Discussion around alternative voting systems and debates around the legitimacy of the Electoral College are nothing new. Those who are against the Electoral College challenge the Winner-Take-All System and propose potential solutions such as expanding the House of Representatives or exploring the Popular Vote Compact. In continuing this discussion around how we should elect the President, it is worth adopting a philosophical lens and examining the ways in which Aristotle defines justice. Greatly influencing the American founding fathers and the underpinnings of our political institutions, Aristotle's distinction between arithmetic and proportional justice can be applied to the Electoral College.
In simple terms, arithmetic justice means giving every person the same, equal amount of something. On the other hand, geometric or proportional justice refers to giving every person the amount in proportion to what they need/deserve.
For instance, say we are serving food in a school canteen. Both second graders and ninth graders need to eat lunch on a particular day. How much food should students from each grade level be served? When we apply the principle of arithmetic justice, every students should be served the same amount of food for lunch. If we apply the principle of geometric justice, we conclude that students at different grade levels have different needs, thus students should be served in proportion to their needs (i.e. older students get larger portion than the younger students).
These two forms of justice can be applied to evaluate the validity of the Electoral College in the context of American democracy. The Electoral College today attempts to combine the two principles of justice. Alongside the District of Columbia, the United States is divided into 50 states. At the Constitutional Convention back in 1787, the delegates discussed the methods of distributing power across the states. Some delegates favored an arithmetic approach in understanding justice by arguing that each states––regardless of the population/size of a state––should receive the same number of votes. Other delegates aligned themselves with the geometric elements of justice by arguing that larger states should receive more votes than the smaller states. Supporters of the geometric principle characterized the act of giving small states equal power as unjust. As mentioned earlier, other delegates applied the arithmetic principle and warned that the larger states would ultimately "bully" the small states.
The Electoral College is a byproduct of compromising these two schools of thought. While every state is given representation to some extent (a minimum of three electoral votes), the large states are given more electoral votes. In essence, small states get more power than they would on a strictly proportional basis, but large states still end up with more power and leverage to sway presidential elections.
To learn more about the Electoral College, I recommend looking through the following resources:
An Exploration on Winning Electoral College votes - 2020 Presidential Election Edition (The New York Times)
"Is The Electoral College Killing the Democratic Process?" (Above the Noise)
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