September 27, 2004

In a recent editorial, the New York Times renewed the cry for abolition of the Electoral College. The Times labeled it “a ridiculous setup” and called for a “bipartisan movement for direct election of the president.” For years, proponents of direct popular election have attempted to portray the Electoral College as an unfair relic from the past. The Times used similar assertions in their condemnation of the electoral system. In the author’s opinion, this commentary distorts the intricacies of the Electoral College because the underlying criticism is not based on the system of government established by the Constitution.

The Times wants the Electoral College scraped because 538 electors, not a majority of the American people, determine the outcome of a presidential election. [You will be Not be Voting for a Presidential Candidate in the November Election ] Since there are 51 separate elections in the several States and the District of Columbia, as opposed to a single national election, a candidate can win the “national popular vote” but lose the electoral vote. According to the Times, this is unfair because it “thwarts the will of the majority.” Thus, their underlying criticism is?the national majority does not choose the president and this is contrary to democracy. [Note: The national popular vote is, from a constitutional standpoint, a fictional number because the Constitution does not contain a provision for such a vote].

The criticisms raised by the Times are misleading because their editorial staff omitted two very important facts concerning the system of government established by the Constitution. First, the Constitution did not consolidate the several States or their people into a single nation. During the debates in the Federal [Constitutional] Convention of 1787, the delegates rejected the proposals to establish a national government. Instead, they elected to retain the federal system of government that had been established by the Articles of Confederation. Thus, the Constitution maintained the limited union between the several States; it did not dissolve this union and establish a single nation of individuals. Second, the Founders viewed democracy, government exercised directly by the people, as one of the worst systems of government ever devised because it allows the majority to use the political process to infringe on the life, liberty and property of the minority. As a result, they designed a republican form of government to shield the people from the adverse effects of democracy.

During the debates in the Federal [Constitutional] Convention of 1787, Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia introduced a resolution proposing that “a Republican Government...ought to be guarantied by the United States to each state.” During the debates that followed, Alexander Hamilton stated:

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

The word republican, as used above and in the writings of the Founders is synonymous with the word representative.

Luther Martin, Attorney General of Maryland, made the following observation during the debates in the Federal Convention:

This general government, I believe, is first upon earth which gives checks against democracies...

One of those checks was the Electoral College system, which interposed a representative into the election process called an elector. The electors are representatives just like members of Congress. Unlike members of Congress, who are elected for a specific term of years and cast numerous votes while in office, electors perform a single function once every four years. They are entrusted with the responsibility of voting for the president and vice president of the United States.

Under the federal system of government established by the Constitution, there are no national elections in which a majority of the American people vote for members of Congress. Instead, there are separate elections in each of the several States. The Electoral College system is a mirror image of this process because the United States is a union of sovereign States; it is not a nation of individuals, as comprising a single nation. The Times wants to shatter this mirror and have the president elected under a national format while members of Congress will continue to be elected under a federal format.

Direct popular election would shift power to the presidency because a president would have a national mandate as opposed to a federal mandate. He or she could then pit the office of the president against Congress in an effort to get that body to enact legislation based on that mandate. This would seriously damage the separation of powers between the two branches of government.

Critics of the Electoral College always fail to acknowledge that the system was designed to balance power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. It does that by giving each of the several States the same percentage of power in the selection of the president as it has in Congress. For example, if a State has 8 representatives and 2 senators, it has 10 total votes in Congress. This State would also have 10 electoral votes in a presidential election.

Contrary to the assertions made by the editorial staff at the Times, the Electoral College is rooted in representative government and the federal system of government established by the Constitution, not national democracy. Direct popular election would infuse national democracy into a federal system of government. It would also interject national democracy into a representative form of government. This would turn the Constitution on its head. Critics of the Electoral College, like the Times, have either lost sight of these two constitutional principles or are intentionally omitting them from the debate in an effort to effect a radical change in the system of government established by the Founders.

The fundamental principle of a democracy is there is nothing to restrain the will, or the votes of the majority except the majority itself. An example of this principle is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. The federal nature of the Electoral College system restrains the adverse effects of national democracy because 51 separate elections prevents a presidential candidate from pandering to, or inciting, a majority to the American people as a ploy to win the presidency.

If the checks and balances of the Electoral College were removed, direct popular election would degenerate into pure democracy with the people throwing their support to whichever candidate promised to give them the most government largess.

Cicero, an intellectual of ancient Rome, wrote that the man usually chosen as the leader in a democracy is “[s]omeone bold and unscrupulous...who curries favor with the people by giving them other men’s property.

Under direct popular election, without the checks and balances of the Electoral College system, it would be much easier for a president to become the type of leader Cicero warned against.

Note: Text of the New York Times article entitled “Abolish the Electoral College” here.

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