Electoral system under attack

Not since Benjamin Harrison's upset of Grover Cleveland in the 1888 election has the winner of the popular vote failed to capture the White House. And in the wake of this election's Florida fiasco, United States Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said yesterday that he would favor a Constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College. But Penn political scientists aren't holding their breath. According to Professor Jerome Maddox, "America is very loathe to change it's political institutions." Professor Marie Gottschalk agreed that reform is unlikely, saying that if Texas Gov. George W. Bush wins, "there aren't going to be demonstrations in the streets about it." Gottschalk added that pipe dreams like Specter's are unlikely to result in changes to the Constitution. "My guess is that nothing is going to happen at the constitutional level," she said. Maddox said that he thought that there were more rustlings for electoral reform in 1976, when incumbent Gerald Ford lost the White House to Jimmy Carter. However, Gottschalk said that while an amendment is unlikely, this race may spawn reform on the state level. According to the professor, states may abandon the winner-take-all model now used in 48 of the 50 states, and adopt methods such as Maine's, in which electors are appointed by district. "You may see some reforms from the bottom up," she said. If Bush carries Florida, he will become the fourth president in American history to have lost the popular vote, joining John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888.