Table of Contents
Introduction: Electoral Votes: A Risky Game of Dice v
Chapter 1 What Were the Founders Thinking? The Electoral System's Oddities, Origins, and Benefits 1
Chapter 2 Florida, Bush v. Gore, and the 2000 Election 19
Chapter 3 The Loser Wins: Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) 31
Chapter 4 The Loser Wins Again: Benjamin Harrison (1888) 47
Chapter 5 The House Decides: Jefferson vs. Burr (1800) 63
Chapter 6 The House Decides Again: John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson (1824) 79
Chapter 7 1968: A Close Call with George Wallace 95
Chapter 8 Direct Elections and Other Flawed Proposals to Fix Our System 117
Chapter 9 How Barack Obama Nearly Became a Runner-Up President: The Search for a More Perfect Electoral System 139
Chapter 10 Two Small Repairs: Winner-Takes-Most (Not All) and a Better Way to Deal with Deadlocks 151
Appendix A Three Possible Constitutional Amendments 169
Appendix B Winner-Takes-Most's Roughly Equal Sacrifices from State to State 177
Appendix C Past Elections under the Winner-Takes-Most Reform 183
Acknowledgments 199
Selected Bibliography 201
Index 208
About the Author 216
