Babel - Bringing Teachers Together

The 2000 Presidential Election highlighted a peculiar, but generally uninteresting, American institution - the Electoral College. Whether students are learning about the Constitution in US I or examining current events in another Social Studies course, this is an important topic to examine thoroughly.

What is the Electoral College? What is its role in Presidential elections? Should it be reformed, abolished, or left alone?

These are a few of the questions that students will tackle in this lesson.

This lesson would be best for two consecutive days or for a block period, but it might be possible to complete it in one forty-three minute period.

Do Now and Introduction

As students enter class, they should answer the Do Now question - "What is the Electoral College? What is its role in Presidential Elections?"

After students have shared what they know about the Electoral College, review how the President is elected. Some major points to cover are - difference between electoral and popular votes, "winner-take-all" nature of electoral votes, and the number of votes a state gets.

Next, describe to the students the reform proposed in California. Some California politicians have proposed an initiative to change California's electoral votes. Instead of awarding all of the votes to the winner, the initiative would require the electors to split their votes. Under this proposal, the votes would be awarded according to Congressional district - creating about 20 "safe" votes for Republican candidates.

A similar proposal might divide electoral votes according to the popular vote. Demonstrate how this would be calculated mathematically. For example, if a candidate got 60% of the popular vote, he would get 60% of the 55 electoral votes - 33. Then, tell the students to do a Think-Pair-Share and decide whether or not they think this reform is a good idea.

After the class has discussed their opinions, inform them that you will use the 2000 Election as a case study to investigate the effects of this reform.

Activity

Students should now be broken up into small groups of three to four students. Each group should be given a copy of the handout with statistics for the 2000 Election.

The students should then read over the instructions on the handout. Each group will use the election statistics to determine who would have won the election under a certain set of circumstances. One group will assume that all states enact the proposed reform, another group will assume that only Democratic states enact the reform, and the last group will assume that only Republican states enact the reform.

Once the groups finishes calculating the electoral votes, they should add them up and determine whether Bush or Gore would win in their scenario. Based on these results, they should discuss the following questions:

• Did either candidate get an unfair advantage?
• Does this seem like a better/fairer way to determine the election?
• Would you support this reform in New Jersey (or your state)? Why or why not?

After the groups have finished discussing their questions, compare the outcomes to the three scenarios. Discuss the guiding questions together and pay particular attention to differences between the groups.

A culminating point of the discussion should be that the reform is unfair if only some states adopt it. If every state adopts the reform, it shouldn't drastically alter the outcome. However, if only Democratic states adopt it, the Democratic candidate will lose a lot of votes - likewise for a Republican candidate and Republican states.

Recap, Closing, Assessment

After the discussion is over, review and recap the lessons main points.

Afterwards, have the students complete an exit card. On the exit card, the students should answer the question - "Would you support this type of reform in New Jersey? Why or why not?"

As an alternative or a more extensive assessment, you could have the students write a lengthier argument. For homework, they should write a newspaper editorial arguing for or against the adoption of this reform in New Jersey.

Another version of this assignment could task the students with writing a letter to the editor about this reform. These letters could then be submitted to a local newspaper (or the school newspaper) for consideration.