ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on representation in congressional efforts to amend the presidential election system. However, investigating congressional members' discussions of proposed electoral plans draws out their use of representation, which in turn demonstrates the importance of the concept to Electoral College reform. Members of Congress still make use of this version of representation, as the narratives of more recent reform efforts. Discussions about changing the Electoral College often involve the concept of representation. Representation is important to American political thought, relating as it does to other political principles like popular sovereignty, federalism, and legitimacy. In the existing concurrent majority system Electoral College, presidential candidates must build nationwide coalitions. Reviewing recent efforts in the national legislature to amend the presidential electoral system indicates that both advocates and opponents of Electoral College reform have expressed deep. Some integrated a traditional view into their arguments, defending indirect institutions set up by the Constitution on the grounds of preventing disorder and factious rule.
