North Dakota
The past, present and future of the Electoral College • North Dakota Monitor
The United States’ presidential election system has been a source of contention since the delegates to the Constitutional Convention first debated the matter on June 1, 1787. On that day and several thereafter, the delegates discussed whether “the people” should elect the president. Some steadfastly championed the idea and consequently proposed that a national popular vote determine which person would become president. The following account illuminates why such proposals were defeated, why the Electoral College was adopted instead, and the prospects of a national popular vote in the future.
Opposition to the national popular vote option at the Constitutional Convention
The convention delegates identified three ways to pick the president. A national popular vote, as we have seen, was one option. The other two were to have either national legislators or state officeholders pick the president. Delegates who favored the latter two options opposed a national popular vote for the following reasons.
- Some contended that the masses would be unstable, misinformed and easily duped by demagogues. (The counterargument was that, given the slowness of communications and the diversity of the nation, nefarious characters never could beguile the entire county’s sprawling, heterogeneous populace, whereas they could target and intrigue with national legislators or state officeholders. For this reason, of the three options, a national popular vote could be seen as the best safeguard against domestic and foreign foes).
- Others claimed that common folk would be unfamiliar with individuals beyond their state or region. (The counterargument was that as time passed and the bonds of union strengthened, more figures with continental reputations would emerge as prospective presidents.)
- Still others argued that a small-state resident never would win presidential contests. (This issue could be addressed by having voters cast multiple ballots and establishing requirements concerning how many had to be for a person who resided in a different state than the voter.)
- Finally, there were those who observed that southern states would be disadvantaged by a national popular vote because, collectively, one-third of their inhabitants were enslaved Black Americans, who were disenfranchised. (The counterargument was that, for now, southern states ought to acquiesce for the greater good’s sake, and, in the future, they could expect to surpass their northern counterparts in population and possibly affect slavery’s end).
On July 25, the convention voted down by a five-to-six margin (with each state delegation casting one vote) a motion to consider a popular vote system in which each voter would have cast multiple ballots. The narrow defeat arguably marked the closest the U.S. has come to instituting a national popular vote to elect the president. Ultimately, proponents of a national popular vote pushed for what they considered to be the next closest thing, a system which became known as the Electoral College.
The Electoral College at the Constitutional Convention
To win supporters, the architects of the Electoral College leveraged what delegate James Madison often referred to as “expedients” (i.e., features which could be used for outreach and compromise). As a result, the Electoral College offered something to most everyone.
- The president would be picked by electors, who themselves would be chosen for that one duty. The people would not directly elevate a person to the presidency, which appeased opponents of a national popular vote.
- Each state would be allotted a sum of electors equal to its representation in Congress. Numerically, the Electoral College would be identical to a joint session of Congress. The inclusion of the Senate in the formula for allocating electoral votes among the states advantaged small states. (Even so, among the delegates, the general assumption was that large states would exercise an influence on presidential elections mostly commensurate with the sizes of their respective populations.) The inclusion of the House in the formula advantaged slaveholding states, a benefit derived from the Constitution’s Three-Fifths Clause, which allowed states to count three-fifths of their enslaved residents when determining their haul of House seats. Thus large, free states would be underrepresented in the Electoral College while small states and slaveholding states would be overrepresented. Of the latter two, the advantage accorded to slaveholding states had a greater influence on the nation’s trajectory.
- Electors could not be national lawmakers or hold “an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States.” This provision was designed to thwart cabal and corruption.
- Congress could determine when electors would be chosen. This provision, like those which empowered Congress to establish when electors would assemble and the manner in which their votes would be certified and transmitted to the nation’s capital, aimed to prevent state interference with the system’s operation.
- Electors would be appointed in a manner directed by their respective state legislatures. The advocates of a national popular vote wanted electors to be popularly elected; other delegates wanted state lawmakers to select electors. This provision was the politically optimal solution, for it required neither state lawmakers nor the people to pick electors but permitted both to do so.
- Each state’s electors would meet and vote on the same day in their respective states. The scattered (and temporary) nature of their work was deemed a security measure in age before instantaneous long-distance communication. Consequently, this provision proved immensely important, even decisive, for it afforded protections against domestic cabal and foreign interference which no other presidential election system could match, a national popular vote notwithstanding.
- Electors would cast two ballots for president, one of which had to be for a resident of another state. This provision served three purposes: it increased the likelihood that a small-state resident would be elected president ; it countenanced nationalism; and it abetted majoritarianism (if electors cast one ballot, so the reasoning went, presidential contests likely would end with a large-state resident finishing first with a plurality of electoral votes, whereas if electors cast two ballots, it would increase the chances that one or more persons would receive votes from at least half of the electors).
- The person who received the most electoral votes would become president if a majority of electors had cast a ballot for that person, in which case the person with the second-most electoral votes would become vice president. If no person received a majority of electors’ votes, the House would choose the president from among the top-five electoral vote-getters, with each state delegation casting one vote. These provisions further increased the chances that a small-state resident would become president.
Given the political realities at the convention, this complex arrangement, reflected delegate Abraham Baldwin, was “not so objectionable when well considered, as at first view.”
The Electoral College’s defining traits
The Electoral College originally had six defining traits.
- It promoted democracy. It was the closest thing to a national popular vote politically possible, for it included the potential for the people’s participation in presidential elections.
- It promoted nationalism. Nationalism was countenanced to the extent that the president was rooted in the people. Moreover, the system was explicitly interstate in design. Finally, safeguards protected it from state interference.
- It promoted national security. Whatever delegates thought about the system’s democratic and nationalistic traits, virtually all acknowledged that, compared to having national legislators or state officeholders pick the president, it provided unmatched defenses against domestic cabal and foreign interference, which many if not all regarded as vital to the republic’s survival. The primacy of shielding the system from enemies may have been the one thing upon which the delegates agreed.
- It advantaged slaveholding states.
- It advantaged small states, principally by increasing the likelihood that a small-state resident would be elected president.
- It satisfied delegates who wanted state legislatures to direct electors’ manner of appointment.
These traits abetted the Electoral College’s approval at the Constitutional Convention and subsequent state ratifying conventions.
The Electoral College in 2024
The Electoral College’s current output mostly bears the opposite character of that which it originally was designed to produce.
- It does not promote democracy. It violates one of democracy’s essential features (political equality) and can violate another essential feature (majority rule).
- It does not promote nationalism. It effectively renders Americans in non-competitive states spectators and it inhibits the formation of interstate affinities.
- It does not promote national security. It is, in fact, a vital security risk: instead of having to influence many votes across the entire U.S., foes may target relatively few votes in competitive states alone.
- It modestly advantages small states, principally through the inclusion of the Senate in the formula for allocating electoral votes, whereas the size of the state from which a would-be president hails is of comparatively little to no importance.
- It still accords state legislatures the power to direct the manner in which their respective electors are appointed.
Ironically, the last of these was not something the system’s leading lights had desired, but rather was a necessary accommodation designed to win over other delegates.
The Electoral College’s future
There is little doubt that the Electoral College’s principal architects would have preferred a national popular vote, just as polling has long shown it to be the people’s preference. What are the chances that a national popular vote ever will be affected? That subject merits an analysis of its own. But, for now, three observations warrant brief consideration.
- First, state legislatures’ power to direct electors’ manner of appointment, which constitutes a surviving trait of the system’s original design, is the primary instrument for instituting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), a binding agreement between states which, if put into operation, effectively would result in a national popular vote.
- Second, since its conception in 2006, the NPVIC has been adopted by 18 jurisdictions (specifically, 17 states and the District of Columbia). These 18 jurisdictions currently control 209 electoral votes (meaning the NPVIC is 61 electoral votes short of the 270 required to make it operational).
- Finally, the NPVIC’s durability and accomplishments make it uniquely positioned for future success. According to a to-be-published national study which I oversaw in September 2024, it’s the preferred option among a plurality of Americans under age 50 and it draws in roughly equal measures from Republicans, Democrats and independents. Its base, in short, is broad, balanced and young. Thus the NVPIC movement arguably has brought the nation as close as it’s been to a national popular vote since the one-vote defeat of a motion to that effect at the Constitutional Convention on July 25, 1787, and it is poised to bring it still closer.
The NPVIC movement may crash upon the shoals of opposition, atrophy and perish. Or it may secure 61 more electoral votes and, assuming it is subject to a legal challenge, the approval of five Supreme Court justices. If such should be the case, finally might the people pick the president.
Filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court
North Dakota
Shelly Frances, Minot, Chapter 7
Garrett Joseph Farnsworth, Bismarck, Chapter 7
Aaron James Goette, Horace, Chapter 13
Destinee L. Reed, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
LaWayne and Ruthanna Smith, Surrey, Chapter 13
Sabrina Marie Odegaard, formerly known as Sabrina Marie Wagner, Dickinson, Chapter 7
Krysti Mae Bench, formerly known as Krysti Mae Gainey, Fargo, Chaper 7
Tera Carleen Geyer, formerly known as Tera Dutchak, Dickinson, Chapter 7
Heath Alan Schaffer, LaMoure, Chapter 7
Nicholas Duane Noel, Fargo, Chapter 13
Jason Walter Lautt, Jamestown, Chapter 7
Bryan Lee Drinkman, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Melia Kay Thompson, Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Roger Pelzer, Minot, Chapter 13
Jason Valentine and Amy Marie Keller, Bismarck, Chapter 13
Jaden Allen McGregor, Horace, Chapter 13
Rodney John and Jennifer Rebecca Brown, Williston, Chapter 13
Kayden Michelle Pavlicek, Dunn Center, Chapter 13
Minnesota
Bankruptcy filings from the following counties: Becker, Clay, Douglas, Grant, Hubbard, Mahnomen, Norman, Otter Tail, Polk, Traverse, Wadena and Wilkin.
Tyler Erick Nelson and Lisa Ann Nelson, formerly known as Lisa Costello, Dilworth, Chapter 13
Ethan Kenneth Edwards and Katherine Elizabeth Edwards, formerly known as Katherine Thornsburry, Park Rapids, Chapter 7
Amber Rae Durkin, formerly known as Amber O’Beirne, and James Robert Durkin, Bemidji, Chapter 13
Sierra Jade Ileene Isum, East Grand Forks, Chapter 7
Elizabeth Charlotte Smith, also known as Betsy Smith, Ogema, Chapter 7
Rebecca Lacey and Matthew Ian Angell, Alexandria, Chapter 7
Chapter 7 is a petition to liquidate assets and discharge debts.
Chapter 11 is a petition for protection from creditors and to reorganize.
Chapter 12 is a petition for family farmers to reorganize.
Chapter 13 is a petition for wage earners to readjust debts.
Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.
FARGO — Terri Hedman has voted in North Dakota elections for 40 years, but during the coronavirus pandemic, she said she made the switch to mail-in and absentee ballots.
She’s cast her ballot at her south Fargo home ever since, she said, adding she appreciates the ease of voting ahead of the election.
“I’m a nurse. I like to plan ahead, and I like to make sure things are done,” she said. “I love the idea that I can vote and know that is a task that is completed.”
Hedman was one of 91,556 North Dakota voters who cast their ballots by mail or absentee in the 2024 general election. That made up 25% of the state’s votes that year, according to a Forum analysis of Secretary of State’s Office data.
Troy Becker / The Forum
“Vote by mail is critical for North Dakota,” Secretary of State Michael Howe said. “As a rural state, people can be hours away from a physical polling location. Voting by mail gives folks that option to vote.”
Another 27% cast their ballots during early in-person voting, meaning less than half of North Dakota voters went to the polls on Election Day in November 2024.
Cody Schuler, an advocacy manager for the ACLU in North Dakota, said he wasn’t surprised that mail-in and absentee voting have become more popular. Voting by mail offers many benefits, and people have many reasons for using that method, he said.
“That’s fantastic that people are exercising their right in a way that is easy and convenient for them,” he said in response to the 2024 numbers.
Absentee ballots can be requested 40 days before an election in North Dakota. Under a state law passed in 2025, mail-in and absentee ballots must be received by the county election office no later than the close of polls on Election Day.
That’s June 9 for the primary election and Nov. 3 for the general election this year.
Nearly 36,000 mail-in and absentee ballots have been sent to North Dakota voters as of Thursday, May 28, with 17,705 returned to election officials, according to state data. The state has 600,394 eligible voters, Howe said.
Of the state’s 53 counties, 34 are classified as vote-by-mail, meaning those counties automatically send out an application to eligible voters for mail-in ballots.
In the remaining 19 counties, voters must request ballots by mail.
North Dakota’s voting by mail process is “very secure,” Howe said. Voters have to prove that they have lived in North Dakota for 30 days prior to the election.
No one is sent a ballot unless a person applies for one, Howe said.
“Similarly, you are only mailed a ballot after identity verification,” he said.
Some counties depended on mail-in and absentee ballots much more than others, according to the Forum analysis. In McHenry County, 2,001 voters used the remote option, making up 72% of the county’s voters. Rolette County had the lowest rate of voting by mail or absentee with 11%, followed by Morton County (12%) and Cass County (13%).
Voting in person can be challenging, Schuler and Howe said. North Dakota law requires each county to have at least one polling place during elections, Howe said.
Nearly half of North Dakota’s counties only have one voting center, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Those polling places may be miles away, making it difficult for some to make it, Schuler said.
“We are a very rural state, and for many people, distance is an issue,” he said.
Eight counties allow early in-person voting up to two weeks before Election Day: Burleigh, Cass, Grand Forks, Morton, Sioux, Stark, Stutsman and Ward.
Early voting in Cass County runs 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 2-5 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 6.
Nine of Cass County’s 17 Election Day polling places are in the metro area. A Cass County resident who lives near Colgate, which sits on the Steele County border, has to drive 30 miles to the nearest polling place in Tower City to vote.
McHenry County’s lone polling place is Towner, which is about 50 miles east of Minot. The polling place is roughly 60 miles from the county’s southwest corner and 40 miles from Anamoose, a city of 212 people in the county’s southeast corner.
Many counties can’t have early voting or more than one polling place because they can’t find enough poll workers, Howe said.
“Each county is responsible for the cost of their election,” he said, adding counties have to pay poll worker wages and rent for polling places.
Voting is a fundamental right, Schuler said.
“Eligible voters should have as many opportunities and options to exercise that right as possible,” he said. “Mail-in voting is really an easy way to do that.”
‘Confident that my voice is heard’
Mail-in ballot voting has grown in North Dakota over the last decade, from 52,319 ballots, or about 21% of voters, in the 2014 general election to almost double the number of voters in 2024, according to state data.
Minnesota’s growth in absentee and mail-in voting grew more dramatically. Nearly 244,000 people, or 12% of voters, used the option in the 2014 general election, according to The Forum’s analysis of Minnesota data. That jumped to 41%, or 1.33 million voters, in the 2024 general election.
Voting by mail in the North Star State has inched up over the years, with the high mark coming in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said. More than 1.93 million voters, or 59%, cast their ballots by mail, according to his office.
“I think it reflects our flexible menu of ways that people can vote in Minnesota,” Simon said. “I think people like that accessibility and choice.”
About 39% of Clay County voters mailed in their ballots in the 2024 general election, according to Minnesota Secretary of State data.
Minnesota law allows townships and cities with fewer than 400 residents to forgo setting up a polling place and hold elections entirely by mail, Simon noted. Towns like it for the cost-savings, and residents in rural areas like the option of voting from home instead of having to drive miles to a voting center, he said.
“That’s something that more and more cities and townships have taken advantage of as well,” he said of mail-in only elections. “It’s gotten good reviews from people who just want to be able to vote with ease in a way that makes sense for their own lives.”
North Dakota held its 2020 primary election completely by mail in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Roughly 160,000 voted in that election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Months later, more than 185,000 North Dakotans, or 51% of the state’s voters, cast their ballots by mail, according to state data.
“I think that opened up a lot of people to experience voting by mail for the first time,” Howe said. “I think people liked the comfort of it and liked the convenience of it.”
Overall, Howe said North Dakota does well at offering voting choices.
“That’s the beauty of North Dakota elections,” he said. “North Dakotans have the choice to vote in a way that is most convenient to them.”
As a nurse, Hedman said emergencies can happen, including on Election Day, that call her attention away from tasks at hand. Being able to plan ahead makes voting easier, she said.
“This way, I feel confident that my voice is heard,” she said.
More information on voting in North Dakota, including absentee voting, can be found at
sos.nd.gov/elections/voter
. Voters also can find Minnesota information at
sos.mn.gov/elections-voting
.
A new North Dakota Department of Public Instruction survey seeks statewide feedback on potential changes to how students are using technology.
Superintendent Levi Bachmeier, who
took over the state’s top education role
in November, said he hopes the survey results will inform policymakers on potential reforms to school-issued device policies across the state. During his first student Cabinet meeting, he said a Mandan freshman told him the devices needed to be a “tool, not a toy.”
“The world that these young people are inheriting requires them to use technology responsibly, but we know that these devices are just as addictive as substances,” Bachmeier said during a press conference Thursday. “And that can be just as true for the school-issued device in their hands as the cellphone they carry around in their pocket.”
North Dakota
banned the use of cellphones
during the school day during the 2025 legislative session, something Bachmeier said has received a near universal
positive response
during its first year in effect.
The cellphone ban triggered a migration of some students from using their cellphones to access YouTube and other social media sites to using their school-issued laptops or tablets, Bachmeier said.
The
survey
includes questions about restrictions on device usage in elementary school, a potential prohibition on taking devices home, built-in make-up days into school scheduling before using virtual instruction and whether the state should require districts to use monitoring software on the devices.
He added that some school districts already have monitoring software that tracks student technology usage, but it is not a uniform policy.
“It’s inconsistent,” Bachmeier said. “Our challenge is how do we find what’s the best that is going on in North Dakota and make that a reality for every student in our state.”
Sen. Michelle Axtman, R-Bismarck, a lawmaker who sponsored multiple education bills during the 2025 legislative session, said any potential reforms to technology policies should enhance instruction, support learning and allow students to develop interpersonal and critical-thinking skills.
“This effort today is not about eliminating technology from education,” Axtman said. “It’s about ensuring that technology serves learning rather than competes with it.”
Axtman said any potential changes to school device policies could be proposed during the 2027 legislative session and be implemented for the 2027-28 school year.
“By working towards clear statewide expectations for school-issued device use, we will help schools create learning environments that are more focused, more productive and healthier for students,” she said.
The
survey
can be filled out by any North Dakota student, parent, educator or community member through Aug. 1.
This story was originally published on NorthDakotaMonitor.com.
____________________________________
This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here.
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