HOW NOT TO ELECT A PRESIDENT

ONE of the insistent slogans of the day is that U.S. institutions are not "responsive" to people's wishes. Thus the Electoral College is an easy target.

In designing a new nation, nothing perplexed the drafters of the Constitution quite so much as the question of how the President should be elected. As it turned out, the Electoral College devised by them has three times denied the country's highest office to the candidate receiving the greatest number of popular votes. Twice it has resulted in, and several times--most recently in 1968--it has threatened the chaos of a disputed election's being thrown to Con gress for resolution. Last year, in the wake of that recent near-fiasco, a pro posed constitutional amendment for direct election of the President was passed by the House of Representatives. Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee added its approval and sent the amendment to the floor for a debate that is expected to be long and bitter. Since the House vote, there have been some serious second thoughts about the plan.

Simplicity Itself

In theory, the direct-election scheme--titled the Bayh amendment after its chief sponsor, Indiana's Senator Birch Bayh--is simplicity itself. The Electoral College would be abolished and the candidate who received the most votes would be the President. If no one got more than 40%--a situation that has happened only once in U.S. history*--there would be a runoff between the two who ranked highest. Majority will would always prevail, and a Wallace-like spoiler could no longer threaten to disrupt the system. In practice, however, things might not prove to be quite so simple. As the measure (which, if approved, would still have to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures) passes to the Senate floor, opponents are arguing that it might well be even more chaotic and dissatisfying than the Electoral College system.

Consider, for instance, the drama of the absurd that could have resulted if the Bayh amendment had been ratified in early 1968:

SCENE 1. Rejected by the Democratic Convention, Senator Eugene McCarthy believes that the country still needs a peace candidate. Though he would have scant chance of gaining even one vote in the discarded Electoral College, the new setup offers intriguing possibilities.

In a four-way race, he reasons, Wal lace might pick up 13% or 14% of the vote. Nixon might expect 38% or 39%, while McCarthy and Humphrey would divide the remainder. Since no one would get more than 40%, there would have to be a runoff; McCarthy would have as good a chance as Humphrey to emerge as the man to oppose Nixon. The final race thus might very well be not Nixon-Humphrey but Nixon-McCarthy. The complications, however, do not end there.

SCENE 2. After McCarthy has made the plunge, Nelson Rockefeller, who has hankered after the White House longer than most voters can remember, decides to follow suit. Many people, he feels, choke at the thought of voting for Nixon, but are not happy at the prospect of either the loquacious Humphrey, the erratic McCarthy or the impossible Wallace. What they really want, he decides, is a man from the center: progressive but not too liberal, solid but not reactionary. With a flurry of publicity--and an open sesame to the family vaults--Rockefeller enters the race. SCENE 3. The logic that propelled McCarthy and Rockefeller penetrates California, where Ronald Reagan's cohorts tell him that it is now or never. If Nixon wins in 1968, they say, he will run again in 1972; true conservatives will not have another chance until 1976. By that time Reagan will be 65, with as many wrinkles as the Grand Canyon and considerably less telegenic appeal. Since Rockefeller has already broken party ranks, they argue, another apostasy will not be resented. Reagan promptly hires Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and 50,000 of his conservative followers cheer as they learn that yes, there will be a sixth candidate. SCENE 4. After Reagan, a dozen or more "cause" candidates, ranging from the Yippies to Women's Liberation, enter the lists. They have no chance at all of election, but they believe that a strong showing will impress the country and further their causes. In the runoff, they reason, they can vote for real. At the end of October the New York Times has to publish a 24-page supplement to tell voters who is who--and what.

This script is both unlikely and extreme--but unlikely and extreme events have been known to happen in politics. Opponents of the amendment are raising a more serious and thoughtful argument against the plan, focusing on three main considerations: 1) what effect change would have on the two-party system, 2) whether it would favor geographical or popular representation, and 3) whether it would give the edge to a liberal or a conservative candidate.

Opponents of the. Bayh amendment claim that the measure, by encouraging a multiplicity of candidates, could seriously erode the two-party system and result in political instability. Whatever its other faults, the Electoral College has encouraged the two-party system.

Since the winning candidate in a state, whether his margin is one vote or 1,000,000, takes all of its representation in the college, anyone who seeks the preidency must have the broad support of a party organization. Most voters re alize that a ballot for a third-party candidate is likely to be thrown away, and thus pick one of the two major can didates even though he is not their first preference. Nixon strategists used this ar gument very well in 1968, telling Wallaceites that a vote for their favorite was, in fact, a wasted vote--a vote that could go for Nixon against Humphrey.

This approach had little power in most of the Deep South, where Wallace overwhelmed both Nixon and Humphrey, but it was probably influential in other regions, where Wallace was only third man without any broad organizational support.

In answer, supporters of the Bayh amendment argue that the two-party sys tem is not based on the Electoral Col lege alone, but on deep-seated American tradition and hundreds of thousands of lesser elections. In these races a party label is vital, and the two major political organizations would not necessarily be affected by a change in the electoral system. Presidential candidates would still need this wide web of support; the lack of party money and party workers would still discourage and inhibit maverick challengers. On balance, though, the Bayh amendment would probably weaken the two-party system, encourage the entrance of splinter candidates, and stimulate the ideological divisions in a system that has usually avoided them.

Psychological Difference

A second major objection to the Bayh plan is that, in theory, a President could be elected without a broad geographical mandate. With the Bayh amendment, votes would still be counted state by state. If Hubert Humphrey in 1968 had lost 49 states by narrow margins (an average of, say, 50,000 votes each) but car ried New York by 2,500,000 votes, he could still have won the election under the Bayh plan. He would have had the support of the numerical majority of the nation's voters, but he would also have had the uncomfortable knowledge that his geographical victory was confined to one state. The difference would only be psychological, but that in itself could be important.

At bottom, this argument involves a question of political philosophy. What kind of nation is the U.S.? It began as a confederation of sovereign states.

But are states and regional boundaries today so important that a President must have support everywhere, or nearly everywhere, to govern fairly and successfully? The winner-take-all system of the present Electoral College emphasizes the role of states in deciding elections; but, under a principle of geographical distribution, it also allows candidates to win who have received fewer votes than their competitors, thereby favoring geography over people. If a candidate is backed by a majority of Americans, wherever they are concentrated, he deserves election. Ideally, he should be the choice of both the people as a whole and of the various geographical regions. But if the two do not coincide, as sometimes happens, most Americans would probably prefer that majority prevail over geography. After all, the Governor of a state, argue the Bayh defenders, does not need to have a majority of the counties to win election; he needs only a majority of the people.

Actually, the chances of any candidate's carrying one big state by a huge mar gin and losing all the others by small ones are tiny indeed.

This thought leads to the third objection to the Bayh plan, raised by some liberals. They argue that, contrary to ear lier appearances, it would favor conservatives over liberals. One of the anomalies of the Electoral College, they note, is that it gives minorities an influence beyond their numbers and benefits liberal candidates who have their support. The reason is that big states, unlike many small states, usually have strongly vying, evenly divided parties, and a bloc vote by minorities can change an election. Illinois, with 26 electoral votes, is a crucial swing state; its large non-white minority (9.9% of the voting-age population) mostly votes Democratic.

Thus, a massive turnout by Negroes at the polls can mean the difference between victory and defeat for that party's presidential candidate.

To be sure, Richard Nixon in 1968 more or less ignored the minority vote and won by gathering a majority of white voters in the small states and a few big ones. But if there had been a defection of two or three states, he would have lost. Many liberals fear that the direct election plan, while it democratically makes all votes equal, would dilute the power of minorities and make it easier for conservative candidates to ignore them and their needs. Blacks, for in stance, would lose some of their bloc power in states like Michigan and New York, and would be no stronger than their fractional share of the population.

Bayh amendment supporters answer that in some situations their plan might have exactly the opposite effect of giving to minorities power that they now lack. Although Southern blacks are voting in ever greater numbers, they have virtually no impact on presidential elections in their one-party states. The blacks who voted for Humphrey in Alabama (about 125,000) were vastly outnumbered by the whites who went for Wal lace (about 690,000) and gave him that state's ten ballots in the Electoral College. If the votes of Southern blacks were counted on a national basis, more of them, presumably, would turn out for elections, and candidates would have to pay more attention to them.

Other Arguments

An intriguing side effect of the Bayh plan might be a lessening of the impact of the South, by far the nation's most conservative region. The reason is pragmatic. Whereas the Electoral Col lege is based on population rather than the number of voters--Mississippi can cast its seven electoral votes even if only 110 people troop to the polls--direct election would be based on ballots cast. Since Southerners tend to vote less regularly (only 45.8% of South Carolina's eligible voters turned out in 1968, for instance, v. 75.8% in Minnesota) than residents of other regions, their influence would decline accord ingly. President Nixon's Southern strategy might be set back, perhaps fatally.

The Bayh plan might have other curious results. Since each vote counts so decisively in direct elections, opponents say, the loser in a close contest would be almost compelled to ask for a recount. With nationwide canvassing, this could hold up a decision for weeks.

Bayh critics also suggest that costs of campaigning, already skyhigh, would jump out of sight--particularly in a campaign with a runoff. As it is now, can didates spend most of their time in the important states; with direct election, the amendment opponents say that they would have to scour the country. It is hard to see, though, why direct election would make much difference. Los Angeles would still be more important--and courted--than Barrow, Alaska.

Whatever way the matter is decided by the Senate, doubts about the Bayh plan as it now exists are compelling.

An alternative amendment, which has the bipartisan backing of Kansas' Sen ator Robert Dole, a Republican, and Missouri's Senator Thomas Eagleton, a Democrat, would theoretically meet most of the objections. Under their so-called "Federal System Plan," a President would be elected if he received a plurality of the popular vote and either 1) pluralities in more than 50% of the states, or 2) pluralities in combinations of states with more than 50% of the voters. If no one satisfied the requirements, the election would then go to the Electoral College which would be slightly altered so that, in a deadlock, a third candidate's votes would be divided between the two top candidates, guaranteeing that one of them would receive a majority.

The Sad Truth

This scheme also has drawbacks. In addition to being so complicated that only political scientists seem to under stand it fully, the Dole-Eagleton amendment, like the Electoral College, violates the principle of one-man, one-vote in favor of geographical balance.

The man who receives the most votes could still be denied the presidency--hardly an ideal solution. Other plans that have been talked about are less radical, but they too are flawed. One suggested by North Carolina's Democratic Senator Sam Ervin, would modify the Electoral College so as to do away with electors but not with electoral votes.

(In theory, and sometimes in practice, electors can vote for anyone they choose, candidate or not.) In case a deadlock sent the election to Congress, Ervin's plan would also require that all the members of Congress, each having one vote, make the decision. As it is now, the House of Representatives alone decides, with each state delegation having exactly one vote. If the 1968 election had gone to the House, Alaska would have had as much voice as California--a clear affront to majority rule.

The sad truth seems to be that no solution can satisfy all the objections and reconcile all conflicts. The sadder truth, however, is that the whole question has been given nothing like the serious consideration it deserves, either by Congress or the public. Changing the method of electing a President will not merely change how votes are counted. It will help determine what kind of man will be elected and be a major factor in determining whether he is liberal or conservative, and how he views his constituency. Beyond that, there is a possibility, not yet fully appreciated, that the entire political makeup of the country might be affected in ways yet un anticipated and unexplored. That alone should be consideration enough to send Congress back to the drawing board in pursuit of the best plan possible.

* In 1860, a four-man race caused by the pre-Civil War split was won by Abraham Lincoln with 39.79% of the vote.

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