Has there ever been a serious effort to reform the US Electoral College system?
score:13
There is an effort underway now called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
These reform efforts wax and wane as demographics meet the various political parties interests. Right now, "progressives" are really excited about the popular vote, because they can successfully get key voting blocks to vote their way with mass media. In earlier times, Republicans pushed for this as a way to sidestep the democratic machines.
I would argue that the Electoral College is an important institution for democracy, that encourages moderate voices and gives a voice to small states who would otherwise have none.
The common complaint is that states dominated by one party don't get any attention during presidential debates -- New York, for example, gets approximately 0 ads for republican presidential candidates. In a national popular vote system, everyone would see ads on TV appealing to whatever voting blocs a campaign is strong with. I fail to see how winning an election because you can nationally attract the votes of specific demographic groups (ie. specific races, occupations social classes, etc) is more democratic than getting broad support in a subset of states with vigorous two-party political scenes.
Upvote:2
It depends what you mean by serious. Has there been any attempt that actually had the slightest chance of succeeding? No.
Yes, there have been attempts to force states to split their electoral votes, but the strategy has been to do it where it hurts the other party. Republicans have tried in the last eight years to get California to split their electors by congressional district or popular vote, but they for some reason don't seem so interested in getting Texas to do the same.
There have been some other efforts. For example, after the 2000 election, there was a lot of talk about reforming the electoral process, but it didn't get anywhere. After the 1968 election, there was also talk about eliminating the Electoral College. In both of these discussions, Republicans who won the elections weren't all that interested in talking to the proponents -- the Democrats who lost.
In the 1920s progressives also talked about eliminating the Electoral College (part of this was to force states to grant woman suffrage). In this case, it was the Republican progressives who wanted the change while the Democratic party was aligned against it. At that time, the Democratic coalition depended upon the South which kept their African-America citizens away from the polls. In some of these states, up to 40% of the population was African-American. Eliminating the Electoral College meant that either the Southern states would lose almost 1/2 of their power in electing the President, or that they'd have to allow Blacks access to the polls.
Upvote:15
Depending on exactly what you mean by a "serious effort" the answer would seem to be no. I am assuming that you would consider a proposed constitutional amendment that got to the states and did not receive enough votes in the states as serious.
There have however been numerous efforts to reform or abolish the electoral college. According to archives.gov there have been over 700 proposals to change or do away with the electoral college. Two recent proposals came close. The first in 1970, was led by former Representative Emmanuel Cellar and former Senator Birch Bayh. They had the bill on the floor of the Senate where it was filibustered. A motion for cloture to break the filibuster did not hit the necessary 67 votes (67 votes being the number needed to break a filibuster at the time) and so the bill died. I can't seem to find the text of the defeated amendment anywhere online. Later in 1979, Senator Bayh tried again and failed to break a filibuster on the Senate floor as he did nearly a decade earlier.
As far as the present day goes, duffbeer703 pointed out the very active National Popular Vote Interstate Compact movement. If the electoral college is to change any time soon it will likely be due to that movement.
Like I said earlier, your question depends largely on what you mean by "serious effort." If you are comparing it to the prohibition movement, civil rights movement, etc. then the answer is unequivocally no, but if you were interested whether federal legislators had taken the necessary steps the answer can definitely be yes.
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