The Electoral College and Black Voters
Background: In 1947, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., a Republican from Massachusetts, proposed a constitutional amendment that would alter the Electoral College so that electoral votes would be allocated to presidential tickets proportional to the popular votes each ticket received in the states. He proposed it again in 1950 (along with Senator Ed Gossett, a Democrat from Texas); the Lodge-Gossett Amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 64–27 but failed to pass in the House of Representatives. This article from the Afro-American, a national newspaper serving Black readers, identifies the ways that the Electoral College disadvantaged Black voters, who were already subject to widespread voter suppression in many states.
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (Rep., Mass.) has introduced a joint resolution proposing a Constitutional amendment providing for the popular election of the President and Vice President of the United States.
His resolution, which is one of several steps proposed, would abolish the obsolete electoral college which makes possible the election of a man as President who has not received a majority or plurality of the popular vote. Students of politics are of the opinion that the Federal election system is in need of reform.
One aspect of this question is the value of votes cast in a Presidential election in different States. The votes of people living where colored people are disfranchised, count for more than the votes of people living in States where minorities vote under the prescribed general qualifications.
Unfair Ratio
For example: One vote in South Carolina is equivalent to 12.08 votes in Illinois, 11.77 in California, 11.25 in New York, 10.71 in Indiana, 10.60 in Ohio, 10.24 in New Jersey, 9.69 in Michigan, 9.07 in Pennsylvania, 8.67 in Connecticut and 8.50 in Delaware.
On the other hand, in States where the colored vote is suppressed, there is a similarity in the value of one vote as compared with one vote in South Carolina.
For example: One vote in South Carolina is equal to 1.86 in Alabama, 2.27 in Georgia, 1.51 in Mississippi, 3.56 in Tennessee, 3.70 in Texas, and 2.12 in Virginia.
In 1944 South Carolina had one electoral vote for each 11,893 votes cast, while New York had one electoral vote for each 133,869 votes cast. That inequality makes one South Carolina vote count for as much as 11 New York votes in electing a President.
3 Elected by Minority Vote
It is doubtful that the electoral college has ever worked as the framers of the Constitution thought it would. Original intention was that a small group of public-spirited men would judiciously pick the man best suited for the office. However, it has made possible the election of a president by a minority vote of the people.
Senator Lodge gave three instances of the election of a President by a minority vote: that of John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.
Poll Tax Matter
If the electoral college should be abolished for election by direct vote, a vote in South Carolina would count for no more than a vote in any other State. Mooreover, it should prove an incentive to States to get out the vote.
Instead of passing “white primary” laws to keep the minority voter from voting in Democratic State primaries, those States would probably offer some inducements to colored people to support national party candidates. The poll tax would probably be abolished by the seven Southern States where this anachronism still exists.
Source: Louis Lautier, “One Vote in Dixie Equals 11 in New York, Survey Shows: Sen. Lodge Seeks Amendment Providing for Popular Election of President; Resolution Calls for Abolition of Electoral College; States’ Votes Would Rate the Same,” Afro-American, April 5, 1947, p. 7.