November 15, 2016

The Electoral College; a Cornerstone of the American System

By Timothy Birdnow

The recent election has caused quite a bit of consternation among many about the Electoral College, and a number of people are asking why we use this institution. Hillary Clinton is ahead in the popular vote yet Trump was elected President, and this has people wondering why we don't just elect a president based on the popular vote. In this essay I will attempt to explain the history and purpose of the Electoral College and hope to illustrate why it is an important institution in the American system.

First a little history.

The 13 colonies had enjoyed quite a bit of independence from the British government until the French and Indian War, and they had established their own systems of government, systems that were largely autonomous. Anger at the colonials for not paying what the British thought was their fair share and being less than enthusiastic about British soldiers high handed behavior during the war led to a tightening of control by the Crown, and this led t the Revolution. The Colonists understood the need for all the Colonies to act in unison, and so they created the Continental Congress to act as a provisional government. Upon independence they established a weak confederation under the Articles of Confederation. The 13 Colonies were intended to be largely independent states and so a parliamentary system such as that in Britain was unsuitable. But that didn't stop the Articles from trying to create such a system; there was a unicameral legislature which elected a president from among its members. The first President was thus John Hanson, who was elected in 1781.

(Hanson hated the job but the Articles provided no real way to replace him so he was forced to stay on.)

The Articles proved unworkable and a convention was held to update them - and this convention eventually rewrote the entire document as the Constitution.

New powers were granted to the central government - it could impose taxes, for instance, something forbidden by the Articles of Confederation. It would have the authority to raise an army (the States had to provide one to the Articles government.) It had stronger judicial authority over the States. Many of the more prominent citizenry were not at all happy about this new ingathering of power.
One of the biggest fears was the Presidency, which had the makings of a king or emperor should the wrong man gain power. The presidency was something that would require careful control lest the states become a vassal to the power of the central government.

So the power to choose the President was invested in each individual state. This does NOT mean the candidate would be chosen by a vote of the public; in point of fact the Framers thought that state legislatures would choose the slate of electors, but it was entirely up to each state to decide. The last state to use this alternate system was South Carolina, which held no popular vote for President in 1860.

(By the way, the Vice President was chosen the same way, and that made for some interesting politics as the runner up in electoral votes became President; Hillary Clinton would be Trumps veep! It was also thought that there would be multiple candidates for the Presidency, and that nobody would win a clear majority in the Electoral College, thus throwing the election into the House of Representatives where the future President would be chosen.)

But as I said, many people resisted the new Constitution. several of the drafters wrote a series of op-eds under the name Publius to explain the new Constitution and allay any fears. These became known as the Federalist Papers.

In Federalist #68 Alexander Hamilton explained the Electoral College:

"A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."

End quote.

The idea of the public making the final decision on who would hold such power was anathema to a nation that had just thrown off a monarchy; the Framers didn't want a tyranny by either the masses (democracy) or by a ruling elite (oligarchy). So they created this system whereby the People, or the People's representatives, chose men in the public eye, men with a good deal to lose, to make the decision. And at the time the Electors would be pledged to a certain candidate but would be free to change their vote after the deliberation.

Hamilton continues:

"...The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office.. "

End quote.

In other words, they wanted a buffer. In fact, the Constitution is full of buffers to diffuse power. Strong state governments were intended to counterbalance the central government. A Senate was intended to counterbalance the more factional House of Representatives (and was itself not chosen by a vote of the People but by state legislatures until the 17th Amendment was passed in 1912), the Courts were dependent on the President to execute their judgments, and on Congress to get paid. At each step careful efforts were made to splinter the power of government, so as to avoid a new tyranny. The College of Electors was one more piece of Federalism, designed to prevent an ingathering of power.

There were other reasons for the creation of the Electoral College. One of the big problems that faced the fledgling United States was that the largest states - in the beginning that would have been Virginia - would completely dominate the Republic if "one man, one vote" were implemented. States such as Rhode Island would be powerless in the union they just joined, and the slave-holding South would control the direction of all future law. That was unacceptable, so the Framers gave every state two Senators to act balance out power (while assigning House members based on population) and they gave every state electoral votes equal to their representation in Congress. So a state with 8 Congressional Districts and Two Senators gets Ten Electoral votes. This compromise balanced the needs of the populous states with the needs of the smaller states, and thus encouraged Presidential candidates to appeal to the entire union rather than just the heavy centers of population. Without the EC all Presidents would come from one of the large centers of population, and they would only appeal to those centers needs and wants. An Iowa farmer wouldn't matter a bit to someone running for President under a popular vote system.

Frankly, the Constitution would never have been approved without this provision. No small state would join the Union to become nothing but a vassal to the larger states.

The Electoral College offers other benefits; it provides clear-cut winners when elections are too close to call, it empowers minority groups, it makes the President a truly national figure.

Criticisms of the Electoral College

The obvious criticism of the Electoral College is that on occasion a candidate can lose the popular vote but win the Presidency. That has happened 4 times and possibly a fifth (when the votes are counted) in this current election cycle. The losing side is understandably angry at this outcome, but it must be remembered that the system works this way for a reason, and one must ask if, had the resources been put into the most populous states, this would have been the outcome all along? Bear in mind that there is little reason to campaign in Nebraska if you are just seeking popular votes. It is impossible to tell what the outcome would be if America had a simple popular vote system. Also, as Hamilton pointed out, fraud is a not-inconsequential possibility the Framers were trying to avoid, and heavily populated areas are more prone to manipulation. In the election of 1960 Richard Nixon likely won but lost due to irregularities in the vote count in places like Cook County (Chicago). Nixon, in a rare display of altruism, chose not to contest that election (despite President Eisenhower encouraging him to do so) so John Kennedy was elected. Fraud is a real thing, despite claims to the contrary, and it makes the counting of the ballots take longer and be less certain. In a close election we may never fully know who won as the courts have to decide the veracity of the election precinct by precinct.

Also, many precincts do not bother to count overseas ballots if their number cannot materially effect the election, thus making the popular vote murkier. If America had a popular vote system every ballot would be critical - and overseas ballots are easily fooled with.

Be that as it may, it is understandable why many would want to eliminate the Electoral College. Problem is, they can't without a Constitutional amendment. Or not; there is a plan to get the states to agree to splitting their electoral votes based on the popular vote. This is an intriguing idea, but I doubt it will ever come to fruition. America has a winner-take-all system, meaning you get ALL of the votes when you win a state. Why?

Because no state wants to dilute it's impact on the election, and sending in ten electors who will split down the middle means you aren't having an impact. You wind up with the same problem the Founders encountered; the small states end up losing their importance.

Another problem is the winner-take-all system has given us the two party system, for instance, because only a well funded, well organized party can hope to win across the entire country. Regional parties had existed in the past in America, but they faded away as the country grew, and that because you cannot hope to win the Presidency by appealing to just a few states. It’s why the Federalist Party collapsed; they became confined to New England, and just didn't have a broad enough base.

And while there have been third parties that have had an impact in American history, few have survived long. The Electoral College system makes it necessary to campaign nation-wide, and that means having a broad enough appeal to get many disparate groups. The end result is that few single issue parties have fared well (except the Republicans, who were solely about abolishing slavery.)

Other criticisms of the Electoral College are that it is undemocratic (which is true, and exactly why the Founding Fathers created it; they knew pure democracy ended in dictatorships), and that it reduces the power of your vote under certain circumstances.

So, what would happen if we were to abolish the Electoral College system?

First, the President would always come from California or New York. There would be no point in nominating anyone else, since they could not possibly win.

Second, the major parties would fracture and we would see a pluralistic system, much like many parliamentary systems in other parts of the world. We would have coalition governments without the possibility of divorce that is built into the parliamentary system; no votes of no-confidence or whatnot. If gridlock in government is a problem now, it will be unbelievable under such a system. This will only empower the President, who will have to act via executive order to get anything done. The will give us an imperial Presidency. Of course, the President may not have any money to act, since Congress will be mired in endless squabbling...

And dissatisfaction with the rule of the biggest will metastasize, perhaps leading to the dissolution of the Republic. Like it or not the Electoral College is a cornerstone of the American system, and removing it would necessitate the abolition of the Constitution as we know it. We would have to create an entirely new form of government.

So we should all think carefully about this institution before we relegate it to the dustbin of history. America owes much of her success to the Electoral College, even if it has not always worked perfectly.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:41 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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