To the editor:

Supporters of the Electoral College system contend that it fulfills the requirement of a national distribution of popular support to elect a president. In the Public Forum of June 30, Robert W. Ramsdell wrote that the Electoral College “eliminates the possibility that a candidate with exceptional popularity (i.e., getting 80-90 percent of the vote) confined to only a few groups or regions will win on a pure popular vote.”

I submit that dominance by one region is far more likely to occur under the Electoral College system than by a popular vote method. Consider the 14 contiguous states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia in the 2000 election. Of the 32 million votes cast for either of the two major candidates, Bush got 56 percent and Gore got 44 percent. All of this region’s 168 electoral votes went to Bush and they made up 62 percent of his national total of 271. Only in the District of Columbia, which has 3 electoral votes, did a lopsided popular vote occur, with Gore getting 85 percent and Bush 9 percent.

Bush got 68 percent of the popular vote in Wyoming, but in no state, much less in any region, did the winner come close to Mr. Ramsdell’s feared 80-90 percent. What is the fairness in transforming a popular vote margin of 56 percent/44 percent to the decisive electoral result of 168/zero?

John R. Ratzlaff,

Lawrence