Once again the Election of the
President of the United States by the Electoral College is the
subject of much whining and criticism by the losers. As with the
2000 Election, the Republicans won the Electoral College but with the
official popular vote won by the Democrats. I say official, since
the possibility of voting fraud in many large urban areas leaves much
doubt as to the validity of the popular total. In any case, in spite
of massive Democrat wins in the urban areas, the fact that the
overwhelming majority of suburban to rural counties in the country
went Republican helps explain the Republican win of the Electoral
College.
Which is why the Founders created the
Electoral College in the first place. At the time, there were not so
many large urban areas, but the fear was that the more populous
states would, in a popular voting system, deny any real
representation in the Federal Government to the smaller states. By
creating the Electoral College system, the smaller states would have
a somewhat better chance of having a say in the choosing of a
President.
Furthermore, the method of choosing
Electors specified by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution
leaves it up to the State Governments. To wit: "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 the
Congress...". Thus, as with the original Senate, the President
was to answer more to the Sovereign States than to the people as a
whole. Although the Senate as the voice of the States has been
nullified by the Seventeenth Amendment and made a second House of
Representatives, the State governments still have the authority to
determine the selection of their Electors for the Electoral College.
In practice this has been usurped by Party Politics in most states to
a winner-take-all selection of Electors by the Party winning a
plurality of the popular vote in the State.
The current implementation of the
Electoral College is not in violation of the Constitution, although
it is probably not in keeping with the intent of the Founders. I
assume that each State has given its blessing in law or otherwise to
the current situation. In spite of the fact that the Founders went
to considerable ends to give the Sovereign States a meaningful voice
in the Federal Government, they have ceded it over the years to the
very plebiscite democracy that the Founders abhorred. The Electoral
College could easily be the next victim to this tendency by being
eliminated altogether.
As usual this author feels obliged,
after complaining about the situation, to offer a suggestion for a
modest improvement. Since the original Constitutional verbiage cited
above is still in effect, the State Legislatures could direct that
the Elector authorized by each Congressional District be appointed by
the Party having a plurality in that District, with the two Electors
granted to each state by virtue of their Senators being appointed by
the Party having a plurality in the State, as is currently the case.
Apparently this is the system used in two of the Fifty States: Maine
and Nebraska. Even better might be to have the State Legislature
appoint their two 'at large' Electors to recover a little of the
representation of the Sovereign States that the Founders envisioned.
Something like this would at least keep the States with large urban
areas from denying any representation in the Electoral College to
their rural areas. It also would be a minor step toward returning to
the intent of the Founders.
