North Central College in the News
North Central College political science professor interviewed on WGN News
Nov 10, 2020
Dr. Suzanne Chod discusses history of electoral college
Election Day turned Election Week and there was a lot of anxiety as votes were being counted. In that moment of uncertainty, there was a lot of talk about the electoral college as opposed to the popular vote, and a lot of people do not know the history behind the electoral college and why we follow it each election. Dr. Suzanne Chod, associate professor of political science at North Central College, interviewed with WGN News on Friday, November 6 and shared the key aspects behind that history.
“The electoral college was initiated initially as a way to try to balance out representation between big states and small states, northern states and southern states,” said Dr. Chod. “The fight was over whether salves who had no rights as humans, but were seen as property, should be considered as part of the population. Of course, southern states wanted them as part of the population so they could get more representation in Congress, which would give them more electoral college votes, and the compromise there was the three-fifths compromise to count every five slaves as three people. And so, what that ended up doing was amplifying the amount of representation that really five southern states got in the electoral college. So, it has deep roots in racism and slavery and in representation and compromising a balance between the north and the south to be able to get the constitution ratified.”
