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between the two top candidates, and this would produce a quick, final, and easily accepted solution. Second, if the nation does not want the expense and protracted anxiety of another nationwide election so soon after the first, the choice could be thrown into the House, but the Senate would meet with the House in joint session and each member of Congress would have one vote. Since there would be 535 members in all, 268 votes would be required for election, and the nonsense of permitting deadlocked states to have no vote at all would be ended, along with the injustice of allowing Alaska to have sixty-nine times the voting power of California.
    I shall say more about these alternatives later, but with such easy solutions at hand, it is difficult to explain why we cling to a discredited procedure which might bring us much grief.
    * As we shall see ( this page – this page , this page – this page ), the defection of a North Carolina elector cut Nixon’s vote to 301.
    *
The House Shall Choose
(Elias Press, Margate, New Jersey, 1968).

II

THE FORTY-NINE STEPS
    Even though I was determined to work for the abolition of the Electoral College, I felt that since I was an elected member I should treat the tradition with respect, but society conspired against me. Newspapers in the area conducted man-on-the-street interviews regarding the College, and the replies were comical.
    One man said, “Every boy and girl should go to college and if they can’t afford Yale or Harvard, why, Electoral is just as good, if you work.”
    A woman in Philadelphia said, “I’ve heard some very nice things said about Electoral. It’s here in the neighborhood somewhere. I think it’s that bunch of red-brick buildingsabout three blocks farther down.” And she pointed toward Independence Hall.
    A sporting type said, “The guys at the bar poor-mouth Electoral somethin’ awful. Wasn’t they mixed up in a basketball scandal or somethin’?”
    Another man spoke for the majority. “I think every kid should go to Electoral … whether they want to or not.”
    In the course of several weeks I interrogated about fifty of my friends, a majority with college educations, and was surprised at the general ignorance I encountered. Not one understood the full complexity of the system. Most were uninformed on any but the grossest functions. And even those few who understood the principle of the College were astonished when I pointed out that as of that date, no one really knew for sure who had won the November election.
    “Then why is Nixon picking a Cabinet?” was a frequent rejoinder. When I tried to explain that in order to run the system we had to take certain things for granted, I received incredulous stares the intent of which I preferred not to decipher.
    What really irritated my panel, however, was my assurance that on November 5 no one—neither they nor I nor Richard Nixon—had voted for President, but only for this nameless group of electors who would later do the job for the nation. This they felt to be totally preposterous, and in certain cases I thought it best not to pursue the matter. I am sure those people remain convinced that I had it all backwards because they could remember as clear as day going into the voting booth and marking their vote for Richard Nixon. It was thereon the machine in big letters and they had pulled the lever for him. I reflected that in their stubbornness they had much companionship. I would suppose that in this error they were joined by at least three quarters of our population, for our citizens would be appalled if they ever woke up to the fact that they had not voted for President.
    Any system which induces such misconception is dangerous, because if in a close election the winner of the popular vote were to be deprived of the Presidency by manipulations in either the Electoral College or the House, there could be a disillusionment so vast that it might lead to large-scale disaffection or worse. And when one