Archivist of the United States at OFR as soon as possible after the general election results are finalized. At the very latest, they must be prepared so that the electors are appointed by the meeting of the electors and sent to the Archivist with the Certificates of Vote.

Each State must retain the other six Certificates for legal sufficiency. Each State must retain the other six originals for the State’s meeting of the electors.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States. The State legislature designates where in the State the meeting will take place, usually in the State capital. At this meeting, the electors cast their votes for President and Vice President.

If any electors are unable to carry out their duties on the day of the Electoral College meeting, each State appoints substitute electors following its own laws and procedures. Each State must resolve any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of electors under under its own law at least six days before the meeting of the electors.

Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Vote so the format can vary from State to State. The electors must execute six Certificates of Vote. Federal law requires that each Certificate of Vote must:

• must be sealed and certified by the electors, after being paired with the Certificate of Ascertainment, as containing the list of electoral votes of that State for President and Vice President.

Each State must send the six pairs of Certificates to designated Federal and State officials as soon as possible after the meeting of the electors because the statutory deadline for receipt the electoral votes is just over a week after the meeting of the electors. This is followed closely by the counting of electoral votes in Congress on January 6.

When the paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment have been delivered to the designated Federal and Sate officials, the States' Electoral College duties are complete.

The Archivist of the United States is required by law to perform certain functions relating to the Electoral College (3 U.S.C. sections 6 , 11 , 12 , 13 ). The Archivist has delegated the authority to carry out the administration of the Electoral College process to the Director of the Federal Register.

In the months leading up to Election Day of each Presidential election year, the Archivist sends a letter to the Governor of each State and the Mayor of the District of Columbia referencing the States’ responsibilities regarding the Electoral College and directing them to this website. OFR prepares to receive the Electoral College Certificates from the States and contacts Congressional staff to make arrangements for the delivery of the Electoral College Certificates to Congress.

After Election Day

During the week following the general election, OFR contacts each State and the Mayor’s Office in the District of Columbia to make a personal contact with a person responsible for the Electoral College process.

Certificates of Ascertainment should begin arriving at NARA and OFR within a few weeks after election day. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Ascertainment, OFR tells the contact person in the State about the problem. After the Certificates of Ascertainment have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on this website.

Certificates of Vote begin arriving at NARA and OFR shortly after the Meeting of the Electors. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Vote it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Vote it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial legal sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Vote, OFR tells the contact person in the State about the problem. After the Certificates of Vote have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on its website.

OFR holds one of the two original Certificates of Vote subject to the call of the President of the Senate in case one or more of the Certificates of Vote fail to reach the Senate on time. If the Archivist does not receive a Certificate of Vote from a State by a week after the meeting of the electors, OFR calls that State's contact person to make sure the Certificates of Vote were sent and asks the State to trace the package. If OFR does not receive any Certificates of Vote from a State by the deadline for receipt of electoral votes, OFR gets a duplicate original from the Secretary of State of the State or the Federal District judge (3 U.S.C. sections 12 and 13 ).

Congress meets in joint session in the House of Representatives on January 6 to count the electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer. Tellers open, present, and record the votes of the States in alphabetical order. The President of the Senate announces the results of the State vote and then calls for any objections. To be recognized, an objection must be submitted in writing and be signed by at least one member of the House and one Senator. If an objection is recognized, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits of any objections, following the process set out in 3 U.S.C. § 15 . After all the votes are recorded and counted, the President of the Senate declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

NEW WHTE PAPER: Prosecuting Political Leaders During an Election

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Proportional representation, explained

• Shaping the Democracy of Tomorrow
• Research & Analysis
• December 5, 2023

How our electoral system shapes our politics

Proportional representation is an electoral system that elects multiple representatives in each district in proportion to the number of people who vote for them. If one third of voters back a political party, the party’s candidates win roughly one-third of the seats. Today, proportional representation is the most common electoral system among the world’s democracies. 

How is this different from what the United States uses? 

Every American today lives in a district that elects a single representative for congressional and most state legislative elections. Voters cast a vote for a candidate, one candidate wins, and all the others lose. This makes our elections “winner-take-all” — if a candidate wins 51 percent of the vote, she wins 100 percent of the representation. Any voters who did not back the winning candidate are not represented in government by a candidate for whom they voted. 

Read more: How open are Americans to electoral system reform? Read more: How open are Americans to electoral system reform?

In contrast, proportional representation uses multi-seat districts with representation allocated in proportion to votes. For example, in a six-seat district, if a party’s candidates win 51 percent of the vote, they would be expected to win three of the six seats — rather than 100 percent. Unlike with winner-take-all, under proportional representation, most groups tend to have at least one elected official representing their viewpoint in government.

The problems with winner-take-all

According to scholarly research, winner-take-all elections are causing or aggravating some of the most pressing problems undermining American democracy. These include: 

With winner-take-all, 51 percent (and sometimes less) of the electorate wins 100 percent of the representation in a district. This leads to unrepresentative outcomes. For example, despite a third of Massachusetts reliably voting Republican, Democrats control all nine U.S. House seats. Likewise, in Oklahoma, while a third of the electorate votes for Democrats, all five of its House seats are Republican.

Winner-take-all systems are uniquely susceptible to gerrymandering. But in proportional systems, manipulating district lines for partisan gain is often functionally impossible — multi-winner districts are simply too difficult to gerrymander. Want to get rid of gerrymandering? Adopt a system of proportional representation.

Winner-take-all elections uniquely disadvantage racial, ethnic, religious, and other political minorities, especially when they do not live in geographically concentrated areas and with district lines deliberately drawn around them. By contrast, minority representation tends to improve under proportional systems by allowing groups to win representation in proportion to their numbers , regardless of where they live.

Because winner-take-all elections make it easy for a single party to dominate in a district, they tend to depress political competition. As soon as a party can count on 55-60% of the vote, a district becomes “safe.” Except in a small number of swing districts, competition shifts to low-turnout primaries where candidates tend to be pulled to the extremes . By contrast, proportional systems tend to be more competitive: with more seats in contention per district, more parties and their candidates are incentivized to compete.

Winner-take-all systems tend to produce two-party systems, which are more likely to increase affective polarization — meaning voters from opposing parties don’t just disagree with one another, but come to reflexively distrust and dislike one another. Because multi-winner races create space for more than two parties, proportional representation tends to produce more fluid coalitions, which research finds helps to temper polarization .

By definition, winner-take-all elections are high stakes. Marginal differences in support for either of two parties can mean total victory or total defeat. Politicians are often incentivized to do everything they can to beat their opponents, even at the expense of problem solving, good governance, or maintaining democratic norms. Voters and politicians who lose in winner-take-all elections are less likely to trust democratic institutions , and more likely to resort to violence .

Researchers are especially concerned about the use of winner-take-all elections in highly polarized and diverse societies like the United States. As one global study of democratization concluded, “if any generalization about institutional design is sustainable,” it is that winner-take-all electoral systems “are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.”

‘[I]f any generalization about institutional design is sustainable,’ it is that winner-take-all electoral systems ‘are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.’ Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation

Potential benefits of proportional representation

Varieties of proportional representation.

In practice, proportional representation comes in many different versions. Most fit into one of four categories. 

Open List 

Think: Voting for a candidate and their party

In open list systems, each political party has a slate of candidates running for office (as in a primary election), and voters choose a candidate from one of the lists. Parties are allocated seats in proportion to the total number of votes their candidates receive, and the candidates who receive the most votes are elected. For example, a voter may select one Democrat from a list of Democrats running. In a six-seat district, if the Democrats together win 50 percent of the vote, the three Democratic candidates with the most votes are elected.

Closed List

Think: Voting for a party, not for a candidate

In closed list systems, voters select a political party on a ballot rather than an individual candidate. Parties are allocated seats in proportion to the votes they receive, and candidates are seated in the order determined by the party itself. For example, a voter may select the Republican Party on the ballot, but not an individual candidate. In a six-seat district, if Republicans win 50 percent of the vote, the party is allocated three seats, and the top-three candidates on the party’s list are elected.

Mixed-Member Systems

Think: Proportional representation layered on top of single-member districts

Many countries use systems that blend components of winner-take-all and proportional representation, combining single-member districts with some number of additional seats allocated to parties proportionally. Voters make two choices: one for their single-winner district and one for a set of statewide seats allocated proportionally. For example, a given state could have three single-winner districts and three proportional seats. A party that gets 40% of the vote statewide could lose all three single-winner seats but still win one or two of the proportional seats.

Single Transferable Vote 

Think: Ranking candidate choices across the ballot

Some countries use a system where voters rank candidates, regardless of their party, and the top-ranked candidates are elected. Through successive rounds of ballot counting, votes are reallocated to lower preferences as candidates are either elected or eliminated. This goes on until the seats are filled. For example, if a voter’s first choice candidate comes in last, the candidate is eliminated and the vote is reallocated to the voter’s next preference in the next round of counting. Additionally, if a candidate gets more than the amount of votes needed to win a seat, the additional votes are also reallocated to the voters’ lower preferences.

It is clear that our winner-take-all system — where each U.S. House district is represented by a single person — is fundamentally broken. LETTER TO CONGRESS FROM 200+ POLITICAL SCIENTISTS, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Is proportional representation connected to ranked-choice voting?

Ranking candidates is a method of voting that is possible under both winner-take-all and proportional systems. While ranked-choice voting and proportional representation are compatible, they are also distinct reforms.

What about fusion voting?

Fusion voting, which allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate and “fuse” their support, is distinct from proportional representation and generally is only used with single-member districts. However, the two reforms share many of the same goals, such as making it easier for more parties to form, permitting more options for voters, and enabling more fluid political coalitions. 

Learn more →

Won’t more parties just lead to more gridlock and chaos?

While certain proportional systems are designed in a way that can generate dozens of parties (which can be destabilizing), most do not. Research finds that modest multiparty activity can lead to more effective governance, while two polarized parties can lead to dangerous levels of gridlock, as well as destabilizing change from one government to the next.

How can this be implemented in Congress?

Adopting proportional representation for the U.S. House is possible through regular lawmaking. Congress could implement proportional representation, or rather, give states the ability to experiment with different versions, through legislation alone. No constitutional amendment is needed.

Can proportional representation work in a presidential system?

Proportional representation is just as common in countries with presidential systems as it is in countries with parliamentary systems. In fact, presidential systems are more likely to use proportional representation for their legislatures, while combining presidentialism with winner-take-all is a rarity found only in four countries (the U.S., Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). 

What about state and local elections?

Any lawmaking body, from national and state legislatures to city councils and school boards, can be elected proportionally. Just like for Congress, implementing proportional representation in state legislatures could increase competition and representation and decrease polarization and antidemocratic extremism. But importantly, it could also encourage the de-nationalization of politics and a return to more localized concerns. 

Is large-scale electoral system change politically possible?

While changing electoral systems is politically difficult, it is far from impossible. Indeed, most democracies around the world have changed their electoral systems at least once, if not more. Several notable examples of reform in recent decades — New Zealand, Japan, and others — help illustrate how change can happen.

How would proportional representation work with the Voting Rights Act?

As long as proportional representation leads to minority representation that is as equivalent or better than winner-take-all outcomes, it is compatible with existing voting rights law. And in most cases, it expands the possibilities for minority representation beyond what is possible under winner-take-all rules. 

How does proportional representation fix gerrymandering?

The more seats a district has, the harder that district is to gerrymander. Most multi-winner districts are functionally impossible to manipulate for partisan gain. With a lower threshold required to win each seat, voters can no longer be predictably “cracked” between districts or “packed” into one district with any real effect.

How would proportional representation impact constituent services?

We don’t know for sure. However, all voters are, today, already serviced by three legislators: a congressperson and two senators. Research finds that constituent services may improve, as representatives compete with each other to provide better service and voters can select and engage with representatives who best represent their community and interests. Under proportional representation, most voters could contact a representative for whom they voted . 

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Many voters say Congress is broken. Could proportional representation fix it?

Hansi Lo Wang

A perimeter fence surrounds the U.S. Capitol in February ahead of President Biden's State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C. Mariam Zuhaib/AP hide caption

A perimeter fence surrounds the U.S. Capitol in February ahead of President Biden's State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C.

With an increasingly polarized Congress and fewer competitive elections , there are growing calls among some election reformers to change how voters elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

One potential alternative to the current winner-take-all approach for House races is known as proportional representation.

Instead of the single candidate with the most votes winning a House district's seat, a proportional representation system would elect multiple representatives in each district, distributing seats in the legislature roughly in proportion to the votes each party receives.

Supporters say proportional representation could help temper the rise of political extremism, eliminate the threat of gerrymandering and ensure the fair representation of people of color, as well as voters who are outnumbered in reliably "red" or "blue" parts of the country.

This story is part of a series of reports on alternatives to how U.S. voters cast ballots and elect their political leaders. Click here for more NPR voting stories .

And last year, a group of more than 200 political scientists, legal scholars and historians across the U.S. said the time for Congress to change is now.

"Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes, and isolates us from each other," they wrote in an open letter to lawmakers. "It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy."

But how exactly proportional representation could change House elections is an open question with major hurdles. There's a federal law that bans it, and many of its supporters acknowledge it would likely be years, if not decades, before a majority of lawmakers allow such a big, untested restructuring of Congress.

What could proportional representation in the House look like?

There's a spectrum of ways to reform the House using proportional representation. Two key factors are how many representatives a multi-member district would have and how winners of House seats would be proportionally allocated.

In 2021, Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia led a group of other House Democrats in reintroducing a proposal that's been floating around Congress since 2017 . The Fair Representation Act would require states to use ranked choice voting for House races. It calls for states with six or more representatives to create districts with three to five members each, and states with fewer than six representatives to elect all of them as at-large members of one statewide district.

Some advocates also raise the possibility of increasing the total number of House seats, which has been stuck at 435 seats for decades .

Stuck at 435 representatives? Why the U.S. House hasn't grown with census counts

While there's no consensus on the mechanics, supporters say moving toward proportional representation could allow the country's diversity to be better represented — including in communities where elections, outside of primaries, have become non-competitive.

"When you're looking at New York City, where I live, it's a city of almost 8.5 million people. And there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Republican voters who find themselves in districts with lopsided Democratic majorities," says Reihan Salam, a Brooklyn-based Republican who heads the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and has written in support of proportional representation .

Salam sees proportional representation as "something that would be hugely healthy for our politics to see to it that you don't just have competitive elections in a small, tiny handful of swing districts or swing states."

And that increased competition could push political parties to be more willing to compromise and negotiate, says Didi Kuo, a fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Kuo, who has studied versions of proportional representation systems in New Zealand, Italy and Japan, notes that many other democracies around the world have rewritten their rules "when some people are marginalized or excluded from representation, or when votes are not being translated into seats."

"How would you like it if there were a system where you could at least ensure that one person you like gets elected or one person of the party that you support?" Kuo says about what proportional representation could offer.

It could also lead to the rise of more political parties, which supporters say could boost voter turnout by expanding voters' choices in candidates.

But that could come with complications, warns Ruth Bloch Rubin, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

"We've seen how difficult it was to elect a speaker with just two parties, that when you introduce multiple parties, it increases the odds that you're going to have collective action problems, coordination problems. It's just going to be slower and harder to get people to reach agreement," says Bloch Rubin, who has written about the potential challenges that could come with switching from the current system of two major parties.

Why is proportional representation in the House against the law?

In 1967, Congress passed a law that bans a House district from electing more than one representative.

Courts hearing redistricting lawsuits at the time were considering ordering states with contested maps to use multi-member districts and hold statewide at-large elections as a temporary fix — a scenario that many lawmakers wanted to avoid. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, many lawmakers also wanted to block southern states from using multi-member districts and at-large, winner-take-all elections for the House to weaken the voting power of Black voters.

Since then, lawmakers, including Beyer, have introduced bills that would undo that requirement of single-member congressional districts and allow for multi-member districts.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell of California is seen in 2010. While serving in Congress back in 1999, Campbell testified in support of multi-member districts, which he says he still supports. Paul Sakuma/AP hide caption

While serving in Congress back in 1999, now-former Republican Rep. Tom Campbell of California testified in support of multi-member districts, which he says he still supports.

"No one looks at the House of Representatives today and says, 'There's a good model of functioning governance.' No one says that. And so the interest in trying something else has never been higher," says Campbell, who is now a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and has left the GOP to form the Common Sense Party of California.

But in recent years, there's been no public support for proportional representation from Republicans in Congress, which Campbell sees as a sign of how polarized Capitol Hill has become.

"A Republican who puts her name or his name on such a bill will be targeted in the next primary election for the simple reason that you are attempting to move towards a system that might allow more members of Congress who are not Republican," Campbell says.

For many representatives, regardless of party, there's not a lot of incentive to try and disrupt the status quo that got them elected, says Bloch Rubin, the political scientist at the University of Chicago.

"Everyone's adapted their campaign and electoral strategies for the way the rules currently function," Bloch Rubin adds.

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How could proportional representation ensure fair representation for people of color.

The U.S. Supreme Court's weakening of the Voting Rights Act over the past decade has helped fuel interest in proportional representation among some civil rights advocates.

While the high court upheld its past rulings on a key remaining section of that landmark law, the loss of other legal protections against racial discrimination in the election process has made it harder to ensure fair representation for people of color around the country.

"If you go into communities of color, they're increasingly disillusioned with the political process. And the system that we have now, in many ways, adds to that disillusionment," says Alora Thomas-Lundborg, strategic director of litigation and advocacy at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. "It's a winner-take-all system, meaning that if you happen to be in a district where you don't represent the plurality of votes, then you just get no representation and folks feel as though they're not represented. And even when you're in a district where maybe you are being represented, if that district is no longer competitive, you may still feel that your elected representative is not responsive to your needs because they're not out there having to curry your vote."

For communities of color, proportional representation could, in theory, set up a House of Representatives that is more reflective of their shares of the U.S. population, which is becoming increasingly diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, Thomas-Lundborg adds.

But that promise is untested.

Thomas-Lundborg says more state and local governments adopting proportional representation systems could help assuage some concerns about what impact it would actually have in racially and ethnically diverse parts of the country.

"We are at a point where we're asking a lot of questions and trying to think about the future as the nature of the Supreme Court is changing and the demographics of our country is changing," Thomas-Lundborg says. "And it's a really important time to start thinking proactively about these issues."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

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Proportional representation.

Proportional representation is an electoral system in which the number of seats held by a particular political party in a legislature is directly determined by the number of votes the political party's candidates receive in a given election. For example, in a five-winner district with proportional representation, if party A received 40 percent of the vote and party B received 60 percent of the vote, party A would win two seats and party B would win three seats. [1] [2]

• 1 Systems of proportionality
• 3 External links
• 4 Footnotes

Systems of proportionality

Various forms of proportional representation exist, including the following:

• In a party-list system , the elector votes for a party's list of candidates instead of a single candidate. Each party then receives a share of the seats proportional to the share of votes it received. [3] [4]
• In a single transferable vote (STV) system, voters rank their choice of candidates on the ballot instead of voting for just one candidate. [3] [4]
• In an additional-member system , each elector casts two votes instead of one. On a double ballot, the elector chooses a candidate and also his or her party of choice among those listed. [3] [4]
• Single-winner system
• Multi-winner system
• Ranked-choice voting

External links

• ACE: The Electoral Knowledge Network
• ↑ FairVote , "Electoral Systems," accessed August 3, 2017
• ↑ ACE: The Electoral Knowledge Network , "Electoral Systems," accessed August 3, 2017
• ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Encyclopedia Britannica , "Proportional representation," accessed March 30, 2014
• ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Mount Holyoke.edu: PR Library , "Proportional Representation Voting Systems," accessed April 29, 2014
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Policy Brief 31

Majoritarian versus Proportional Representation Voting

Ethan Kaplan

What kind of voting system should countries have? This policy brief discusses the two main electoral systems in modern political democracies. It makes an argument that majoritarian systems such as what exists in the United States fail to properly represent voters. It suggests replacing the U.S. majoritarian political system with a proportional representation system and shows how this could be done within the context of current U.S. law.

Both economists and political scientists have worked on the impact of electoral systems. Empirical methods from economics as well as economic analysis of the incentives created by different political systems have contributed to our understanding of the consequences of electoral systems on representation. Additionally, economists have estimated the impact of electoral system on fiscal expenditures, something we will discuss towards the end of the policy brief.

There are two main voting systems in modern democratic societies: majoritarian systems and proportional representation systems. Federal voting in the United States is majoritarian though some states such as Maryland have proportional representation at the state level. In a majoritarian system, also known as a winner-take-all system or a first-past-the-post system, the country is divided up into districts. Politicians then compete for individual district seats. The candidate who receives the highest vote share wins the election and represents the district.

The main alternative to a majoritarian system is a proportional representation system. In a proportional representation system, citizens vote for political parties instead of individual candidates. [1] Seats in a legislature are then allocated in proportion to votes shares. In an ideal proportional representation system, a party that receives 23% of the votes nationwide also gets approximately 23% of the seats in the legislature.

Redistricting

One important aspect of a majoritarian system is that representation occurs by geographical district. In each district of a pure majoritarian system, whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote serves as representative for that district. However, people move in and out of districts and thus district sizes change. As a result, most majoritarian systems have a redistricting process. In the United States, redistricting happens every decade after the population is counted in the Census.

One large problem with redistricting is that how districts are drawn can have a large influence on representation. For example, imagine that a country has 50% right wing voters and 50% left wing voters. Suppose the left-wing party gets to draw the district boundaries and suppose that ten districts need to be created. The left-wing party could simply pack right wing votes into one district by being creative with how it draws maps. If the left-wing party did this, there would be one right-wing seat with 100% right-wing voters. In the remaining areas, 5/9 of voters would be left-wing. Thus, the left-wing party could end up with nine of the ten district seats despite only having 50% of the votes by drawing its maps creatively. This is called gerrymandering.

In a majoritarian political system, districts need to be drawn and redrawn and it is very easy to draw districts in order to benefit one political party over another. Unfortunately, in the United States, district maps are largely drawn by politicians. In most states, redistricting bills must be passed by state legislatures and signed by the Governor. All state legislature except for Nebraska have two chambers (an Assembly or House and a Senate). If a party has control over both chambers and the governorship, it can potentially redistrict without any input from the other political party. Coriale et al. (2020) show that in the past two decades, the average seat share gain in the House of Representatives from legal control by the Republican party over redistricting is an average of 8 percentage points over the subsequent three elections. Though we do not see a similar impact of Democratic control of redistricting on Democratic seat shares, we do for large Democratic states. Overall, these effects are sizable. They account for between 50% and 60% of the gap between the two parties in the House of Representatives in both the 2000s and the 2010s. Coriale et al. (2020)’s estimates of the impact of legal control are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Average Aggregate Partisan Effects of Partisan Redistricting by Decade

A move away from majoritarian electoral systems to proportional representation systems would get rid of political districts and, as such, would get rid of gerrymandering.

Geographic Concentration

There is a second problem with majoritarian systems. Even without parties manipulating district boundaries for political advantage, majoritarian systems can lead to systemic over-representation of some parties at the expense of others. For example, it is possible for the Democratic party to win just over 50% of the seats with only slightly more than 25% of the votes if the Republican party’s voters are concentrated in 100% Republican districts. This extreme failure of representation in a majoritarian system is interesting in theory but is it a problem in practice?

As pointed out by Rodden (2019), this has, in fact, become endemic in modern majoritarian systems. Political parties, over time, have become geographically polarized by population density with more urban areas further on the left and rural areas further on the right. There is now a clear spatial gradient with urban areas voting heavily for parties on the left, suburban areas voting moderately for the right, and rural areas voting more heavily for the right. This is not just true in the United States but also in other countries as well, particularly ones with majoritarian systems such as the U.K. and France (Piketty, 2018).

Majoritarian systems with a spatially even mixing of left-wing and right-wing voters can be problematic in that small differences in popularity of a party can lead to huge differences in representation. A party’s share of Congressional seats could decrease from 100% to 0% with a very small change in votes if voters were homogeneously spread across districts. However, the problem faced by modern majoritarian systems is due to differential concentration of left-wing and right-wing voters. Jonathan Rodden, in his book, Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide shows this differential concentration based upon work with Jowei Chen. They look at each person’s nearest 250,000 neighbors. They choose 250,000 neighbors because the average upper chamber district in Pennsylvania contains around 250,000 voters. They find that over 25% of Democrats’ nearest neighbors are more than 70% Democrats whereas no Republicans’ nearest neighbors are more than 70% Republican and only 10% have more than 60% of their neighbors being Republican.

In a recent paper, Chen and Rodden (2018) do the same analysis and present the average share of Democrats in the nearest 700,000 neighbors of each Democrat and the average share of Republicans in the nearest 700,000 neighbors of each Republican. They do this by state. The results are presented below. Republicans are more concentrated only in five states: Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, and New Hampshire. Moreover, in most states, Democrats are far more concentrated than Republicans.

Table 2: The Geographic Concentration of Democratic and Republican Voters

Why does the greater concentration of Democrats lead to a failure of representation? The best way to understand this is to use Nicholas Stephanopolous’ concept of the efficiency gap. Stephanopolous (2015) computes wasted votes (all votes in a district for any loser in the district and the number of votes above plurality for the winner in a district). The problem is that the greater concentration of Democrats in cities than Republicans in rural areas leads to more wasted votes by Democrats than by Republicans. Since Republicans waste fewer votes, they are able to win more districts. In other words, they get systematically greater representation given their vote shares. Idiosyncratic differences across parties in representation average out. However, the differences we see these days in the United States, the U.K. and France as well as in other majoritarian systems such as Australia’s House of Representatives display systemic over-representation of rural over urban voters.

Overall, proportional representation does a better job at representing the will of voters in that political preferences of voters more closely match seat shares in a proportional representation system.

Duverger’s Law

One additional consequence of having a majoritarian political system is that there tends to be fewer political parties. In any given district and sometimes overall at the national level, only two political parties emerge. In this sense, the United States, with its two main political parties is a textbook example of a majoritarian system. Why does the electoral system help determine the number of political parties?

In a majoritarian system, there is only one winner. With a plurality rule for deciding the winner, this gives parties which are ideologically closer to each other a reason to combine forces into one party. For example, suppose that there are two left wing parties each of which garners 30% of the vote and there is a right-wing party which garners 40% of the vote. In a majoritarian system, the right-wing party will win even though 60% of the people prefer a left-wing party. As a result, the two left-wing parties have strong incentives to combine and form one party or at least voters will have strong interests in coordinating on one of the two left-wing candidates. In a proportional representation system, by contrast, having two left wing parties may attract overall more left wing voters. Maybe some ideological voters would only vote for one of the two. In that case, having both will bolster turnout for the left and thus the left-wing seat share in parliament or Congress.

This empirical regularity about the number of parties in proportional representation as opposed to majoritarian systems as well as the logic behind it was first pointed out in Maurice Duverger’s book Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (Duverger, 1954). Modern day Australia provides a natural experiment which illustrates Duverger’s law. Australia’s Senate is elected using state-level proportional representation whereas Australia’s House of Representatives is elected in majoritarian districts. Whereas ten different political parties are represented in the Senate, the House is dominated by the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition (Rodden, 2019).

Rank-Choice Voting

One increasingly popular alternative to proportional representation in multi-member districts is ranked-choice voting in single-member districts. In a rank-choice voting system, instead of voting for one person or one party, voters rank alternative candidates. Then, top-ranked votes are tabulated for each candidate after which the worst overall performer is eliminated. If no candidate has reached a majority of votes cast, the votes for the eliminated candidate are reallocated to the next preferred candidates listed by the eliminated candidates’ voters. This system has been implemented in Alaska, Maine and New York City among other places. Moreover, somewhat similar systems which eliminate candidates in two rounds exist in states such as California, Georgia and Louisiana. Though there is very limited theoretical work or empirical evidence on rank-choice voting, switching to rank-choice voting would likely tend to moderate candidates and thus improve representation relative to a single-member district system with plurality voting. This moderation would probably be large given the current electoral system in the United States with highly partisan districts and candidates selected in highly partisan primaries.

Let’s look at an example. Suppose there are 3 candidates: one far-right candidate with support from 40% of voters, one moderate-right candidate with support from 35% of voters, and one left wing candidate with support from 25% of voters. Moreover, lets assume that right wing supporters prefer the other right-wing candidate to the left-wing candidate and that supporters of the left-wing candidate prefer the moderate-right to the far-right candidate. In that case, in a majoritarian system with a primary, the far-right candidate would defeat the moderate-right candidate in a primary and then the left candidate in a general election. However, with rank-choice voting, the left-wing candidate would lose in the first round of counting. After that, the votes of the left voters would be transferred to the moderate-right candidate, who would then defeat the far-right candidate 60% to 40% in the second round of counting.

Though rank-choice voting sometimes would lead to a more moderate choice when that choice would be preferred in aggregate by voters, sometimes it would not. Let’s now reverse the support for the moderate-right and the left voters from our previous example. We thus get: 40% support for the far-right, 25% for the moderate-right and 35% for the left. Let’s assume that the secondary preferences of voters remain the same (right-wing voters prefer the other right-wing voter to the left-wing candidate and left-wing voters prefer the moderate-right candidate to the far-right candidate). In this case, in the first round, the moderate-right will be eliminated and in the second round, the moderate-right votes will be transferred to the far-right. Thus, even though a 60% majority of voters prefer the moderate-right to far-right, the far-right candidate will still win even with rank-choice voting.

In addition, since the rank-choice voting variant of single member districts is still a single member district system, it will not fundamentally eliminate the problems associated with over-representation of rural interests due to greater spatial concentration of urban voters; it also won’t solve the problem of parties strategically drawing district boundaries to increase the seat shares of their parties.

Economic Policy

We now discuss how the number of parties can affect voter turnout and the types of political coalitions that form. Proportional Representation systems having a greater number of parties likely increases voter turnout. Some voters are only motivated to turn out to vote if they are ideologically similar enough to a party. Citizens who do not vote are much likely to be lower income and are more likely to support greater economic redistribution. Funk and Gathmann (2013) demonstrate that when Swiss Cantons converted from majoritarian to proportional representation electoral systems, voter turnout increased, representation of left-wing parties rose, and social expenditures increased.

Redistributive economic policy may additionally be de-emphasized in a majoritarian system. A majoritarian system shapes coalition formation. As mentioned earlier, in the United States, the cities support the Democratic party, the rural areas support the Republican party and the suburban areas swing between the two. The Democratic party could seek alliances with suburban voters on social issues or rural voters on economic issues. Since the suburbs are more electorally competitive, the Democratic party has shifted towards more conservative economic policy and more liberal social policy. Since the Democratic party needs a plurality of votes, it largely abandons rural voters and the issues they care about. However, under a proportional voting rule, the Democratic party would instead orient its policy towards policies that would get the greatest support rather than towards voters in swing districts. Thomas Piketty (2018) shows that, over the past half a century, left-wing parties in France, the U.K. and the U.S. have shifted towards away from redistributive economic policy as more educated voters have increasingly voted for the left.

U.S. Legislation

In this policy brief, we have demonstrated that majoritarian systems allow political parties to increase their representation by controlling the redistricting process. We have also discussed research which shows that majoritarian systems over-represent rural interests and under-represent support for economic redistribution. In this final section, we discuss policy changes that are feasible in the United States.

Is proportional representation feasible in the United States? Currently, ten states use some form of proportional representation: Arizona, Idaho, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. In these states, some state representatives serve in multi-member districts which allow multiple parties to represent a district. Though these multi-member districts are small and thus don’t capture the main benefits of proportional representation, it would be easy to enlarge state districts or just get rid of them entirely. Voters then would vote for all representatives simultaneously as one unified state and a proportional representation rule could easily allocate seats based upon votes.

At the federal level, the United States Senate is not easily changed as representation in the Senate is constitutionally mandated. Given the difficulty of passing constitutional reform, moving to rank-choice voting would likely at least improve representation. It would not, however, be difficult to change the voting rules for the House of Representatives in the United States. In particular, the Constitution would not have to be amended. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were multiple predominant systems of electing representatives. For example, it was common in the early 19th century for states to elect members to the House of Representatives using at-large voting. In this system, whichever party received a plurality of the vote at the state level would get all of that states’ representatives. This practice was banned with the Apportionment Act of 1842. However, it was weakly enforced and at-large elections persisted. In 1967, this changed when Congress passed and President Johnson signed 2 U.S.C. § 2c. Since 1967, majoritarian district elections for the House of Representatives have been required. It would only take an act of Congress to change the voting system from single majoritarian district elections to proportional representation.

[1] In some more complex proportional representation systems, voters cast ballots for both parties and candidates. I focus here on the simplest of proportional representation systems. Also, many countries such as Japan and Germany have mixed systems where citizens cast ballots both for particular representatives of a local district as well as for a party. The party votes determine how many additional at-large seats a given party will have in parliament.

Chen, Jowei and Jonathan Rodden, “The Loser’s Bonus: Political Geography and Minority Representation” (2018), working paper.

Coriale, Kenneth, Ethan Kaplan and Daniel Kolliner (2020), “Political Control Over Redistricting and the Partisan Balance in Congress”, working paper.

Duverger, Maurice (1954), Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State , John Wiley & Sons.

Funk, Patricia, and Christina Gathmann (2013), “How do electoral systems affect fiscal policy? Evidence from cantonal parliaments, 1890–2000.” Journal of the European Economic Association 11.5: 1178-1203.

Piketty, Thomas (2018), “Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality and the Changing Structure of Political Conflict.” WID. world Working Paper 7 .

Rodden, Jonathan (2019), Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide , Basic Books.

Stephanopoulos, Nicholas O., and Eric M. McGhee (2015), “Partisan gerrymandering and the efficiency gap.” U. Chi. L. Rev. 82: 831

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Election and Representation Class 11 Polity Notes

Election and Representation Class 11 Notes: CBSE Class 11 Political Science Notes are essential for students studying Social Science, as Political Science is a crucial sub-subject that requires properly written answers. Scoring well in Political Science is just as important as other subjects.

These notes talk about different kinds of elections and how they happen in our country. They also tell us about two important ways elections are done: First Past the Post and proportional representation. We also learn about important groups like the Election Commission and the Delimitation Commission, which make sure elections are fair. By reading these notes, students can improve their chances of getting higher marks in their Political Science Exam.

Introduction

India is a country where people have a say in how the government works. We have a system called constitutional democracy with a parliamentary style of government. This means that we have rules set by our Constitution, and people vote to choose their leaders. These leaders make decisions for the country. The most important part of this system is the regular, free, and fair elections we have.

During these elections, people vote to decide who will be in the government, who will be in Parliament, and who will be in the state assemblies. Even the President and Vice-President are chosen through these elections.

Elections in India are events involving a lot of planning, organizing, and campaigning by political parties. It’s like a big event where everyone gets involved to make sure things go smoothly.

What is “First Past the Post”?

The ‘First-Past-The-Post’ (FPTP) electoral system, also known as the simple majority system, is employed in India for direct elections to the ‘Lok Sabha’ and ‘State Legislative Assemblies.’

In the FPTP system:

• The country is divided into 543 constituencies.
• Each constituency elects one representative.
• The candidate receiving the highest number of votes in a constituency is declared the winner.
• It’s noteworthy that the winning candidate only needs more votes than any other candidate, not necessarily a majority of votes.
• Hence, this method is termed the First Past the Post (FPTP) system, alternatively known as the Plurality System.

What is Proportional Representation?

In the system described, each party selects a portion of its nominees from a predetermined preference list prior to the elections.

Under this system:

• Parties are allocated seats in proportion to their share of votes.
• This means that if a party receives 40% of the votes, it should ideally secure 40% of the seats.

What type of election system is followed in India?

In India, we use a proportional representation (PR) system for some indirect elections. The Constitution describes a third and complex version of the PR system for choosing the President, Vice President, and for elections to the Rajya Sabha and Vidhan Parishads.

Comparison of FPTP and PR System of Election

FPTP – First Past The Post:

• The country is divided into small areas called constituencies or districts, each electing one representative.
• Voters choose a candidate.
• A party may win more seats in the legislature than the number of votes it received.
• The winning candidate may not necessarily get the majority of votes. Examples include the UK and India.

Proportional Representation (PR):

• Larger areas are designated as constituencies, and more than one representative may be elected from each.
• In this system, voters vote for a party, and each party gets seats in the legislature proportionate to the percentage of votes it received.
• The winning candidates typically receive the majority of votes. Examples include Israel and the Netherlands.

What are the advantages of the FPTP system?

The First Past the Post (FPTP) system is popular because it’s easy to understand. In this system, each area, called a constituency, elects one representative.

• Voters just need to choose one candidate or party during elections.
• Sometimes voters focus more on the party, sometimes on the candidate, or they balance both.
• FPTP gives voters a choice between parties and individual candidates.
• In this system, voters know who their local representative is and can hold them responsible for their actions.

Why is it believed that ‘FPTP’ would be a good choice instead of ‘PR system’ for a stable government?

PR-based elections may not be suitable for ensuring a stable government in a parliamentary system.

For this system to work, the executive needs to have a majority in the legislature. However, since seats are distributed based on vote share, it’s unlikely for one party or coalition to have a clear majority.

In a diverse country like India, a PR system might encourage each community to form its own national party.

On the other hand, the FPTP system allocates more bonus seats to the largest party or coalition than their vote share would allow. This encourages the formation of a stable government in a parliamentary system.

The FPTP system is simple and familiar to ordinary voters. Candidates must belong to the community or social group for which the seat is reserved, but all voters in a constituency can vote.

According to the Constitution, seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Originally set for 10 years, this reservation has been extended until 2020 through subsequent constitutional amendments. Parliament can decide to extend the reservation period after it expires.

Delimitation Commission

Who decides which constituency is to be reserved on what basis is this decision taken.

The Delimitation Commission, an independent body, decides on the reservation of constituencies. It is appointed by the President of India and works closely with the Election Commission of India.

The number of reserved seats in each state depends on the proportion of Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) residents in that state. After drawing the boundaries, the Delimitation Commission analyzes the population composition of each constituency.

Seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes are allocated to constituencies with the highest proportion of ST residents.

When it comes to Scheduled Castes, the Delimitation Commission considers two factors. Firstly, it selects constituencies with a higher proportion of SC residents. Secondly, it distributes these constituencies throughout the state.

This is because the Scheduled Caste population is relatively evenly distributed across the country.

How many times has the ‘Delimitation Commission’ changed the boundaries of the nation-state?

The Delimitation Commission has been established four times: in 1952, 1963, 1973, and 2002, under the Acts of 1950, 1962, 1972, and 2002 respectively.

• Under the 42nd Amendment of 1976, seats were to remain unchanged until the year 2000.
• However, the 84th Amendment of 2001 froze the seats until 2026.

Universal Franchise & Right to Contest

Who can vote & who has the right to contest elections.

Universal Adult Franchise grants the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of their wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or any other restriction, with only a few exceptions.

Initially, the voting age was set at 21 years for being considered an adult. However, in 1989, the Constitution was amended through the 61st Amendment, reducing the voting age to 18 years.

This principle, known as ‘Universal Adult Franchise,’ ensures that all citizens have the opportunity to participate in the process of selecting their representatives, aligning with the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

Right to Contest Election

All citizens possess the right to stand for election and potentially become representatives of the people.

Different minimum age criteria exist for contesting elections. For instance, to run for a Lok Sabha or Assembly election, a candidate must be at least 25 years old.

A legal provision disqualifies individuals who have served a prison sentence of two or more years for certain offenses from contesting elections.

There are no restrictions based on income, education, class, or gender on the right to contest elections.

Election Commission Of India

What is the election commission of india.

The Election Commission of India is an independent constitutional authority tasked with overseeing the electoral processes at both the Union and State levels in India.

This body is responsible for conducting elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies, as well as for the positions of President and Vice President.

Articles 324 to 329 of the Constitution outline the powers, functions, tenure, and eligibility criteria of the Election Commission and its members.

In each state, a Chief Electoral Officer is appointed to assist the Election Commission in its duties. However, it’s worth noting that the commission is not involved in the conduct of local body elections.

Initially, the Election Commission of India comprised a single member until 1989, when two election commissioners were appointed just before the elections of that year. Subsequently, in 1993, two election commissioners became a permanent feature, turning the commission into a multi-member body.

Multi-Member Commission

A multi-member Election Commission is deemed more suitable as it promotes power-sharing and enhances accountability.

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) leads the Election Commission but does not wield greater authority than the other Election Commissioners. Together, they hold equal decision-making powers regarding electoral matters.

Their appointment is made by the President of India, based on the recommendations of the Council of Ministers.

The Constitution guarantees the security of tenure for the CEC and Election Commissioners. They serve a six-year term or until they reach the age of 65, whichever comes first.

The CEC can only be removed before the end of the term if both Houses of Parliament recommend such action with a special majority. This provision safeguards against the possibility of a ruling party attempting to remove a CEC who refuses to show favoritism in elections.

Functions of the Election Commission of India

The Election Commission of India is entrusted with a wide array of responsibilities:

• Supervising the regular update of the voter’s list to ensure its accuracy and completeness.
• Ensuring the elimination of errors in the voter’s list, such as the inclusion of ineligible or non-existent individuals or the exclusion of eligible voters.
• Determining the timing of elections and formulating the comprehensive election schedule, which includes crucial dates like the notification of elections, nomination filing period, scrutiny deadline, withdrawal deadline, polling date, and result declaration date.
• Solely responsible for conducting elections, the Election Commission has the authority to make decisions aimed at maintaining the integrity and fairness of the electoral process.
• In instances where the electoral atmosphere is deemed compromised, the Commission can postpone or cancel elections at the national, state, or constituency level. It also establishes a model code of conduct for political parties and candidates to adhere to.
• Authorized to order a re-poll in a specific constituency or recount votes if it deems the counting process to be unfair or flawed.
• Grants recognition to political parties and assigns symbols to each party, which are used during elections to distinguish between candidates representing different parties.

Electoral Reforms

Eections are really important in India because it’s one of the biggest democracies in the world. Making sure elections are fair and everyone gets to vote is crucial, and that’s why we need to keep updating the rules for elections.

Some experts think we should change how we vote from the current system to a new one called Proportional Representation (PR). This could make sure that the number of seats a party gets matches up with how many votes they get from people.

Another idea is to make sure more women are part of our government. They’re suggesting that at least one-third of the people in charge should be women.

We also need to keep an eye on money in elections. Right now, there should be rules about how much money candidates can spend, and maybe the government should help out with the costs.

It’s also important to have rules about who can run for elections. If someone has been accused of a crime, even if they’re waiting for their court case, they might not be allowed to run. And politicians shouldn’t be allowed to use someone’s caste or religion to get votes.

Lastly, there should be clear rules for political parties so they’re fair and open to everyone.

Related Links

1. CBSE Class 11 Microeconomics Notes

2. CBSE Class 11 Physics Notes

3. CBSE Class 11 Revision Notes

4. CBSE Class 11 Chapter-Wise Notes Biology

FAQs on Election and Representation Class 11 Notes

What is the difference between direct and indirect elections.

In direct elections, voters directly elect their representatives, such as Members of Parliament or State Legislators. In contrast, indirect elections involve voters electing representatives who, in turn, choose the final decision-makers, such as the President or Prime Minister.

How are constituencies determined in electoral systems?

Constituencies are typically determined based on geographical boundaries and population distribution. The process of delimitation involves dividing regions into smaller electoral units to ensure fair representation.

What is the significance of the Election Commission of India?

The Election Commission of India is a constitutional body responsible for administering free and fair elections in the country. It oversees the electoral process, including voter registration, candidate nominations, polling, and result declaration, to ensure transparency and integrity in elections.

What are some challenges faced in electoral systems?

Challenges in electoral systems include voter disenfranchisement, electoral fraud, gerrymandering, and unequal representation. Ensuring inclusivity, transparency, and fairness in the electoral process is essential to address these challenges.

How can citizens participate in the electoral process?

Citizens can participate in the electoral process by registering as voters, exercising their right to vote on election day, volunteering as poll workers, and engaging in civic education and advocacy to promote democratic values and electoral reforms.

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Nebraska legislators reject proposal to help Trump win the Electoral College

D onald Trump wanted Nebraska Republicans to change the state’s electoral vote rules — in a way that would likely flip one electoral vote from Biden to him.

But on Wednesday night, the GOP-dominated Nebraska state legislature said no. An effort to attach the proposal to another bill failed, with just 8 votes in favor and 36 against.

State Sen. Julie Slama (R), who supported the proposal, wrote on X afterward that the proposal was dead for this year: “It won’t come up for a vote again.”

Nebraska currently has an unusual way of distributing its five electoral votes. Rather than giving them all to the statewide winner — as 48 other states do — it awards two votes to the statewide winner, and the rest go to the winner in each of Nebraska’s three congressional districts.

Nebraska is a deep red state that Trump won by a 19-point margin in 2020. However, Biden walked away with one of its electoral votes, because he won in Nebraska’s Second District, which includes the city of Omaha. Trump wants to switch this to a winner-take-all system, to lock down that vote.

The stakes are enormous: the single electoral vote from Nebraska’s Second District really could determine whether Trump or Biden wins in 2024.

If Biden wins Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while Trump wins Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, and no other outcomes change from 2020, then Biden would need Nebraska’s Second District vote to win. If he doesn’t get it, the electoral vote would be a 269-269 tie. The new House of Representatives would break the tie with each state delegation getting one vote, and since Republicans will almost surely control more state delegations, that means a tie likely goes to Trump.

But after the failed vote Wednesday, Trump’s supporters were no longer optimistic that they could make this change before Nebraska’s legislative session ends this month.

Even if the rule change does somehow pass, Democrats have an obvious option for a response: changing the rules in Maine. Maine is the only other state that splits its vote by congressional district, but there, the current rule benefits Trump — it delivered him one elector in a state Biden won. Democrats could, in theory, change Maine’s rules and cancel out any advantage gained by Trump.

But beyond the angling for partisan advantage, it is true that Nebraska’s and Maine’s rules are kind of odd — quirky historical accidents that arguably should be brought in line with the way the other 48 states do it. The fair way to do it would be for both to change their rules in the same cycle, standardizing the winner-take-all rule without handing either candidate an advantage.

Why oddball Nebraska and Maine split their votes by congressional district

The history of the Electoral College system is a bizarre one , but the modern norm of how it works is: each state holds a statewide vote, and the top candidate in that vote would get all of that state’s electors. That’s the winner-take-all system.

In the nation’s earliest decades, there was more variety. Some states didn’t give voters a direct say at all, letting state legislators simply pick electors. Others did hold a statewide vote, but counted the results in separate districts of the state, awarding electors that way.

The district system could allow regional differences to be represented. But it watered down a state’s impact on the national outcome, as compared to the winner-take-all system where all a state’s votes went to one candidate. And as partisan competition intensified, states flocked to winner-take-all — the district system was gone by the 1830s , and stayed gone for more than a century.

Then, in the latter half of the 20th century, it came back. Two states decided to switch to a system where two electoral votes would go to the statewide winner, and one electoral vote to the winner in each congressional district.

The first was Maine, in 1969, which adopted a proposal from an idiosyncratic legislator, whose apparent motivation was to help voters with different views be reflected in the Electoral College results. (Maine had used the district system back in the 1820s.) The second was Nebraska, in 1991, where legislators hoped to get presidential candidates to pay more attention to the state rather than writing off all its electoral votes as safely Republican.

One might think that proposals like this would move the Electoral College closer to proportional representation — but often, these proposals are just partisan dirty tricks. Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have batted around the idea, believing gerrymandered congressional maps would guarantee them more than half the electors in swing states that more often lean Democratic.

But Maine and Nebraska do not seem to have had partisan motivations — and at first, there was no partisan impact, or indeed, any impact, because the statewide winner kept also winning every congressional district in both states.

As urban-rural partisan polarization intensified, that started to change. In 2008, Barack Obama won Nebraska’s Second District. Republicans responded by making the district more conservative in redistricting, but the underlying polarization trends continued and by 2020 Biden won it again. In Maine, the rural Second District swung to Trump in both 2016 and 2020. (Neither district was all that close in 2020 — Biden won NE-2 by 6.5 percentage points, and Trump won ME-2 by 7.5.)

So we’ve ended up with a system where 48 states use winner-take-all, and then two states throw a stray electoral vote to someone every so often, which is pretty odd — just one of many ways the US’s method of picking a president is ridiculous .

What’s going on in Nebraska now

As partisanship and polarization have risen, Nebraska Republicans have attempted to respond. Back in 2016, they tried to switch to a winner-take-all electoral vote system. But there was a problem — the filibuster.

Yes, the Cornhusker State is the rare state to have a legislative filibuster with a strong supermajority requirement. In fact, it’s stronger than the US Senate’s — a two-thirds vote, or 33 of 49 legislators, is necessary to overcome a filibuster in Nebraska. And though Republicans have regularly had big majorities, it’s proven maddeningly difficult for them to get over that hump. They fell just one vote short in 2016.

The latest push kicked off on Tuesday, when conservative activist Charlie Kirk wrote on X about a nightmare scenario for Trump supporters where Nebraska’s Second District could throw this year’s election to Biden. He urged Nebraskans to “call their legislators and their governor to demand their state stop pointlessly giving strength to their political enemies.”

Just hours later, Gov. Pillen made his announcement that, “in response to a call out for his support,” he supported such a change, and Trump praised him in a Truth Social post. (You might get the impression that this was not entirely an organic grassroots phenomenon.)

But many doubted that they had the votes. Republicans had 32 seats — one vote short of the 33 seats necessary to beat a filibuster.

The plot thickened on Wednesday when a Democratic state senator, Mike McDonnell, announced he was switching parties to the GOP — seemingly providing the necessary vote. Then the plot, er, thinned when McDonnell told Politico’s Elena Schneider that he would still support filibustering the electoral vote change.

But when the proposal came for a vote Wednesday night, it wasn’t even close — only eight Republican legislators voted yes. Nebraska’s legislative session is scheduled to end on April 18, so in theory there is still time for another attempt, but legislators said that for procedural reasons that is quite unlikely to happen.

If they somehow do manage to muscle the change through, Maine Democrats (who control the legislature and the governorship in their state) will face pressure to respond in kind. As they should — if Biden loses his shot at a stray electoral vote, Trump should lose his too.

Update, April 4, 9:55 am ET: This article was originally published on April 3. It has been updated to reflect the failed vote on the proposal in Nebraska’s legislature.

From the ashes of electoral bonds, a new scheme is rising

• The finance ministry is holding internal consultations on the issue for the new scheme, which is expected to be finalized after the national elections in April-June period

New Delhi: A new scheme for funding of political parties is in the works, after the erstwhile electoral bonds scheme was struck down by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional.

According to two people aware of discussions in the government, the Centre has already started work on a new scheme that will address the concerns the apex court expressed while striking down the electoral bonds scheme.

The finance ministry is holding internal consultations on the new scheme, which is expected to be finalized after the national elections in April-June, one of the persons cited above said on condition of anonymity.

The scheme will address the issues of transparency and extent of political financing by corporations, which were questioned by the apex court. Legislative changes that may be needed for the new scheme are not on the table yet, as discussions are at an early stage, said the person.

Emailed queries sent on Friday to the spokespersons of the ministries of finance, corporate affairs and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) remained unanswered till press time.

On 15 February, the Supreme Court had struck down the electoral bonds scheme introduced in January 2018. The court said that some provisions of the scheme that were signed into law through the Finance Act of 2017 were unconstitutional on account of non-disclosure of information relating to political funding.

The court held this violated the right to information of citizens. The apex court also held that the provision for unlimited funding of political parties by corporate entities was arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. The article guarantees that the state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or equal protection of the laws within the country.

The court had examined the argument that unlimited contributions could put corporations in a position of getting into quid pro quo arrangements with political parties that may further the companies’ interests.

Experts pointed out that political funding is a complex issue, but political parties could come together to frame a regime that is transparent and involves legitimate sources of funds. At the same time, the regime must not compromise the privacy of donors to the extent that it leads to mudslinging among political parties.

“The possibility of evolving a political funding regime that addresses the transparency requirements without causing embarrassment to parties and donors, through a consensus among parties, cannot be ruled out provided there is effort in that direction," said A.K. Verma, director of the Centre for Study of Society and Politics, an independent think tank. “This can happen only after the national elections. The apex court should have given guidance on an alternative mechanism."

Verma added that political parties require funds to contest elections and corporations do give funding, but “if you relate every donation to one policy or the other, leading to allegations of someone or the other getting favoured, it would not help".

With elections not being funded by the state, private donations to political parties including from corporations have existed in India for long.

On 31 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an interview to Thanthi TV that no scheme can be perfect and that shortcomings could be addressed.

In its ruling, the apex court had red-flagged specific provisions in the Representation of the People Act, the Income Tax Act, and the Companies Act that enabled the electoral bond scheme. These provisions in effect allowed unlimited and anonymous political funding by corporations through electoral bonds.

• #Electoral Bonds

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Fears of violence grow as Somalia scraps power-sharing system

Semi-autonomous state of Puntland refuses to recognise changes to the fragile country’s constitution and has withdrawn from the federal system

An overhaul of Somalia’s constitution, scrapping its power-sharing system and handing the president increased control, is threatening to destabilise the fragile country, as its wealthiest and most stable state refuses to recognise the changes.

The amendments risk worsening violence, the information minister from the semi-autonomous state of Puntland has warned. Mohamud Aidid Dirir told the Guardian that “almost a totally new constitution” had been introduced without input from the state’s leaders. He accused the Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, of using parliament to “gather authority into his hands”.

Somali lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last weekend to adopt a slew of amendments to the constitution, which will reshape the political and electoral system and hand more power to the president. The parliamentary speaker, Adan Mohamed Nuur Madobe, called the move “historic”.

The amendments give the president the authority to appoint and dismiss prime ministers, transferring that power from lawmakers, and grant him increased control over appointments to the electoral commission, taking away input from federal states. The current power-sharing model of government, a system that ensures the country’s four main clans get equal representation in parliament, will be also scrapped in place of universal suffrage.

“We are a fragile country still recovering from a civil war, which doesn’t have stable politics. If power is concentrated in one person’s hands, there is a risk we could go back to civil war. We have always warned that this could happen,” said Dirir.

“[Hassan] has taken power from parliament, the prime minister isn’t working. He is the foreign minister, the prime minister, the president, he is all the ministers. And now he’s taking power from the states.”

Dirir claimed Puntland was stonewalled by central government when it tried to participate in consultations. He said the region would not recognise the changes.

“We are not declaring independence, but Puntland will stand alone until it is consulted.”

In a sign of escalating tensions, the Somali government on Thursday ordered the closure of Ethiopia’s consulate in Puntland in apparent retaliation for a visit by representatives of the semi-autonomous state to Addis Ababa this week. The government also expelled the Ethiopian ambassador, citing interference in Somalia’s internal affairs.

Puntland, one of Somalia’s five federal states, was established as a separate self-governing entity in 1998, and is the country’s most powerful regional administration.

Dirir said concentrating authority in Mogadishu “threatens national unity”. “Our government is federal, which means powers are divided,” he said.

Somalia’s central government collapsed in 1991, plunging the country into civil war, made worse with the emergence of the jihadist group al-Shabaab in the mid-2000s. Millions of people have been displaced by fighting between militants and the army, and years of drought caused by failed rains. About 6.9 million people are in need of humanitarian aid.

Afyare A Elmi, a research professor at the City University of Mogadishu, said Puntland’s withdrawal from the federal system could further imperil the viability of a unified Somali state.

“If a large chunk of the country is missing in this process we are simply building a constitution for south-west Somalia.”

The other federal states, Jubbaland, South West state, Hirshabelle and Galmudug have yet to comment on the amendments. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, said : “Somalia’s recent constitutional development is an internal matter.”

The former presidents Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and Sharif Ahmed warned the changes would upset Somalia’s delicate power balance, while the former prime ministers Omar Sharmarke and Hassan Ali Khaire denounced the changes in an open letter also signed by the veteran MP Abdirahman Abdishakur.

Somalia’s current constitution was introduced in 2012, but was intended to be a provisional document and has long been under review. Crafting a new constitution was one of President Mohamud’s key election pledges in 2022. Last month he said further delays were “not an option”. “We are not a provisional government, but we have a provisional constitution,” he added .

Afyare Elmi said the 2012 constitution was based upon a political settlement with broad input from Somalis. “It had four key elements: federalism, clan power-sharing, regular elections and a spirit of inclusiveness to build consensus. What the government is doing now is moving away from this settlement,” he said.

Omar Mahmoud, an east Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group, wrote that “there are fundamental issues about the nature of the federal model that must be sorted out between Mogadishu and Garowe [Puntland’s capital] in order for Somalia’s governance system to function more effectively and get over the hump of recurrent on-and-off relations.

“But without the sides talking, it is impossible to get there, allowing the status quo to continue indefinitely.”

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