Electoral College and Election Fraud | 국외연구자료

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Electoral College and Election Fraud

CATO

2024.01.18

We argue that the Electoral College creates strong disincentives for national parties to engage in election fraud, which might explain why discussions about the merits of the Electoral College often neglect the issue. Under the Electoral College, presidential candidates compete for votes on a state-by-？state basis. The winner of each state obtains all the state’s electoral votes, the number of which is equal to the size of the state’s congressional delegation, which is roughly aligned with the state’s population. This system often results in very close elections in a few states. In the 2020 presidential election, for instance, the incumbent president Donald Trump faced losses of 10,000 votes (0.3 percent) in Arizona, 12,000 votes (0.2 percent) in Georgia, and 20,000 votes (0.6 percent) in Wisconsin. Similarly, in 2016, Hillary Clinton experienced a combined margin of defeat of 76,000 votes across three swing states. A superficial analysis suggests that the relatively small degree of fraud required to overturn the election in either case could present a significant opportunity, if not a temptation, to engage in such activities.

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