Getting the Facts Straight on the Electoral College

The most misunderstood institution in our constitutional government is the Electoral College. Most recently, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee claimed that “the Electoral College is not in the Constitution.” Others on the right of the political spectrum claim that the process by which the members of the Electoral College are selected is our “founders’ vision for our Republic” and constitutionally mandated. Both are dead wrong.

Let’s begin with the actual words of the Constitution: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled in Congress…” That’s all the Constitution says about how the members of the Electoral College are to be selected. There is other language in the Constitution about the EC beyond this one clause, but it is all administrative process language about the House contingent election, not selecting the electors. All decisions about the method of selecting members of the Electoral College is left to the states.

On the right side of the political spectrum, opponents of reform confuse the current “winner take all” method of choosing electors in effect in 48 of the 50 states with the power granted to the states by the Constitution. In the Federalist No. 45, Madison described the power to appoint electors as an important state power, making the Federal Government “dependent” on actions of the state. “Without the intervention of the State Legislatures, the President of the United States cannot be elected at all…” says Madison. The method of appointing electors is, and was intended to be, strictly a matter of state law. However, unlike the statements of many of my friends on the right, the current “winner take all laws” in effect in 48 of the 50 states, are not constitutionally mandated. “Winner take all” is not mentioned in the Constitution, was not debated or voted upon in the Constitutional Convention, and not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. Only three states used the winner-take-all method of selecting presidential electors in our nation’s first presidential election in 1789, and all three states repealed winner-take-all by 1800. So, those who claim the current system in effect in 48 of the 50 states was the “founder’s vision” are wrong.

I’m not the first to say this, either. In 1824, Senator Thomas Hart Benton said the exact same thing, at a time when the “winner take all” statutes were becoming popular (it was used in ten of the 24 states). Senator Benton said the “winner take all” laws were not “the offspring of any disposition to give fair play to the will of the people.” It was intended to consolidate the power of the dominant political machine in those states that enacted it.

The states control how we elect the president, and the method each state chooses should be that method that enhances the state’s power to influence the federal government. Balance is achieved by making each state equally powerful in the process of electing the president. Do “winner take all” laws do that? No, they do not, and the evidence of that is how presidential candidates campaign. Today, the two major party candidates for president spend 95 percent of their time in 12 states, give cursory attention to a few more, and completely ignore the vast majority of the states. That means 80 percent of the country is ignored in a presidential election. That is the problem, that is where any discussion about reform of the Electoral College should begin, not with specious arguments. When we start with identifying the real problem, we will reach the most rational and constitutional approach to a solution that makes every voter in every state important to every presidential candidate in every election.

I wrote this about the Electoral College and posted it here on FR several years ago. It still holds true today.

A Republic, if we can keep it.

We’re hiding from the truth if we try to blame Obama for what’s wrong in this country and think we can mend the country if we can only rid ourselves of Obama, for Obama isn’t the sickness that afflicts us; he’s merely a symptom of the disease that is destroying us, and at this point we may be past the point of recovery.

Any student of history could have seen this coming, as our country is now following the path all previous Democracies have taken. An 18th Century English Historian, Sir Alexander Tytler Fraser, warned that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship.

When our founding fathers met in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they were well aware a democracy was nothing more than “mob rule” and they went to great lengths to prevent our Representative Republic from becoming one. However, each preventive step our Founding Fathers made in our electoral processes to prevent mob rule/democracy were one by one eliminated by the Democrat Party until we now have an almost complete mob rule/democracy.

Ben Franklin, when asked what he had achieved at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, replied, “A Republic, if we can keep it,” and we haven’t kept it. We are now as close to a complete “Democracy” thus “mob rule” as a country can get.

Initially, a democracy/mob rule was prevented and our Republic was preserved through very limited voting rights. There were no provisions in our Constitution that established voting rights and it was left up to each state to decide who could vote and who couldn’t. Most states determined that in order to have voting rights, a citizen had to be a white, male property owner, and the U.S. House of Representatives was elected by this small pool of voters, as was State Senates and State Houses of Representatives. This mob rule preventive measure has been undone by time and four amendments to the Constitution until all a voter needs to be now is an eighteen year old non-felon U.S. Citizen.

To further limit the possibility of “mob rule,” Article One of the United States Constitution - Section 3: Senate, stated senators were to be elected to the U.S. Senate by the State Senates and not by the same pool of voters as was the U.S House. That “mob rule” preventive measure was undone by the Seventeenth Amendment to or Constitution that allowed for the U.S. Senate to be elected by the same pool of voters as is the U.S. House.
To even further limit the possibility of “Mob Rule,” the President wouldn’t be elected by the same pool of voters as was the House of Representatives but would be elected by an “Electoral College.” As stated in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution— “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .”

As you can see, the only “Mob Rule” preventive measure still remaining in effect is the Electoral College that prevents the President from being elected by a “Popular” vote, and the Democrats keep trying to undo that one.

This “mob” is now a Democrat Party led loose coalition of Marxist Communists, Socialists, environmentalists, welfare parasites, abortionists, racists, race baiters, illegal aliens, and other assorted criminals comprising close to a majority of the U.S. population. What the mob doesn’t have in numbers, they make up for with voter fraud during elections.

No, Obama isn’t our problem; it’s the “mob” that elected him, and that can’t be fixed by an election even if we could win it.

<>That means 80 percent of the country is ignored in a presidential election. That is the problem, that is where any discussion about reform of the Electoral College should begin, not with specious arguments. When we start with identifying the real problem, we will reach the most rational and constitutional approach to a solution that makes every voter in every state important to every presidential candidate in every election.<>

The real problems began when the state and national party apparatus took over the process. The Framers are rolling in their graves at the sight of presidential electors' choices being limited to one of two outright leaders of self-serving factions.

The Framers' President was above faction, and not the divisive leader of a political party beholden to those who put him in office.

The Framers' President Part III.

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