Digital Press at UND revises, expands modern classic

‘Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College’ offers thorough understanding of how Americans elect their president

Have you ever wondered why the Electoral College is so complicated and unusual, and why the United States adopted this way of conducting presidential elections?

“Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College” provides an expansive view of the U.S. electoral system by showcasing brief essays by historians, political scientists, legal experts and other scholars, as well as a massive selection of original documents from the Constitutional Convention, all of which shed light on the high-stakes debates surrounding the selection of the chief executive.

“This volume is a revised and expanded version of the original ‘Picking the President,’ which appeared in 2017,” volume editor and UND Professor of History Eric Burin explains. “That book turned out to be successful enough to warrant a follow-up that would continue to engage people’s curiosity about the Electoral College, promote understanding of the subject and fan further interest in it.”

The Expanded and Revised Edition is three times the size of the original volume. Over the past eight years, the first edition of “Picking the President” became a surprise best seller, with hundreds of paper copies in circulation and garnering thousands of digital downloads. During that time, the book’s editor, Eric Burin, continued to dig deeper into the history of the Electoral College and modern attitudes toward the institution.

By 2024, Burin was ready to produce a Revised and Expanded Edition of the original classic.

“The Revised and Expanded Edition has three new sections,” Burin explains in his new introduction. “The first section includes all the essays from first edition of ‘Picking the President,’ which were written in the aftermath of the 2016 election. The second section features a wide-ranging variety of essays on the Electoral College which platform new voices and present new perspectives.

“Last but not least, the book includes a magnificent collection of historical resources on the topic, making it appropriate for the interested public and suitable for use in the civics or American history classroom.”

Burin makes clear that this new edition of the book has the same goal as the first: to better illuminate the Electoral College. “The essays provide multiple viewpoints on the Electoral College while the historical resources empower readers to develop their own ideas on the subject,” he sayd

Like all books from The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, the revised and expanded edition of “Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College” is available as a free digital download and as a low-cost paperback from Amazon.com.