Freund Says Direct National Vote Would Stimulate Political Activity

Paul A. Freund, one of Harvard's leading experts on constitutional law, yesterday praised an American Bar Association commission's proposal to eliminate the Electoral College, saying it would spread and stimulate political activity.

The ABA Commission on Electoral College Reform, of which Freund was a member, recommended Sunday that the president and vice-president, running as a team, be elected by national popular vote with a minimum of 40 per cent required for election. If no candidate received 40 per cent, a national runoff election would be held.

In urging the abolition of the Electoral College, Freund, who is Carl M. Loeb University Professor, called presidential elections "a clear case for the one-man, one-vote principle."

In its report, the commission termed the present system "archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, indirect, and dangerous," noting that a person can become president with fewer popular votes than his major opponent. This is because the "winner-take-all" system gives each state's entire electoral vote to the leading candidate.

In a telephone interview, Freund emphasized that direct election would not only be more democratic but could be expected to "spread political concern and activity more evenly than at present."

Such a system, he said, "would tend to diminish the importance of cohesive minority blocks in large states, which would not then be the great prize of the present. Thus, by eliminating the "winner-take-all" principle and thereby increasing the importance of all votes, direct election would "stimulate opposition parties in present one-party states."

If the proposal receives the expected approval from the full ABA House of Delegates at its February meeting, the ABA may institute local and national groups to press for its adoption as a constitutional amendment.