Of the 700 Attempts to Fix or Abolish the Electoral College, this One Nearly Succeeded

by Gillian Brockell

The most serious effort to abolish the Electoral College followed George Wallace's third party bid in 1968, when both major parties realized that a spoiler candidate could throw the election to the House of Representatives and extort political concessions for electoral votes. Southern conservatives, happy with the leverage the system gave them, blocked the amendment in the Senate.