Posted on 02/12/2014 6:14:45 PM PST by gitmo
There has been a fair amount of commentary on my Facebook page in the past week or so about this very question. I started to put much of this in a comment to someone, but then decided to post it for everyone instead. Since several of you keep asking!
Perhaps the most important thing to understand about the Electoral College—and the Constitution in general—is that the Founders were not trying to create a PURE democracy. They wanted to be self-governing, of course. They had just fought an entire Revolution in part because they had no representation in Parliament. The principles of self-governance were very important to them. On the other hand, they knew that, as a matter of history, pure democracies have a tendency to implode. This is so because in a pure democracy, 51% of the people can rule the other 49% all the time, without question. Imagine what that looks like in the wake of an event such as 9-11. In fear or anger or immediate emotion, a bare majority could enact any law it wanted to, regardless of its impact on the other 49%. Even very sizable minorities can be tyrannized in such a system. (We had enough bad legislation after 9-11 as it was! Aren’t you glad it wasn’t even easier for bare majorities—or even pluralities—to steam roll everyone else?)
So, in short, the Founders wanted to be self-governing, but they also wanted hurdles to stop (or at least slow down) irrational, bare majorities. They wanted to protect minority political interests, especially the small states, from the tyranny of the majority.
The Founders thus created a Constitution that combines democracy with federalism (states’ rights) and republicanism (deliberation and compromise). This is why we have a Senate (one state, one vote) and a House (one person, one vote). It is why we have presidential vetoes. It is why we have supermajority requirements to do things like amend the Constitution. And it is why we have an Electoral College. The Founders wanted majorities to rule, but also wanted these majorities to act reasonably.
I often hear claims that the Electoral College is “undemocratic.” Not true. As it operates today, the Electoral College is a blend of democracy and federalism. In other words, not only people, but also states, must be taken into consideration. We have a two phase election in this country: The first phase is purely democratic; the second phase is federalist. In the first phase, we hold 51 purely democratic elections: one in each state and one in D.C. These state-level elections are held to determine which electors will represent states in the second, federalist phase of the election. This latter election is an election among the states, as represented by their electors.
Because of the way our elections are structured, we get many benefits: Candidates must strive to build national coalitions. The most successful candidates—Reagan and FDR—had the best coalition-building ability. Years with close elections—GWB v. Gore—occur when no one is doing a great job of coalition building. Other benefits of the Electoral College: It is harder to steal votes. Nothing can make it impossible, but the Electoral College makes it as hard as possible. You have to know when and where to steal a vote if you are going to influence national totals. And if one person can predict this location, then every poll watcher/lawyer in the nation can, too!
Please note that I did not say that the Electoral College can force voters to be wise or informed. We have to do that on our own, as we would under any election system.
There is more, but that is a lot for a quick blog post. I am going to put several links with free information at the bottom of this post, so go look for it.
Yes, I will also include my book link. At this juncture, someone will accuse me of “you are just trying to sell books.” Look, I always offer my book because it is the place in which I was the most thorough in explaining the Electoral College. It is the best resource I have to offer you. But I ultimately don’t care if you buy the book. In fact, if you have an educational purpose and don’t mind reimbursing shipping, I will ship you as many free copies of the 1st edition as you want for your study group, classroom, grassroots group, etc. What I really care about is that you investigate the Electoral College before dismissing it on a media sound bite. I will also include SEVERAL **free** links. Please go read them and spend no money. :) Whatever you do, read about this wonderful constitutional institution. Your schooling almost certainly failed to teach you about it.
The Electoral College is underappreciated, but a little research will show that it is helping to protect your freedom.
1960 World Series.
Total runs scored: Yankees 46 Pirates 26
Total games won: Yankees 3 Pirates 4
I use the analogy of the World Series. ...
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Good anology and explanation.
Why in the heck do we want a federal government?
Whoops...make that Yankees 55 runs Pirates 27 runs.
I suck at math!
Oooops
anology = analogy
Uhm, because New England is no more of a state than West Coast or Midwest or Deep South?
Without it we would become a democracy, the worst form of government ever devised!
Thank you for referencing that article gitmo.
As evidenced by the misguided interest in the electoral college, the only reason that ordinary citizens are concerned about who’s in the Oval Office these days is because of the wrongly perceived powers of the federal government, the Oval Office wrongly regarded by many as the most powerful office in the land.
And the reason for the federal government’s wrongly perceived powers is the following. Parents, for many generations, have not been making sure that their children are being taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, particularly Section 8 of Article I, the way that the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.
Otherwise, since one of the few thing the states have actually authorized Congress to regulate within a state’s borders that can affect citizens on an almost daily basis is the US Mail Service (Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I), people would probably have to guess who the current president is if the federal government was actually respecting its constitutionally limited powers.
IMO, it would work much better if nailed down to the County level, not stopping at the state level. Make it on how many counties you win, not how many states.
3-4 counties in a state carries the whole state.
The EC, as it was originally intended to function, died almost before it was born.
It was intended to be an assemblage of eminent men, who would quite unconstrained choose a President. The careful description of how Congress would choose among the vote leaders when nobody got an actual majority in the EC implies that the Founders expected that to be the common way of electing the President.
The EC almost immediately became a rather awkward way of filtering the popular vote through a somewhat federalized second stage.
It still has virtues and there’s no particular reason to throw it under the bus, but the original idea of how it was to function vanished over 200 years ago.
The Founders put in place many brilliant innovations in governmental structure. The EC is one of their ideas that just never worked as intended.
Ah! Very cool! I didn't know of a particular example of my World Series analogy. Now I have one. Thanks!
As long as states retain the "winner take all" element, then the Electoral College is working at least partially as intended. People in Kalifornia, for example, can steal as many Kalifornia votes as they want and it won't change the outcome of any election in which the majority of Kalifornians support the thieves.
To enlarge their advantage over what it would be anyway, Kalifornia would have to arrange to steal votes in Wyoming, or Connecticut, or Arizona. It's not impossible, but it makes the vote stealing more difficult.
I don't think our Founders ever dreamed of how rapid and pervasive our communication systems would become. They were enlightened men but even we would find it difficult to see what will happen two centuries from today.
I don’t think our founders ever dreamed that this country would elect a rapist or an illegal alien to the presidency, but the democrats have done both in the last couple decades.
Any faith I used to have in the system is gone. It’ll take some huge positive changes for me to even consider this governmental system worth saving. As it is, I wouldn’t much care if Washington DC got nuked during a joint session of congress. Nearly all of them are crooked jackholes that aren’t worth the moisture in my spit. Sure, there are still a couple of decent people trying to make things better, but that’s like trying to row a canoe upstream with a teaspoon.
Without question....
Because we don’t want the more populated port cities making all the decisions for everyone else. They have different economies, and different issues.
I don't see any alternatives. Unfortunately, the path to anything positive goes through some very negative times I think.
Liberals have squandered any opportunity to build a strong, healthy economy. When the time comes that a sufficient number of such liberals come to their senses, the path back to health will be long and painful. My eldest grandchild is five. I can't imagine how he will avoid bitterness toward the generations before him that left such a mess.
Palin's Death Panels may well seem like sweet justice.
No more winner take all states, give every congresional district 1 electorial vote.
I disagree. You describe a beneficial aspect of the EC as it presently exists, but this was no part of the initial intent.
Under the original plan, there was no "winner take all" by state element. Electors voted as individuals, not by state. In fact, that is still the case, except as prescribed otherwise by state, not federal, law.
As others have pointed out, I believe the Founders intended the final decision to be normally made in Congress, with the EC thus functioning more often as a nominating than an electoral body. The exception would be when there was a national consensus who should be elected, as there was for the first two elections. Thereafter, the EC, in its original intent, went away.
If parties had not arisen, the EC would probably have remained, most of the time, more of a nominating convention, which would have had interesting effects on the distribution of power within the government. Hopefully, it would have helped prevent the arising of that nonsense about "three co-equal branches of government." Parties, of course, immediately narrowed the field, most of the time, to two men.
The EC still functions, but certainly not as originally intended, leaving aside that 12A drastically changed procedures.
I was under the impression that, like today, all of the voters in a given state choose a particular slate of electors, all of whom are aligned with a particular candidate. Electors are not required to vote for the candidate with which they aligned, but not doing so would be quite the exception. Thus, in effect, a particular candidate, if his slate of electors wins, would likely receive all of that state's votes.
Was that not the case then as it is now?
Even if it was up to the legislature to choose the electors, there would be no expectation that such electors represent more than one candidate.
Maine and Nebraska use the congressional district winner method.
Maine and Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.
A survey of Maine voters showed 77% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Maine’s electoral votes,
* 71% favored a national popular vote;
* 21% favored Maine’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 8% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Maine’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).
***
A survey of Nebraska voters showed 74% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Nebraska’s electoral votes,
* 60% favored a national popular vote;
* 28% favored Nebraska’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 13% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).
NationalPopularVote.com
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