Modest Reform

No special expertise in politics is needed nowadays to recognize that the nation's 168-year-old electoral process is an anachronism, and a potentially dangerous one. Last week, the President declared that its reform "should be given the earliest attention by the Congress."

As it turned out, however, the President's demands were considerably less drastic than his campaign oratory had suggested. Instead of saying, as he had in October, that "the candidate who wins the most popular votes should be President," Nixon now declares: "Practicality demands recognition that the electoral system is deeply rooted in American history and federalism."

Glaring Weaknesses. What the Pres ident suggested is essentially bits and pieces from earlier reform recommendations. He proposed that instead of having to get a majority of the electoral votes, a presidential candidate could win with only 40%. If the two top con- testants did not receive that plurality, the House would not be called upon to resolve the deadlock as now, but in stead a special general election would be held, with victory going to the candidate who received more popular votes.

This formula would eliminate several weaknesses that became glaringly apparent during the last election campaign. For a time it was feared that George Wallace would deprive the two front-runners of an electoral majority, leaving him free to try to impose his own presidential preference by throwing his captive vote to the candidate who came closer to his ideological criteria. The President's proposal would allot each state as many electoral votes as it had congressional representatives, but there would be no individual electors. Thus it would no longer be possible for a maverick like North Carolina's Dr. Lloyd W. Bailey in 1968 to vote defiantly for George Wallace when Nixon won the popular vote in his district.

Practicable Compromise. The weakness of the proposal, of course, is that voters still would not directly elect a President. A minority candidate who did not carry the popular vote nationwide could still win the election by snaring 40% or more of the electoral votes. As before, millions of voters could be disfranchised every four years, even though the Electoral College's "winner-take-all" system would be replaced by a proportional tally. In his message, Nixon said that he favored abolition of the college but explained that his solution is a practicable compromise. "I doubt very much," he said, "that any constitutional amendment proposing abolition or substantial modification of the electoral vote system could win the required approval of three-quarters of our 50 states by 1972."

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