August 20, 2004

In the up-coming presidential election, Americans will be going to the polls thinking they are casting their vote directly for the President and Vice President of the United States. In reality, they will be voting for a representative called an elector. Each of the political parties, in the several States and the District of Columbia, appoints a slate of electors pledged to vote for their candidate. It is the electors of the party that wins the popular vote in each State who vote for the President and Vice President, not the people. In fact, the Constitution does not contain any provision authorizing the people to vote for a presidential or vice-presidential candidate. The legislatures of the several States have the constitutional authority to simply appoint their electors and completely exclude the people from the election process.

This little known fact became part of the controversy that followed the 2000 presidential election. During the court battle that followed the general election in the State of Florida, the Florida State Legislature contemplated appointing its electors in the event the controversy was not resolved prior to the deadline for certifying their electors to the Electoral College. The prospect of the Florida Legislature appointing its electors, without resorting to the “will of the people,” had the American people bewildered and democrat pundits claiming this would be unconstitutional and contrary to our “democracy.” The purpose of this article is to explain some of the intricacies the presidential election process so the reader will have a better understanding of the role of the electors.

During the debates in the Federal [Constitutional] Convention of 1787, James Wilson, a delegate from Pennsylvania, said in reference to the manner in which the president was to be selected:

This subject has greatly divided the House, and will also divide the people out of doors. It is in truth the most difficult of all on which we have had to decide.

Adoption of the electoral process came late in the Convention, which had previously adopted, on four occasions, provisions for election of the president by Congress and had twice defeated proposals for direct election by the people.

Selection of the president by Congress was rejected because it was feared there would be collusion between a presidential candidate and Congress. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate to the Convention from Massachusetts, summed-up this objection as follows:

There would be a constant intrigue kept up for the appointment. The Legislature & the candidates would bargain and play into one another’s hands, votes would be given by the former under promises or expectations from the latter, of recompensing them by services to members of the Legislature or to their friends.

Direct election by the people was rejected for two reasons. First was the belief that the people were uninformed of the character of the candidates and liable to deception. John Mercer of Maryland said:

The Constitution is objectionable in many points, but in none more than the present. The people can not know & judge of the characters of Candidates. The worse possible choice will be made.

The other reason the Founders rejected direct election by the people was the fear that the larger States would control the presidency. Connecticut delegate Oliver Ellsworth stated:

The objection drawn from the different sizes of the States to be unanswerable. The Citizens of the largest States would invariably prefer the Candidate within the State; and the largest States would invariably have the man.

As a result of these objections, the Convention adopted an electoral system that interposed a representative called an elector. The electors were to be men of superior discernment, virtue and information who would select the president and vice president according to their own will and without reference to the immediate wishes of the people. Their only obligation was to select, in their judgment, the most qualified candidates.

The mode for appointing the presidential electors was vested in the state legislatures. For several years after the adoption of the Constitution the States simply appointed their electors. The people did not participate in the presidential election process. The legislatures have abandoned this practice and adopted a direct popular election as the method for determining which party’s slate of electors will be elected to vote for their State. Under the electoral system, the so-called national popular vote is a fictional number that does not have any bearing on the outcome of an election. The elections in each State and the District of Columbia are the only votes that count because electors are elected on the basis of a state-by-state vote, not a national vote.

Even though the people now elect the presidential electors through a statewide popular election, the electors have retained their independence. Since the electors are not constitutionally bound to any candidate or party, they can reject a candidate even if that candidate wins the popular vote in their state. For example. If a candidate won the State of California’s election in a landside but the electors believed the losing candidate was better qualified to be president, the electors could cast their vote for the losing candidate and overturn the will of the people. In addition, the electors can vote for any individual they please even if that person is not a candidate. Since the electors are now party loyalists, it is extremely rare for an elector to exercise their independence and vote for someone other than their party’s candidate.

Opponents of the electoral system are very critical of the independent nature of the electors. They claim the ability of the electors to exercise their independent judgment and overturn the will of the people, even though this is extremely rare and has never affected the outcome of an election, proves the Electoral College system is an anti-democratic institution. These individuals want to replace the present system with a national direct popular vote because they claim it would be more inline with the democratic form of government established by the Constitution.

The problem with this assertion is the Constitution did not establish a democracy. It established a republican or representative form of government. Under this system of government, the people do not exercise the powers of government directly. They exercise it through representatives. The presidential election process is a component of the representative system of government established by the Constitution. In fact, the electoral system is a representative institution just like the House of Representatives and United States Senate. Under our representative form of government, the people have no direct voice on any law proposed or passed by either branch of Congress. In Congress, the vote rests with the representative irrespective of the “national will” of the American people. The Electoral College was structured to be an extension of this principle. Electors cast their votes for the President and Vice President in the same manner as members of Congress cast their votes. The presidential elections in each State and the District of Columbia are a vote to determine which representatives (electors) will vote for the President and Vice President. In Congress the final vote on any pending legislation rests with the representatives, not the people. In a similar manner, the final vote for the President and Vice President, as intended by the Founders, rests with the electors.

Archives

How does it feel being a Government Commodity?

What's Wrong With The Pledge of Allegiance

The Price of Liberty

God and the Pledge of Allegiance

The President doesn’t have any Constitutional Authority over the Economy

Social Security is Nothing but a Tax and Welfare Scheme

Expanded Theft of Taxpayer Dollars to Fund Federal Intervention in Education

Democrats Pushing Legislation that would Dismantle the Constitution

The Founders did not Grant the Federal Judiciary the Power to Interpret the Constitution

Have Conservative Talk Show Hosts Sold Out the Constitution for the Republican Party?

The 16th Amendment is not the Source of the Federal Income Tax

What Happened to our System of Limited Government?

The ·2004
Declaration of Independence

Complete Archives for Robert Greenslade