January 6, 1973
Page 414
THE FAITHLESS ELECTOR AND ELECTORAL COLLEGE REFORM
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, for the seventh time in our history, we will be confronted this afternoon with disregard of the popular vote for President by a "faithless elector." Mr. Roger McBride, an elector from Virginia, has cast his electoral vote for Dr. John Hospers of the Libertarian Party even though Mr. Nixon won the popular vote in his State. Mr. McBride's faithlessness to the will of the voters of Virginia once again underscores the need for a constitutional amendment providing for direct popular election of the President.
Confronted by a similar situation 4 years ago, Representative O'HARA of Michigan and I lodged a formal objection to a wayward electoral vote. After thorough debate, both Houses of Congress declined to reject that faithless act. I have no intention of invoking the cumbersome procedures necessary to reexamine that decision. But I wish to point out that during that debate there was universal consensus that disregard of the popular presidential vote was wrong. At that time, I said that:
My principal purpose in joining in this effort is to open the issue, to expose it, perhaps to identify the dangers and the risks, and by doing so to stimulate the movement for institutional reform of the entire process.
That reform has still not come, but is no less urgent today.
The choice of our President still lies not with the people, but with the electoral college – a small, usually hand-picked, body of men and women who owe no debt to the public and who, in fact, are unknown to the public.
Mr. McBride has reminded us that our democracy could be undermined by a small band of faithless electors and that the system must be changed to guarantee that this cannot happen again.
We must amend the Constitution to provide for the most direct, effective, and fool-proof possible means of electing a President.
By eliminating the elector, we can insure that there are no intermediaries who are "useless if faithful, dangerous if not." And we can put to rest the fear that the perverse compound arithmetic of the electoral college will some day give us a President who was clearly rejected by the popular vote of the people.
It is time now for Congress to take affirmative action to end this outmoded, undemocratic, and haphazard system. I hope that during the coming session we can adopt and refer to the States a proposed constitutional amendment to provide direct popular election of the President, under uniform voting procedures, to insure that the millions of voters who are now effectively disenfranchised can be heard.