Lecture and Book Signing

How America Chooses Its Presidents
The Electoral College in U.S. Presidential Elections:
Logical Foundations, Mathematics, and Politics

By Dr. Alexander S. Belenky
Visiting Scholar, MIT ESD

Click here to download event poster.

About the Lecture
This is Dr. Belenky’s first public lecture on his new book, How America Chooses Its Presidents. The book addresses a spectrum of issues relating to the Electoral College from the perspective of its logical foundations. This is the first book to question the applicability of the Presidential Succession Act, a Federal Statute, in certain extreme but possible situations. The book argues that the act may not protect the country from election stalemates.

The book contains new ideas on improving the system of electing a President. For example, it proposes a modification of the election system allowing the nationwide popular vote to be a decisive factor in determining the election outcome while retaining the Electoral College. This modification – requiring a Constitutional amendment -- is close to though different from an idea proposed in 1970 by Senator Bob Dole. The book also considers proposals by others to change the way Presidents are elected, including a controversial recent proposal to elect a President by popular vote without abolishing the Electoral College and without introducing an amendment to the US Constitution.

The book provides examples illustrating certain statements and facts about the Electoral College and contains the logical analysis of both old election rules, determined by Article 2 of the US Constitution, and contemporary ones, determined by the Twelfth Amendment.

Inside the book
How America Chooses Its Presidents addresses in a simple manner the whole spectrum of issues relating to the Electoral College from the perspective of its logical foundations.

Today, 50 states and DC rather than a college of electors award electoral votes in presidential elections. This appears to violate the “one state, one vote” principle, the constitutional norm governing the electing of a President by states, since a state’s electoral vote quota is based on the size of its population. Despite the counting of the nationwide popular vote since the 1824 election, the “one man, one vote” principle—a democratic norm underlying all other American elections—remains unconstitutional in electing a President. The “winner-take-all” principle of awarding electoral votes makes many states “safe” for either major party candidate. This narrows election campaigns to a “battleground minority” of the states and contributes to keeping more than 40% of the electorate not interested in voting in presidential elections.

Abolishing the existing election system in favor of a direct popular presidential election—by means of a constitutional amendment—seems unlikely. Seventeen small states—with fi ve and fewer electoral votes each—have no reason to voluntarily surrender the “one state, one vote” principle in electing a President in the House of Representatives, as well as the chance of having a say in the Electoral College. The book analyzes a controversial proposal to “circumvent” the small states by introducing the “one man, one vote” principle without a constitutional amendment and argues that this proposal seems unlikely to prevail either.

The book proposes a way to modify the existing election system to allow the Federation of states to always have a chance to elect a President by the nation as a whole—as a result of an election campaign across the country—while keeping the “one state, one vote” principle in force and retaining the Electoral College as a backup.

The book is written for a general readership. It contains examples illustrating certain statements and facts about the Electoral College. The book provides an overview of both old election rules, determined by Article 2 of the US Constitution, and contemporary ones, determined by the Twelfth Amendment.

Understanding the book does not require any special knowledge, making it accessible to people of all walks of life at any age. At the same time, the readers of How America Chooses Its Presidents will undoubtedly improve their ability to think logically, making them more critical of statements
about the Electoral College and about election campaigns.

About Alexander S. Belenky
Dr. Belenky is the author of books and scientific articles in the fields of optimization and game theory and their applications in transportation, industry, agriculture, environmental protection, advertising, brokerage, auctioning, and U.S. presidential elections. He is the author of Operations Research in Transportation Systems: Ideas and Schemes of Optimization Methods for Strategic Planning and Operations Management—published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998 and republished by Springer in 2004—and adopted by many leading American Universities. He is also the author of the books Extreme Outcomes of US Presidential Elections (2003) and Winning the US Presidency: Rules of the Game and Playing by the Rules (2004). He was an invited guest on radio and TV talk shows throughout the country in the course of the 2004 Election campaign. A visiting scholar at the MIT Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, Belenky holds a Ph.D. in systems analysis and mathematics and D.Sc. in applications of mathematical methods. His co-authored opinion pieces about voting systems have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times.

Accolades for How America Chooses Its Presidents
"The 2000 presidential election underscored the reality that outcomes in
presidential contests do not necessarily follow from the votes cast by American voters. Under the Electoral College, a range of outcomes is possible, and what once might have seemed utterly remote now is clearly possible.

Alexander Belenky has focused directly on what he calls extreme outcomes of our presidential elections. This topic is understudied and underanalyzed. He makes a real contribution in a timely way."

– Dr. Norman Ornstein
CBS election analyst, American Enterprise Institute

"Sometimes it takes an “outsider’s eye” to see the U.S. political system clearly, and Alexander Belenky’s analysis of the presidential election system holds several remarkable surprises for me.

Very few scholars have directly addressed fundamental flaws in the Electoral College’s logic. … Belenky lays bare several flaws…"

– Prof. David King
Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"… Colorado offers something new and something old that could make a difference. The something new is awarding its nine electoral votes proportionate to the popular vote instead of winner take all. … Colorado’s “make your vote count” initiative seeks to put power in the popular vote. … Could success in Colorado start a trend? … Electoral College experts aren’t so certain…

Alex Belenky, … who has written three books on the topic, including “Extreme Outcomes of U.S. Presidential Elections,” says Colorado could prompt some states to dump winner-take-all, but argues that the Electoral College is “fl exible” and ought to remain in place — at least as a backup.

One scenario he favors combines the popular vote and the Electoral College.
“If there is at least 50 percent turnout of the electorate, then let the popular vote be decisive,” he says, “If there is not, then rely on the Electoral College.” I like that. It’s a good incentive to vote.

– John Baer
Colo. Offering Electoral Change. Winner Wouldn’t ‘Take All.’ ” Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 28, 2004

Papers by Dr. Belenky
To Queue or Not To Queue? In a U.S. Presidential Election, that should NOT be a question!
By Alexander S. Belenky and Richard C. Larson

Faulty system for democracy (.pdf)
By Alexander S. Belenky and Richard C. Larson

A call for creating service standards
By Alexander S. Belenky and Richard C. Larson

Voting shouldn't require a heroic act of patience
By Alexander S. Belenky and Richard C. Larson

A. S. Belenky/ Calculating the minimal number of homogeneous objects to represent a plurality in a heterogeneous system of objects. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Volume 39, Issues 2-3, January 2004, Pages 119-121

A. S. Belenky /An elementary analysis of some mathematical concepts employed in and relations associated with Amendment 12 of the U.S. Constitution. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Volume 39, Issues 2-3, January 2004, Pages 123-132

A.S. Belenky/ The solvability of a set partitioning problem and a logical mistake in article 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Volume 40, Issues 1-2, July 2004, Pages 1-3

A.S. Belenky /Competitive strategies of U.S. Presidential candidates in election campaigns. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, Volume 49, Issue 1, January 2005, Pages 53-71

A.S. Belenky /Calculating the minimal fraction of the popular vote to win the U.S. Presidency in the Electoral College. Computers & Mathematics with Applications, Volume 50, Issues 5-6, September 2005, Pages 783-8026

A.S. Belenky / Estimating the size of the calling population in
finite-source election queues by bilinear programming techniques. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Volume 45, Issues 7-8, April 2007, Pages 873-8827.

A.S. Belenky and D.C. King/ A mathematical model for estimating the potential margin of state undecided voters for a candidate in a U.S. Federal election. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Volume 45, Issues 5-6, March 2007, Pages 585-593