concentrate my effort in the centers of greatest population, and I would spend far more time campaigning, for example, in the county of Mecklenburg, which is our biggest county and which has a very high percentage of our votes, than I would in some little crossroads place that had about 100 residents.

Mr. SORENSEN. Naturally, Senator. That is the democratic system. You want to go where the people are, because those are the people who are going to vote for you, and the President is going to do that as well. What I am saying is that there are centers of population in small States, as well as in large States, and the centers of population in the small States are ignored in today's presidential elections.

Senator ERVIN. With all due respect, and I have high respect for you, but I think that is a non sequitur. I think that when the President is elected by popular vote, they are going to concentrate their efforts in areas where there are large populations and the small States are going to be ignored then to the same extent that they are ignored now. In fact, I think they are going to be ignored more because their voice in the election of the Preisdent is going to be very much smaller. Today, 36 States under the present population would lose a portion of their present voice.

Mr. SORENSEN. I grew up in a small State, Senator, which was ignored in all the presidential elections.

Senator ERVIN. You forsook it though for New York State, because opportunities there were better, and the presidential candidates are going to do exactly the same thing, because the votes there are better, more votes. So I think that is an argument which is not valid.

Now, also do you not think you have to agree with me that if you take your argument logically to the extreme it would justify abolishing the Senate, and also justify the position that since Senators and Congressmen have voices in the affairs of all of the States and they are national legislators it would be well if you are going to give everybody in the United States the same voice in the election of Federal officials, that Senators and Congressmen ought to be elected by all of the people of the Nation rather than by States or districts?

Mr. SORENSEN. No, Senator, with all due respect, I do not think that follows at all.

Senator ERVIN. That would be the logical conclusion though. It might be a very unfortunate result. It would be a logical conclusion, would it not?

Mr. SORENSEN. No, I cannot agree with that.

Senator ERVIN. Why should a man, for example, why shouldn't a small State like Wyoming or Nevada or Alaska, as far as population is concerned, have as big a voice in making the laws of the Nation as a populous State like New York or California?

Mr. SORENSEN. Because we do have a federal system which I think is peculiarly appropriate to our country with its size and diversity, and I am in favor of preserving that through the Senate and through the Federal-State system which elects our Governors and State legislatures. It does not mean that they are required to elect our President. Senator ERVIN. But the Constitution, you attack the method of electing the President on the grounds it denies each voter an equal voice in the selection of the President, But does not our present system, especially as far as the Senate is concerned, deny each Ameri

can voter the same voice in selecting those who are going to control the Senate?

Mr. SORENSEN. But the Senator-each Senator is there to represent his State, and under our Federal system every voter in his State does have an equal voice and an equal vote in electing that Senator. I am very much in favor of that. The President does not represent any State. He represents the people of his country, and I think every citizen of this country ought to have an equal voice and vote in electing him just as they have an equal voice and vote in electing their own Senator.

Senator ERVIN. I agree with you on what you say about the Senate, but I do not think that is an answer to my question. My question is from the standpoint of logic, the provisions of the Constitution which give each State two Senators regardless of size denies to the voters in New York the same voice in the selection of the Senate, a legislative body whose concurrence is necessary to make Federal law, in the selection of the Members of the Senate.

Mr. SORENSEN. What you are saying is that the voter in New York has proportionately less influence in the Senate than the voter in Alaska. That is true.

Senator ERVIN. Yes. And since it is so abhorrent to give one voter a greater voice in an election of a President, then logically it ought to be equally abhorrent to give him an unequal vote in the selection of the Senate.

Mr. SORENSEN. No, it is not abhorrent unless you equate the office of U.S. Senator to the office of the President of the United States with all due respect to the three gentlemen before me. I do not equate them. The Senator is there to represent his State, and I believe each citizen of his State should have an equal voice. The President is not there to represent any one State.

Senator ERVIN. Under the one-man, one-vote method of popular Government, necessarily a Senator is a Federal legislator, he votes for legislation for the entire 50 States, and yet you deny the people of 49 States any voice in this election.

Now, as a matter of fact, under the proportional vote-I do not favor, I might say, I do not favor the district electoral system, because it preserves one of the things that I think that is unfortunate about the electoral system, and that is it allows the winner to take all as far as two electoral votes of the State are concerned; the two are based on senatorial representation, and allows the winner to take all of the congressional district. I think it is desirable to divide-my proposal does— divide the electoral votes of the State or party to the popular vote in each State, and I think it is also desirable to do away with electors, entirely do away with the electors, but not the electoral vote, and I think in the great majority of cases that the winning candidate under the proportional voting system is going to get not only a majority of the electoral vote but is going to get a majority of the popular_vote..

Mr. SORENSEN. I am aware of your proposal, Senator, but, as I say, I regard it as a step backward from the present system, as bad as the present system is, because it only introduces further distortions by splitting up each State. If you believe, as I say, in the State as a unit, and as an area which ought to be making its direct influence felt on presidential elections, then it hardly makes sense for a State such as

New York, which is almost invariably evenly divided, to split its vote, electoral votes, 22 to 21 and contribute one vote to the winning President's margin, whereas a small one-party State votes on a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 basis and contributes three times as much to the margin of that winning President.

Senator ERVIN. But, after all, the President is not only supposed to be the chief executive officer of the Nation for those who go out and vote. He is also supposed to be the Chief Executive officer of those who have the right to vote but do not go out to vote, is he not?

Mr. SORENSEN. No, Senator, I prefer to recognize and reward those who actually take the trouble and have the information and the interest to vote. I see no reason why we should award electoral vote strength to those who do not cast a vote on election day.

Senator ERVIN. The President, he is the President, he is supposed to be the President of all the people, both those who vote and those who do not vote, equally.

Mr. SORENSEN. That is right. Just as you are the Senator from North Carolina, but you are only elected by those people who go to the polls on election day.

Senator ERVIN. Yes, but I have an obligation to all of them equally. Mr. SORENSEN. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. And the electoral vote system as it now exists, and especially since the one-man, one-vote decisions of the Supreme Court, is a system which in effect is based upon population, is it not? Mr. SORENSEN. No, it is not, unfortunately.

Senator ERVIN. Well, it is though so far as the votes of the electoral votes which are based upon the congressional representation. Mr. SORENSEN. That is true, to the extent that the reapportionment following each decennial census is accurate.

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Mr. SORENSEN. But California in 1969 was considerably larger than California in 1960 and, according to its proportionate share of the population, deserved a larger share of the electoral vote under the present system. But it was denied that share.

Senator ERVIN. Of course, you cannot count up all the population very well before every election.

Mr. SORENSEN. Exactly. Then you have in addition to that two Senators for each State, so that the electoral vote is not proportionate to population.

Senator ERVIN. I have enjoyed your presentation, but I still maintain that I am totally incapable of accepting your argument that the presidential candidates, if a popular election is-should come about by constitutional amendment, are going to cater to the small States. I think they are going wherever the votes are, and it is just like people from small States going to urban centers of population, because they have greater opportunities for advancement or greater opportunities to employ their talents, and I think that the presidential electors, being elected by popular votes, they are going to do just exactly like the Senators and Congressmen do. They are going to do most of their campaigning in places where the most votes are.

Thank you.

Senator BAYH. Thank you, Senator.

Senator Thurmond, do you have any questions?

Senator THURMOND. Thank you very much.

I just want to state that I agree with the distinguished Senator from North Carolina that if the popular vote system passes, it will have the candidates going where the votes are. That is natural, I think, just like the Senators and House Members running for Congress are going to spend their time chiefly where the votes are.

Mr. SORENSEN. Of course, we all agree with that, Senator. I am sure we all agree that that is desirable and proper, that they should go where the votes are. But they should go to where the votes are in small States as well as where the votes are in large States.

Senator THURMOND. Then in that case you are going to have about two-thirds of the States being neglected by the President or the candidates running for President because he will be in large cities like New York and Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and other large cities.

Another thing, too, do you think there will be more corruption under that type system because you might have some corruption now that might be confined to a State, but if you adopt this type system you have got corruption spilling over into the Federal Government on a much greater scale and there would be greater temptation than you have in a State?

Mr. SORENSEN. No; I do not think so, Senator Thurmond. I think just the opposite. Under the present system, for example, a political manager in California recognizes that he can affect by shifting California's electoral votes which he may be able to do if it is a close election by corrupting only a few thousand votes or less. By doing that he can provide 10 percent of the electoral votes necessary for a candidate to win the election. That is quite a temptation. But under a popular vote system the political manager in California or in any other State would see that with 80 million people voting there was no real way that he could influence more than a tiny fraction of the votes that would go into the winning column.

You cannot eliminate corruption under any system, but we have, as I say, so much experience with popular voting at every other level that I would think we ought to confront and crack down on corruption in a system that we fully understand and have a lot of experience with and that is accepted by the American people than the present system which, frankly, is not very well understood.

Senator THURMOND. You remember the election in 1948 when Lyndon Johnson was running for the Senate out in Texas against a man by the name of Coke Stevenson, and Mr. Stevenson was in the lead and then the votes in a certain county down there were manipulated, came back and gave Mr. Johnson that powerful lead of 84 votes in the whole State.

Now, would it not be possible by withholding votes as they did there until they saw what Mr. Johnson needed to get the election, would it not be possible in some State of the Nation to withhold votes and then supply the few votes needed if it is a very close election?

Mr. SORENSEN. Let me simply say, Senator, first of all, that Lyndon Johnson needs no defense from me. That particular election has been the subject of considerable public scrutiny and no one has ever demonstrated that anything illegal or improper occurred, so I do not think we should let that statement pass.

Senator THURMOND. The courts never did pass on it. That is the reason it never was really passed on properly. He was voted by a member of the Supreme Court, and the matter never was adjudicated properly.

Mr. SORENSEN. As I believe you recall, Senator, it did go before the courts of Texas, but that is neither here nor there.

The point is that your question actually indicates the weaknesses of the electoral vote system, because it demonstrates that in an individual State when we go when we elect Presidents on a State-by-State system in a State such as Texas or California or New York or Illinois, they have a very large block of electoral votes and it can really affect the outcome, that there is going to be a temptation for corruption by the political managers of those States.

But on a nationwide election, the political manager in Texas by shuffling a few thousand votes in some counties, such as you suggest occurred, would not be able to do-have any marked influence on the outcome at all.

Senator THURMOND. If one State withheld its election and there were only 5,000 votes needed and they supplied those votes, withheld their votes until it all come in, and they were last to come in, withheld their votes, they could easily throw the presidential race one way or the other.

Mr. SORENSEN. That is exactly what happens now under the electoral vote system. The electors do not even meet until December, and they can withhold their votes and change the outcome. That is the worst possible system.

Senator THURMOND. Well, the precedents throughout our history, there have been so few, you can name them on your fingers, there have been so few, until there is pure evidence there is no corruption there, whereas in this popular vote situation I can visualize great corruption.

Now, under direct election, is it not likely that the Supreme Court rather than the people would ultimately decide who was elected President because of election contests being appealed?

Mr. SORENSEN. No.

Senator THURMOND. You do not think there is a danger of that? Mr. SORENSEN. No, sir.

Senator THURMOND. After all, Supreme Court Justices are human, and we have had some terrible decisions by some Supreme Courts. Let me ask you this: Under the Constitution, article I, section 2, it provides that the States shall fix voter qualifications, but yet in spite of that, in some places today, in a number of States today, the Federal Government is sending down registrars and registering illiterate voters in violation of the requirements that a State has fixed pursuant to their authority to do so under the Constitution.

The question I ask you, Do you think it is proper for illiterates to vote?

Mr. SORENSEN. Senator, I believe that question has been presented to the Senate previously, and your side lost. I do not know whether it is helpful to reargue the whole question of literacy tests and their discriminatory use in some States.

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