To short, to obtain the office of the U.S. presidency, a candidate must win 270 out of a possible 538 electoral votes. Under the current system, on paper, all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (a U.S. territory) are represented. The [bottom line] issue under the electoral college system is not how many votes a candidate has won (which would be the case under the popular vote system), but rather, where and in which states such votes were won (which is the case under the current electoral college system). From a strictly technical viewpoint, the popular vote is directly irrelevant under the current system but may at times only be indirectly relevant to the vote in that a high popular vote may sometimes signal a high electoral college vote count.

As history, the electoral college system can be traced back to the ancient Roman republic, whereby Roman citizens were divided into several groups of 100, in which each group of 100 could cast only one vote either for or against various proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate.

Thus far, in a twist of democratic irony, a surprising total of four U.S. presidents have lost the popular vote, yet won the electoral college to become president. That is, the candidate who received the most votes from the public did not become president in four separate cases. The most recent case being in 2000 when George W. Bush lost the popular vote, but won the electoral college (Bush's 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266). Even more, under the current electoral college system, had Kerry simply won 136,000 more votes in Ohio in November 2004, Kerry (not Bush) could have become the next U.S. president, even though Bush decisively won the popular vote by over 3.5 million votes. In other words, a mere 136,000 votes in the small state of Ohio could have trumped nearly 3.5 million votes nationwide in the remaining 49 states.

The current system at play begs the question as to why the electoral college system, and not the popular vote system, is the method by which Americans choose their next president. In other words, why is the U.S. republic not providing a true "one person one vote" voting method? The short answer is historical political compromise. Such political compromise is traced back to the formative days of the U.S. republic, when the Founding Fathers created the electoral college system where in theory both large and small states could be equally represented. However, from a closer view, the electoral college system in practice is not pure democracy at play. The rationale is that the electoral college system is in essence an all-or-nothing nomination method on a state-by-state basis, which effectively can leave many voters in "non-swing states" disenfranchised. For instance, a Republican voter in the state of California or New York (in which both states have historically voted for the Democratic Party) would have significantly less political impact under the electoral college system (based on an all-or-nothing state-by-state basis), relative to the more straightforward popular vote system (based on a cumulative voting method).

The electoral college system disenfranchises many voters because candidates focus precious political capital on key "swing states" such as Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico, rather than more populated states like California and New York. The irony is that California has far more swing voters than states such as New Mexico and should receive equal treatment but are given significantly less exposure to the candidates simply because they don't reside in a "battleground" state.

For this reason, 56 percent of Americans in a recent poll are demanding a U.S. constitutional amendment to revamp or replace the current voting system. In effect, this majority figure represents a national vote against the current electoral college voting system which the legislators may want to seriously consider. The benefit is that with such a constitutional amendment, voters nationwide (not just in select parts of the republic) would feel more engaged, help maximize voter turnout and in the process modernize the U.S. voting system to a more sensible and understandable method upon which the American republic can stand proud.

The writer is professor of International Law at the Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University.

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