 |
AN ARGUMENT FOR ABOLISHING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
SUMMARY: The essay begins by exploring the roots and evolution of the Electoral College. It then demonstrates that the Electoral College has, from its very inception, consistently failed to operate as intended by the framers of the United States constitution. It shows that the framers' fear of the common people has been proven wrong by history. Finally, it exposes the Electoral College as a threat both to the democratic-republic structure of our government and to the national security of the United States.
____________________________________________________________________
By Eric M. Stokes
"Document #1." Copyright 2007 by author. The conditions of quotation and re-publication, along with a brief history of the document, may be accessed by a link the bottom of the page.
____________________________________________________________________
AN ARGUMENT FOR ABOLISHING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Every four years, our nation goes through a bizarre ritual to elect a President. First, we have a separate popular election in each of the fifty states and in the District of Colombia. Then, the votes are counted. Then, up to forty-nine percent of the voters in each state are disenfranchised - *after they've already voted*. Then we collectively cross our fingers - waiting on CNN to tell us whether or not the Electoral math added up the way it’s supposed to. Then in December, long after the votes of the people have been counted and long after the people have already “elected” the President, a small group of unknown party hacks meets in each of the fifty state capitals and in the District of Colombia to cast their votes for the President. It’s a crazy way to elect a President!
This essay will discuss the origin and evolution of the Electoral College, how it has failed in its original purpose, and why it is a potential national security issue in the post 9-11 world.
With their low population, the original southern states feared that direct elections would allow the heavily populated North always to choose the President; so the southern delegates to the constitutional convention insisted on an indirect method of electing the President, in order to counter the North’s far greater population. Historical developments (the rapid addition of new states in the decades after ratification of the constitution, the outcome of the Civil War and the resultant crushing of the “states’ rights” concept, the continuing addition of new states through 1959, and the population explosion in the South) have long since rendered this sectional conflict among the original thirteen colonies moot.
However, the concerns of the framers about the dangers of majority rule as they relate to the creation of the Electoral College deserve much more consideration. With relatively little regard to class or property status, the framers believed that most of the adult male citizenry deserved to participate in their own governance. Their efforts to craft a representative republic responsive (not reflective of, but responsive to) to the will of the populace flowed from this fundamental belief.
Nonetheless, the framers, who predominantly came from the propertied classes, feared that majority rule would quickly degenerate into mob rule. The framers were certain that upon gaining power the masses immediately would dispossess the propertied classes and that the ruined republic would quickly spiral downward into anarchy, which would culminate in the rise of dictatorial rule in the name of order and security. Their fear of majority rule derived at least in large part from the chaotic example of the ancient Greek city-states, which suffered cycles of direct democracy followed by dictatorship. Arguably, it also derived from the framers’ own economic, property, and class interests.
This concern with the inevitable degeneration of majority rule into tyranny is clearly set forth in their writings. These texts consistently refer to the common masses as “the people”, indicated somewhat dismissively by a lowercase p. These same texts refer to the propertied elite (whom they considered fit to rule by virtue of education, property, culture, and experience) as “the People”, honorably indicated by an uppercase p. To accommodate their desire for democratic participation by the citizenry at large while eliminating the perceived evils of majority rule, the framers decided that the House of Representatives would be elected directly by “the people”, while the Senate would be elected by the state legislatures rather than the masses. Of course, the state legislatures were dominated by the propertied classes - “the People”.
The same desire to create a democratic republic free of majority rule caused the framers to provide for the indirect election of the President. The framers decided that the democratically elected legislature of each state would decide how each state’s electors would be chosen. Thus, the constitution provided, and still provides, that each state should choose its electors “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct”. (Would a coin toss to choose the electors for a state, if the legislature were to so direct, pass constitutional muster?)
As originally structured by the framers, the person who received the highest number of electoral votes for the presidency would become President, and the person who received the second highest number of votes for the presidency would become the Vice-President. The framers believed that the College would ensure that majority could never elect a populist ruler, as they feared that such a man of the people might lead the new democratic republic into mob rule, expropriation, and dictatorship.
Ironically, the original set-up of the Electoral College soon created the institution’s first and most serious constitutional crisis, early on in the life of the nation. This crisis could have destroyed the government, as the nation was still vulnerable to domestic traitors and foreign powers. Aaron Burr’s barely-failed scheme to force the Presidency to become vacant so that Burr could slither into the White House resulted in the constitution being amended so that the President and the Vice President would be elected by the College separately from each other. Unrelated to Burr’s almost successful coup attempt, a patchwork of state laws which evolved over time has extra-constitutionally amended the Electoral College so that the Electors are chosen by the people, and so that (almost always, but not always) the Electors in turn elect whoever receives the majority of the popular vote.
The fears of the framers regarding majority rule in the United States have been utterly disproved by the later history of the nation. By the late nineteenth century, the indirectly-elected Senate, which the framers had looked to as a bulwark against majority rule, had degenerated into a corrupt millionaires’ club that obstructed urgently needed reforms in the life of the nation. Early in the twentieth century, the constitution was finally amended to allow the people of each state to elect their senators directly. Early in the history of the nation, state legislatures began to provide varying methods by which the Electors would be chosen directly by the people so that the will of the majority would be reflected. Since the mid to late nineteenth century, the Electoral College almost always has elected the candidate chosen by majority of “the people”. The granting of suffrage over time to even the property-less and the poorest citizens, along with the constitutional amendment that gave women full political status, completed the democratization of the United States and made the prospect of pure majority rule a possibility.
Attempts by American socialist and communist parties in the mid to late nineteenth century and in the early to mid twentieth century to win the American people over to their ideologies of proletarian rule and expropriation of the propertied classes - which the framers would have viewed as doctrines of mob rule and anarchy - were soundly and with finality rejected by “the people”. For about the last century, the majority which so worried the framers has peacefully held in its hands the ability to elect directly the President and both houses of Congress. Even the federal judiciary bears the influence of the majority despite the framers’ design to the contrary. (The President, who nominates judges and Supreme Court justices, was not originally selected by the people. The Senate, which confirms and rejects judicial nominees, was until less than a century ago elected by state legislatures rather than the people.) The majority has had millions upon millions more votes than the propertied classes over that time, yet the majority through its elected leaders consistently has taken a moderate course.
Certainly, the majority for its own protection and comfort has imposed upon the moneyed minority certain heavy expenses and restrictive measures (such as old age benefits, workers’ compensation, and unemployment insurance, workers’ rights and decent working conditions, regulation of business practices, child labor laws and environmental protection). However, the majority in the United States has never sought to overthrow or expropriate this minority, and has been largely respectful of its rights, property, and interests.
Due to various, related reasons (the ideological allegiance of the majority to capitalism and the masses' personal enjoyment of the fruits of that system, the countervailing influence of the propertied classes’ control of the press and media and the funding of political campaigns, and the fact it is almost impossible for a person of low or average means to run for office - much less gain public notice or be elected), notions of class warfare generally have not gained much popular adherence or political sway in the United States.
The Electoral College stands in our constitution as a relic of the framers’ lack of faith in the wisdom, honor, and practicality of the common people. Almost from the beginning the College has malfunctioned, if proper function is defined as a mechanism fulfilling its intended purpose. Once, the College subjected the nation to an attempted constitutional coup. It has not prevented direct election of the President by the people; and the common people have proved themselves quite capable of choosing their leader, despite the worries of the framers. It is expensive, quirky, and somewhat unreliable it its results. When it works at its best, it’s a costly way to formalize the choice of the people. When it nullifies the choice of the people, it creates a popular sense of alienation from the political process. Also, the Electors are chosen precisely because they are political hacks rather than deliberative, thinking individuals.
Most states now have a “winner-take-all” electoral system in which the votes of the minority of the people of the state are entirely negated. While the current systems for choosing the Electors are designed to try mirror the popular vote of the nation, they still would be more appropriate in 'Alice in Wonderland' than in a democratic republic. The United States long ago evolved fully into a democratic republic, with de facto election of the President by "the people" but the framers’ nightmare never became reality. Yet, the Electoral College on rare occasions does defeat the choice of the people, and it has nearly rejected the choice of the people on numerous occasions. The College also has a history of rogue delegates, known as “faithless electors”, who vote for someone other than the candidate whom they were chosen to vote for. Furthermore (although it is unlikely that state-level politicians would ever try to do this, because it would cost them their seats) it would be constitutionally permissible for one or more state legislatures “in such manner as they may direct” decree that the people of their states should have no say whatsoever in the choice of the President.
Only the future will reveal what crisis it may take to finally extract this enormous monkey wrench called the Electoral College from the workings of the otherwise well-made, smoothly functioning constitutional machinery. Ominously, future Electors could be secretly influenced in ways never envisioned by the framers: Mundane threats to democracy could include bribery, blackmail, threats, and extortion. The College is also a huge threat to national security. Terrorists could frighten electors, with a few well-placed threats or explosions, into electing their preferred candidate instead of the one chosen by the people. Terrorists could even bully the electors into choosing someone whose name never appeared on any ballot and who received no popular votes. Will terrorists someday actually elect a Commander-in-chief, either because of his or her perceived weakness or because of secret allegiance to terror?
It is high time that we abolish the pointless, undemocratic, and possibly deadly Electoral College. It needs to be replaced with direct elections by the entire people.
A Sermonette-Valentine's Day & the Love of God (in English, religious)
The Poetic Voice of Rita Dove (in English, literary)
Caerse en un cielo (en espanol, literario)
Some Poetry of Eric Stokes
Document Re-use and Re-Publication (Conditions)
Send E-Mail to: emstokes72@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2008 Eric M. Stokes. All Rights Reserved