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Distorting Democracy: The Forgotten History of the Electoral College—and Why it Matters Today
Distorting Democracy will awaken Americans to the perils of our system by unveiling the Electoral College’s origins, history, and present operations. This book demonstrates that the system has no principled foundation, that it has changed dramatically over its 230–year history, and that it threatens the legitimacy of our political system in the present.
A narrative-driven mix of history and political science, Distorting Democracy offers compelling stories to make its case in three distinct sections, each featuring a key argument.
Part I tells the story of the Electoral College’s origins in the Constitutional Convention. Vaunted myths often dominate Americans’ understanding of the founding, but this account highlights the full humanity of key framers and reveals the decidedly un-immaculate conception of the Electoral College. The system for choosing the chief executive did not spring from pristine political commitments or deep philosophical foundations. Rather, the framers settled on this option after months of wrangling, rambling, and back-tracking. In the Convention’s final days, the exhausted, irritable, and overheated framers opted for an Electoral College primarily to avoid selection of the president by Congress, a problematic and corrupting method that many framers nonetheless preferred. Under the Convention’s political realities, they could get sufficient agreement on no other option.
But the framers’ plan did not last long. Almost immediately, it worked differently than anticipated, as political operators manipulated it to their own ends. Part II traces two hundred years of innovations—many of them subtle but highly consequential—to the plan described in the Constitution. As the new nation rapidly descended into bitter political conflict, many of the framers themselves, driven by their partisan interests, massaged the Electoral College into a form that differed profoundly from their own founding intentions. Subsequent generations tinkered similarly with the systems’ possibilities, always exploiting its potential for political gain. The protocols of today’s presidential contests arose mostly from these efforts, though some features acquired the formal sanction of Constitutional amendment and legislation.
In recent decades our strange presidential election system has produced frustrating results with increasing frequency. Who can forget the Bush-Gore contest of 2000, when the results hinged on “hanging chads” and fewer than 1,500 votes in Florida? Americans endured weeks of a single-state recount, only to have the Supreme Court halt the process and hand the election to George W. Bush. Bush won the Electoral College by a single vote, but Al Gore captured 500,000 more popular votes. Then, in 2016, Donald Trump stunned the world with a substantial Electoral College victory of 302-227, though nearly 3 million more Americans preferred his opponent, and roughly 7 million voted for a third-party candidate. The system increasingly returns results that conflict with the expressed wishes of a majority of voters, a product of our hyper-polarized landscape and unique geopolitical distribution of party loyalists. And it doesn’t look like things will improve anytime soon.
Defenders of the Electoral College tend to invoke gauzy images of the Founding Fathers infusing our system with their unique, timeless wisdom. But history tells a different story. The Founding Fathers faced a mess; they responded by creating a mess.
A narrative-driven mix of history and political science, Distorting Democracy offers compelling stories to make its case in three distinct sections, each featuring a key argument.
Part I tells the story of the Electoral College’s origins in the Constitutional Convention. Vaunted myths often dominate Americans’ understanding of the founding, but this account highlights the full humanity of key framers and reveals the decidedly un-immaculate conception of the Electoral College. The system for choosing the chief executive did not spring from pristine political commitments or deep philosophical foundations. Rather, the framers settled on this option after months of wrangling, rambling, and back-tracking. In the Convention’s final days, the exhausted, irritable, and overheated framers opted for an Electoral College primarily to avoid selection of the president by Congress, a problematic and corrupting method that many framers nonetheless preferred. Under the Convention’s political realities, they could get sufficient agreement on no other option.
But the framers’ plan did not last long. Almost immediately, it worked differently than anticipated, as political operators manipulated it to their own ends. Part II traces two hundred years of innovations—many of them subtle but highly consequential—to the plan described in the Constitution. As the new nation rapidly descended into bitter political conflict, many of the framers themselves, driven by their partisan interests, massaged the Electoral College into a form that differed profoundly from their own founding intentions. Subsequent generations tinkered similarly with the systems’ possibilities, always exploiting its potential for political gain. The protocols of today’s presidential contests arose mostly from these efforts, though some features acquired the formal sanction of Constitutional amendment and legislation.
In recent decades our strange presidential election system has produced frustrating results with increasing frequency. Who can forget the Bush-Gore contest of 2000, when the results hinged on “hanging chads” and fewer than 1,500 votes in Florida? Americans endured weeks of a single-state recount, only to have the Supreme Court halt the process and hand the election to George W. Bush. Bush won the Electoral College by a single vote, but Al Gore captured 500,000 more popular votes. Then, in 2016, Donald Trump stunned the world with a substantial Electoral College victory of 302-227, though nearly 3 million more Americans preferred his opponent, and roughly 7 million voted for a third-party candidate. The system increasingly returns results that conflict with the expressed wishes of a majority of voters, a product of our hyper-polarized landscape and unique geopolitical distribution of party loyalists. And it doesn’t look like things will improve anytime soon.
Defenders of the Electoral College tend to invoke gauzy images of the Founding Fathers infusing our system with their unique, timeless wisdom. But history tells a different story. The Founding Fathers faced a mess; they responded by creating a mess.
251 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 17, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 21, 2024
In a nutshell: let’s not be precious about a system that was a messy compromise in the first place — that nobody was happy with and that we don’t even do today as designed by the framers. What’s still true: it gives outsized influence to southern and small states.
As the electoral college becomes less and less democratic in that it subverts the popular vote, this primer on its origins and purpose is interesting and important to understand. It’s not a sacred tenet of our constitutional system or American heritage.
As seen in the play-by-play of the constitutional convention detailed in the first chapter, it’s an ugly compromise made to settle a protracted debate.
Overall a good read, well researched and brings a seminal piece of history to life. After the first 25% or so, I got the point and the rest of it read like a very thorough term paper cataloging and countering other scholars’ explanations for the electoral college.
Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
“This system increasingly returns results that threaten to undo the expressed wishes of a majority of voters, and these “misfires” profoundly damage the body politic.”
As the electoral college becomes less and less democratic in that it subverts the popular vote, this primer on its origins and purpose is interesting and important to understand. It’s not a sacred tenet of our constitutional system or American heritage.
“Surely, George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, or Ben Franklin must have laid out the principled foundations that led clearly, logically, and inexorably to this method for selecting the president. In our minds, this lofty discourse rang with Truth so self-evident and compelling that the delegates rose to cheer in glorious consensus. As resplendent beams of light streamed in and an angel chorus swelled, the framers penned Article II of the Constitution. Except, that speech does not exist and that moment never happened.”
“Understanding the Electoral College’s decidedly un-immaculate conception can free us from slavish loyalty to a device that has served us poorly and may even endanger our republic.”
As seen in the play-by-play of the constitutional convention detailed in the first chapter, it’s an ugly compromise made to settle a protracted debate.
”Frustrated and irritable, out of options and out of time, they settled on a plan of electors only in the Convention’s final days, primarily to avoid a dangerous and problematic alternative.
Overall a good read, well researched and brings a seminal piece of history to life. After the first 25% or so, I got the point and the rest of it read like a very thorough term paper cataloging and countering other scholars’ explanations for the electoral college.
Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 21, 2026
2026 Reading Challenge: D
Read: Jan. 25-30
Like many Americans, I only vaguely understood how the electoral college works until 2016, when Trump became president without the popular vote (He received 46.1% to Clinton’s 48.2%), and lots of people were going, “Wait, that can happen?” It’s not really something that gets explained in detail in school, possibly because then more people would want to get rid of it. So if it’s not being taught, the next best thing is this book. Every American should read it.
The book is well researched, and written more like a novel, showing key players’ thoughts and concerns, which keeps it from feeling like a dry historical text.
The book starts by showing the framers’ long, winding, frustrating journey to ratifying the Constitution back in 1787; specifically, how the electoral college was not created out of “deep political principals or philosophical commitments” (nor “nefarious intentions”), (p. 4), but rather because the framers were “out of time, patience, and other options,” (p. 175). In other words, it was simply an acceptable concession.
The book cites three really good quotes that make a lot of sense when considering our constitution and electoral college, and their usefulness:
“The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please.” - Thomas Jefferson (1789)
“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” - Thomas Jefferson (1816)
“If the Constitution had provided candles for lighting purposes, we would not be using candles today instead of electricity. In electing our Presidents today, however, we are using a candle-powered system” - The Washington Herald (1916)
And, really, doesn’t that just make sense? I’d never thought about it, but when the author wrote about how, in 1787, few people had a national reputation, news spread slowly and only locally, it makes sense for there to have been concern about voters picking a candidate from their own state and almost never resulting a consensus choice if done by popular vote; but ever since the radio (then TV, and now internet), that really shouldn’t be an issue. Times change: technology evolves and society shifts, so saying, “This is what the framers intended” is irrelevant (and untrue anyway).
Besides, the book also shows how the electoral college system has already been altered over the years, and always for political motives, so that today it doesn’t even function the way the framers originally designed it to. Most notably, the people in each state (or state legislatures) chose electors to vote on behalf of the people within each state, “informed by their experience and knowledge,” (p. 55). Today’s electoral college is not choosing anything; They simply “vote” for whichever candidate received the most votes in their state.
It turns out, there have been efforts to abolish the electoral college in favor of a national popular vote for a very long time. Support for abolishing it even reached 80% in 1968. Why, then, do we still have it? Unsurprisingly, these efforts keep getting stamped out by whoever is currently receiving an advantage from the electoral college (starting with small states and slaveholding states, and now Republicans [Two of the last four times a Republican won the election, they did not get the popular vote; meanwhile Democrats have never won an election without the popular vote]).
The last part of the book explains how the electoral college is clearly anti-democratic:
First, it makes our votes unequal by putting a cap on the number of electors (435). So, for example, “in 2020, every 193,000 people in Wyoming got an elector, as opposed to Californians, who got one elector per 717,000 residents,” (p. 180). In fact, “twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia were overrepresented in 2020,” (p. 181).
Then it further distorts our votes with the perverse logic of winner-takes-all, not only silencing millions of votes, but actually giving them to the candidate they didn’t vote for. Did you know that 42% of Mississippi voters cast Democratic ballots in the 2020 election? I didn’t. But Trump got all six electoral votes (instead of 2 [33%; 42% would be 2.52 votes]). And even though Trump won more votes in California than in any other state, all 55 of California’s electoral votes went to Biden (Put another way: “Six million Californians voted for Donald Trump in 2020, yet they received zero voice in the Electoral College,” [p. 187]). All in all, there were 27 states where the winner received less than 59% of the vote. That’s more than 40% of the votes in more than half of our country’s states that didn’t matter.
Defenders of the electoral college claim it prevents candidates winning with only a few large states, but actually the reverse is true. The tables in chapter 9 are incredibly eye-opening: By putting states in order of population (highest to lowest), readers can see a presidential winner needs more than thirty-five of the most populous states on the list in order to accumulate enough votes to win. In contrast, it would take just the electoral votes of the 11 states with the most in order to get 270 electoral votes.
And it’s not just about being a “sore loser.” A system that requires candidates to win the majority vote encourages compromise and centrism while discouraging political polarization. And a president who wins a majority vote is obviously going to have an easier time garnering public support for their policies.
There’s also more transparency, which bolsters public trust in the system, and makes it harder to commit fraud.
So what are we doing, USA? We can do better than the electoral college. Don’t take my word for it; Read the book!
Read: Jan. 25-30
Like many Americans, I only vaguely understood how the electoral college works until 2016, when Trump became president without the popular vote (He received 46.1% to Clinton’s 48.2%), and lots of people were going, “Wait, that can happen?” It’s not really something that gets explained in detail in school, possibly because then more people would want to get rid of it. So if it’s not being taught, the next best thing is this book. Every American should read it.
The book is well researched, and written more like a novel, showing key players’ thoughts and concerns, which keeps it from feeling like a dry historical text.
The book starts by showing the framers’ long, winding, frustrating journey to ratifying the Constitution back in 1787; specifically, how the electoral college was not created out of “deep political principals or philosophical commitments” (nor “nefarious intentions”), (p. 4), but rather because the framers were “out of time, patience, and other options,” (p. 175). In other words, it was simply an acceptable concession.
The book cites three really good quotes that make a lot of sense when considering our constitution and electoral college, and their usefulness:
“The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please.” - Thomas Jefferson (1789)
“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” - Thomas Jefferson (1816)
“If the Constitution had provided candles for lighting purposes, we would not be using candles today instead of electricity. In electing our Presidents today, however, we are using a candle-powered system” - The Washington Herald (1916)
And, really, doesn’t that just make sense? I’d never thought about it, but when the author wrote about how, in 1787, few people had a national reputation, news spread slowly and only locally, it makes sense for there to have been concern about voters picking a candidate from their own state and almost never resulting a consensus choice if done by popular vote; but ever since the radio (then TV, and now internet), that really shouldn’t be an issue. Times change: technology evolves and society shifts, so saying, “This is what the framers intended” is irrelevant (and untrue anyway).
Besides, the book also shows how the electoral college system has already been altered over the years, and always for political motives, so that today it doesn’t even function the way the framers originally designed it to. Most notably, the people in each state (or state legislatures) chose electors to vote on behalf of the people within each state, “informed by their experience and knowledge,” (p. 55). Today’s electoral college is not choosing anything; They simply “vote” for whichever candidate received the most votes in their state.
It turns out, there have been efforts to abolish the electoral college in favor of a national popular vote for a very long time. Support for abolishing it even reached 80% in 1968. Why, then, do we still have it? Unsurprisingly, these efforts keep getting stamped out by whoever is currently receiving an advantage from the electoral college (starting with small states and slaveholding states, and now Republicans [Two of the last four times a Republican won the election, they did not get the popular vote; meanwhile Democrats have never won an election without the popular vote]).
The last part of the book explains how the electoral college is clearly anti-democratic:
First, it makes our votes unequal by putting a cap on the number of electors (435). So, for example, “in 2020, every 193,000 people in Wyoming got an elector, as opposed to Californians, who got one elector per 717,000 residents,” (p. 180). In fact, “twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia were overrepresented in 2020,” (p. 181).
Then it further distorts our votes with the perverse logic of winner-takes-all, not only silencing millions of votes, but actually giving them to the candidate they didn’t vote for. Did you know that 42% of Mississippi voters cast Democratic ballots in the 2020 election? I didn’t. But Trump got all six electoral votes (instead of 2 [33%; 42% would be 2.52 votes]). And even though Trump won more votes in California than in any other state, all 55 of California’s electoral votes went to Biden (Put another way: “Six million Californians voted for Donald Trump in 2020, yet they received zero voice in the Electoral College,” [p. 187]). All in all, there were 27 states where the winner received less than 59% of the vote. That’s more than 40% of the votes in more than half of our country’s states that didn’t matter.
Defenders of the electoral college claim it prevents candidates winning with only a few large states, but actually the reverse is true. The tables in chapter 9 are incredibly eye-opening: By putting states in order of population (highest to lowest), readers can see a presidential winner needs more than thirty-five of the most populous states on the list in order to accumulate enough votes to win. In contrast, it would take just the electoral votes of the 11 states with the most in order to get 270 electoral votes.
And it’s not just about being a “sore loser.” A system that requires candidates to win the majority vote encourages compromise and centrism while discouraging political polarization. And a president who wins a majority vote is obviously going to have an easier time garnering public support for their policies.
There’s also more transparency, which bolsters public trust in the system, and makes it harder to commit fraud.
So what are we doing, USA? We can do better than the electoral college. Don’t take my word for it; Read the book!
August 30, 2024
Distorting The Discussion. For a book about the history of the Electoral College that opens up admitting that the author thinks the Electoral College is foolhardy at best... the actual history here is quite good, and absolutely stuff virtually no one learns about even with a major in American History in college. (Perhaps Masters' or PhD students specifically studying the EC or at least the Constitutional Convention that created it would know at least some of this?) So absolutely read this book for Parts I and II, where Dupont shows that the fights that we have today about the Electoral College have been there basically since its creation and have reignited every few decades since.
It is in Part III, where Dupont begins discussing the current debates about the issue, that her acknowledged disdain comes to the fore and truly distorts the discussion. Here, she creates strawman after strawman after strawman and "debunks" them... without ever actually getting to the heart of any of the arguments she is "debunking".
Which is a shame, because throughout parts I and II, Dupont almost goes to pains to show that there have been some throughout American history who had at least part of the actual solution to the problems we now see - and were working to push that part of the solution through. In Part II, she even notes the other part to the solution... and glosses right on by it.
The solution that Dupont brings up repeatedly is the "District method" (vs the "General ticket" method we now call Winner-Take-All). Here, each Electoral Vote is, essentially, chosen by the popular vote of each Congressional District, with the overall popular vote of the State determining the Electoral Votes represented by that State's US Senators. Going to that method right now would mean that both "large State" and "small State" (to use the Founders' terms) or "urban" and "rural" (to use more modern terms) concerns would be more accurately represented in the overall Electoral College system.
But wait! There's more! The item that Dupont glosses over is the 1920s era law passed by Congress capping the number of US Representatives at 435. This was the final nail in the coffin as far as how unequal the system currently appears, allowing even a District based Electoral Vote in Wyoming to represent 400K ish people vs a District based vote in Los Angeles to easily represent 3x as many people. But that is "simply" an Act of Congress... meaning Congress can remove that restriction at any time, even, literally, the day you are reading this review.
And then there becomes a point in the Constitutional Convention that even Dupont completely misses. You see, while I haven't examined the relevant records myself (and perhaps Dupont could, and possibly release a 2nd edition of this text examining this), there are some who point out that the First Amendment as we know it... wasn't the actual First Amendment. Instead, it was the *second*, and the actual First Amendment actually closed the "Representational loophole" that Article I, Section II of the Constitution created when it noted that the "number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand". Reading that carefully, it means that the population represented by a single US Representative has a *minimum* - 30,000 people - meaning that the overall number of US Representatives has a *maximum* - 11,234 US Representatives, based on the US population in August 2024 as I write this review. But notice what this does *NOT* do - set a population *maximum* - and therefore an overall number of US Representatives *minimum*.
THIS is where the fight over the Electoral College misses its most crucial point - and it is a point Dupont seems to be entirely unaware or even ignorant of. If this so-called "true First Amendment" had passed, it would have set the population maximum per Representative - and therefore the minimum overall number of US Representatives - at 50,000 - or 6,740 US Representatives based on current US population as of late August 2024 as I write this review.
Combining the District Method Dupont discusses at length in the text here + this missing "actual First Amendment" would largely solve every single argument Dupont has against the Electoral College, and yet she missed such a crucial detail of James Madison's own efforts regarding the construction of the Constitution - thereby distorting the discussion from the get-go.
Recommended, mainly for Parts I and II, where most everyone will learn quite a bit.
It is in Part III, where Dupont begins discussing the current debates about the issue, that her acknowledged disdain comes to the fore and truly distorts the discussion. Here, she creates strawman after strawman after strawman and "debunks" them... without ever actually getting to the heart of any of the arguments she is "debunking".
Which is a shame, because throughout parts I and II, Dupont almost goes to pains to show that there have been some throughout American history who had at least part of the actual solution to the problems we now see - and were working to push that part of the solution through. In Part II, she even notes the other part to the solution... and glosses right on by it.
The solution that Dupont brings up repeatedly is the "District method" (vs the "General ticket" method we now call Winner-Take-All). Here, each Electoral Vote is, essentially, chosen by the popular vote of each Congressional District, with the overall popular vote of the State determining the Electoral Votes represented by that State's US Senators. Going to that method right now would mean that both "large State" and "small State" (to use the Founders' terms) or "urban" and "rural" (to use more modern terms) concerns would be more accurately represented in the overall Electoral College system.
But wait! There's more! The item that Dupont glosses over is the 1920s era law passed by Congress capping the number of US Representatives at 435. This was the final nail in the coffin as far as how unequal the system currently appears, allowing even a District based Electoral Vote in Wyoming to represent 400K ish people vs a District based vote in Los Angeles to easily represent 3x as many people. But that is "simply" an Act of Congress... meaning Congress can remove that restriction at any time, even, literally, the day you are reading this review.
And then there becomes a point in the Constitutional Convention that even Dupont completely misses. You see, while I haven't examined the relevant records myself (and perhaps Dupont could, and possibly release a 2nd edition of this text examining this), there are some who point out that the First Amendment as we know it... wasn't the actual First Amendment. Instead, it was the *second*, and the actual First Amendment actually closed the "Representational loophole" that Article I, Section II of the Constitution created when it noted that the "number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand". Reading that carefully, it means that the population represented by a single US Representative has a *minimum* - 30,000 people - meaning that the overall number of US Representatives has a *maximum* - 11,234 US Representatives, based on the US population in August 2024 as I write this review. But notice what this does *NOT* do - set a population *maximum* - and therefore an overall number of US Representatives *minimum*.
THIS is where the fight over the Electoral College misses its most crucial point - and it is a point Dupont seems to be entirely unaware or even ignorant of. If this so-called "true First Amendment" had passed, it would have set the population maximum per Representative - and therefore the minimum overall number of US Representatives - at 50,000 - or 6,740 US Representatives based on current US population as of late August 2024 as I write this review.
Combining the District Method Dupont discusses at length in the text here + this missing "actual First Amendment" would largely solve every single argument Dupont has against the Electoral College, and yet she missed such a crucial detail of James Madison's own efforts regarding the construction of the Constitution - thereby distorting the discussion from the get-go.
Recommended, mainly for Parts I and II, where most everyone will learn quite a bit.
August 7, 2024
You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at my blog, Mr. Book's Book Reviews.
Thank you, Globe Pequot, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Distorting Democracy: The Forgotten History Of The Electoral College—And Why It Matters Today, by Carolyn Renee Dupont, and contributions by Stephen Clements.
The first section of the book was chapters about how the electoral college originated and dispelling the myths about it being a brilliant invention of the Framers. The next section reviewed how the electoral college evolved into something the Framers never intended, starting very early on its history. The book looks at the elections of 1800, 1812 and 1824 as examples of that—as well as being examples of the kind of scheming and manipulation of the system that were not legitimately democratic elections.
After a chapter on the disastrous election of 1876, there is an excellent look at how the electoral college allowed white supremacist states to inflate their power by using blacks in the state to boost the population, while denying them the vote—just like the slave-holding used the 3/5 clause to inflate their representation in Congress and in the electoral college. The best part of the book came when it showed how the electoral college functions to disenfranchise so many voters all over the country even today. That last discussion was what pushed it over the top from an A to A+, which also entitles it to induction into the Hall of Fame.
Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A+ equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on August 7, 2024.
Thank you, Globe Pequot, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Distorting Democracy: The Forgotten History Of The Electoral College—And Why It Matters Today, by Carolyn Renee Dupont, and contributions by Stephen Clements.
The first section of the book was chapters about how the electoral college originated and dispelling the myths about it being a brilliant invention of the Framers. The next section reviewed how the electoral college evolved into something the Framers never intended, starting very early on its history. The book looks at the elections of 1800, 1812 and 1824 as examples of that—as well as being examples of the kind of scheming and manipulation of the system that were not legitimately democratic elections.
After a chapter on the disastrous election of 1876, there is an excellent look at how the electoral college allowed white supremacist states to inflate their power by using blacks in the state to boost the population, while denying them the vote—just like the slave-holding used the 3/5 clause to inflate their representation in Congress and in the electoral college. The best part of the book came when it showed how the electoral college functions to disenfranchise so many voters all over the country even today. That last discussion was what pushed it over the top from an A to A+, which also entitles it to induction into the Hall of Fame.
Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A+ equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on August 7, 2024.
March 3, 2025
Just finished Carolyn Dupont's *Distorting Democracy*. Remarkably riveting book given its subject: the electoral college. 🙂 Dupont is a terrific writer and arguer, and her thick description of the messy, partisan process that led to the electoral college’s birth in the Constitutional Convention—followed by electoral crises in 1800, 1812, 1824, 1876, 2000, and many other close calls—is disturbing.
Money quote: “The method by which Americans elect their presidents originated here [at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia]—in overheated, exhausted, and frustrated delegates who needed a practical solution and made accommodations to achieve it. Only huge misunderstandings and historical inventions can follow from elevating the framers’ practical concession to the status of lofty principles.”
“Understanding the Electoral College’s decidedly un-immaculate conception can free us from slavish loyalty to a device that has served us poorly and may even endanger our republic.”
Money quote: “The method by which Americans elect their presidents originated here [at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia]—in overheated, exhausted, and frustrated delegates who needed a practical solution and made accommodations to achieve it. Only huge misunderstandings and historical inventions can follow from elevating the framers’ practical concession to the status of lofty principles.”
“Understanding the Electoral College’s decidedly un-immaculate conception can free us from slavish loyalty to a device that has served us poorly and may even endanger our republic.”
Read
December 15, 2024yeah i’m not reading this whole thing it has 3 reviews. i’m using the sypnosis for my annotated bibliography
September 29, 2025
Every American should read this especially the last section
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews