Simple Defense of the Electoral College
To my recollection, there has not been a time when the Electoral College has been so severely under attack by Democrats (whose only Presidential election losses this millennium, save one, were when they lost the electoral vote, despite winning the popular vote) and so vigorously defended by Republicans for all the wrong reasons (solely that it gives them a chance to win, despite clearly being less popular than the Democrats).
More disheartening is the fact that most people do not understand the rationale for the Electoral College. To most, it is an anachronistic mechanism, developed solely as a utilitarian function for practically conducting a nationwide election in the 18th Century. To others, it was a means of exploitation by wealthy landowners, ensuring that they would always control the levers of power (a ridiculous notion, considering such landowners could have easily established a more robust aristocratic system, modeled after Great Britain after the Revolutionary War, with themselves as the aristocrats).
Overlooked is the fact that the Electoral College was a rather ingenious system, with an abstract basis which may actually be of benefit to the American public today - with some reforms.
Fundamentals - Checks and Balances
One of the key political principles embraced by the Founding Fathers of the United States (and which, to some extent or another, is a feature in every modern democracy) is that a government only legitimately exists “from the consent of the governed” (U.S. Declaration of Independence). As such, the governed have a say in the composition of such government, including their election of individuals to roles designed for executing its functions. Because the governed are also individuals and will not always agree as to which individuals to elect, the only effective way to accomplish this task is to do so with the consent of the majority of the governed.
More fundamental than this principle, though, is why governments exist. Their only legitimate purpose and function is to protect the rights of the individuals they govern; thus, it must be limited in its scope, else it becomes destructive of these ends (for favorite historical examples, see the Third Reich and the Soviet Union).
As to date, the most effective way to limit a government’s scope is to create a system of “checks and balances”, wherein various factions prevent other factions from extending the government’s role from that of protector to that of predator. This is done not only through the differing governing bodies (e.g., the well-known “checks and balances” between the legislative, executive, and judicial bodies), but also through the composition of such bodies – including how the members of such bodies are elected.
If a government legitimately exists only by the consent of the governed and such consent is derived from the majority of the governed, there is still great potential of abuse by the majority against the rights of the minority (e.g., whites enslaving Blacks, men preventing women from voting, etc.), if left unchecked. This is why the Founding Fathers were fond of, but not married to, the concept of pure democracy. This mode of government was practiced in ancient Greece, with the resulting end being an abuse of the majority against the minority, with the consequences being that such governments were short-lived and replaced by more authoritarian types.
Composition of the Federal Government
With this understanding, the Founding Fathers crafted a Federal government based on the consent of the governed, but with the officers to major offices either being elected or appointed to such through different mechanisms, to put into place “checks and balances” to prevent a dictatorship of a pure majority. To illustrate:
· Members of the House of Representatives were to be directly elected by the people every two years. This was done because it was considered to be the most powerful legislative house (since it was the only House authorized to originate bills regarding taxation) and, thus, the people should have the most direct input into its composition.
· Members of the Senate were originally to be appointed by the State Legislatures. While such appointments still derived from the consent of the governed, it was done through an indirect channel (i.e., the people would directly elect members of their State Legislature who, in turn, would appoint the members of the Federal Senate), with staggered terms lasting six years. Doing so allowed one House (the Senate, comprised of members representing the State governments, who represent their constituents) to act as a check against any abuses which could arise from a short-term, impassionate and immoral trend among the majority.
· Members of the judicial branch were to be appointed by the President, with the advise and consent of the Senate. Again, the consent of the governed is given indirectly (see the steps for the Senate above and those of the President later), while the judicial branch, given its autonomy and independence, could serve as a check on the other two branches (legislative and executive).
Following these political principles, however, made it difficult to decide how the President should be elected:
· Direct elections from the people were already applied to the House of Representatives. Having the President elected similarly would tip the balance of power in favor of the simple majority, who would control both the Presidency and the House, for good or bad.
· The States, which were the equivalents of political parties now (the primary, nationwide conflict at the time being between large and small States), were a channel already applied to the Senate.
· Because the President served as a check upon Congress (e.g., the veto power), it would have been absurd to have the latter appoint the former. Similarly, appointment by the judicial branch (e.g., the Supreme Court) would place too much power in another branch which the President was to act as a check against.
Thus, there was no good channel to direct the people’s consent to the Presidency, without creating an imbalance of power which could be exploited.
The Electoral College
Because the role of the President is fairly limited (e.g., the President must faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress), yet broad within certain contexts (e.g., the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and has broad authority in directing them and the nation during times of war), and unilaterally acts as a check upon Congress (e.g., vetoes), a prime abuse of power could come in the form of the President being dependent upon an established political body, whose favor the President would need to curry in order to fulfill and retain the role.
Hence the Electoral College. The sole power and responsibility of this body is to elect the President and Vice President. It has no powers outside this scope and, more importantly, it exists temporarily and only for this purpose. Its members only meet with other members from the same State for one day in December every four years, to cast their votes. Once accomplished, the College is dissolved and a new one, typically comprised of different individual members, is appointed four years later. As such, there is no political body to who the President is dependent.
How the electors within the College would be selected would be left to the discretion of the State legislatures, though each method still maintained some linkage to the people, so the consent of the governed would still be obtained. Historically, in some States, the electors were elected directly by the people, who were evenly divided into electoral districts (very similar to the way members of the House of Representatives are elected). In others, they were elected by the State Legislatures (who, again, are directly elected by the people). In others, they were elected by the people-at-large (similar to what is done in forty-eight States today).
Because the Electoral College was designed prior to the existence of any real political parties in the United States, the Founding Fathers did not envision Presidential tickets run by political parties, with electors pledged to vote for a specific ticket. Rather, they envisioned that the people empowered to elect the electors would elect as such leading citizens from their State. Odds were that such citizens would be among the most moral and intellectual, thus they, in turn, would likely elect a highly qualified, leading citizen of the nation to be President.
In theory, this was an excellent system. The President and Vice President would be selected by leading citizens of each of the States, but who would not be beholden to any governing body, allowing such officers to exercise their independence and judgment. Also, while such officers ultimately derived their authority from the consent of the governed, such consent was obtained through a channel unique to all the other channels herein described, allowing the Executive Branch to act as a check against the other channels.
The Emergence of Political Parties
While in theory this was how the Electoral College was envisioned, in practice it evolved in a way to make it anachronistic, thanks to the establishment of political parties and their running of Presidential tickets. To ensure the election of such tickets, the parties ran their own candidates for the Electoral College in each State (known as “slate of electors”), who pledged to vote for their party’s Presidential ticket if elected.
This, coupled with the fact that by the end of the Civil War all States selected most (if not all) of their electors based on the popular vote of its citizens, caused the Electoral College to evolve from a deliberative, independent body to what it is now today – a rubber stamp of the popular will of the voters in each State. Citizens vote “directly” for their preferred Presidential ticket on their ballot, though they are actually electing the slate of electors who are pledged to vote for such ticket (and who are appointed by the State’s political parties).
In essence, this has transformed the selection of the President and Vice President into a direct popular vote, with a “mathematical hiccup” which causes the winner of the nationwide popular vote to sometimes lose (Tilden in 1876, Cleveland in 1888, Gore in 2000, and Clinton in 2016 – all Democrats, by the way).
Electoral College Reform
Recognizing that these “mathematical hiccups” are disruptive, most of the political world has turned towards solutions which abolish the Electoral College, either completely or rendering it moot (e.g., the Interstate Compact).
Doing so, however, would cause both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch to be directly elected by the people. While structurally there would still be some checks to prevent the abuse of power by a simple majority (e.g., staggered terms and members of Congress being elected by the majority of the people in distinct congressional districts), they will be greatly mitigated and could lead to the deprivation of the individual rights of the minority.
Solutions for a better government should not be to throw away that which was unique and theoretically good, but rather to buttress it and find ways to make it work as intended. While not a complete list, some reforms to do so could be as follows:
· Banning References to Political Parties on Ballots. All individuals have a right to assemble and organize bodies for promoting their political beliefs and ideologies. Banning political parties is an egregious violation of such rights and should not be considered.
However, it is not a government’s role to be promoting or identifying such parties. Doing so has only encouraged cult-adjacent behaviors by voters, who only vote for nominees of a specific political party, despite such candidate’s beliefs, character, or morals.
By containing no references to any political affiliations on a ballot, the onus is then placed upon each voter to do their homework before entering the voting booth.
· Voting Directly for Unpledged Electors. Rather than voting for a slate of electors pledged to a specific Presidential ticket, voters could be enabled to vote directly for each individual elector, who is free to vote for whomever such elector independently thinks would make a good President or Vice President.
I will note, though, that this will only be practical in small states. In large states, like California (which has 54 electoral votes), this will not be practical. Solutions for such States could be to allow voters in each Congressional district vote for one elector for such district (the winner being the one to win the most votes in such district - similar to the Electoral Districts in the country’s early days) and to elect two additional electors (the winners being the ones who win the most and second-most votes Statewide).
· Alternative: Slates of Electors. One of the issues with the above proposed reform is that it will be subject to gerrymandering, which is a plague upon the selection of members of the House of Representatives. A solution to Congressional gerrymandering is that, rather than voting directly for a representative in Congress, voters vote for a slate of candidates and the composition of the State Congressional Delegation is determined based on the percentage of the vote won by such slates (very similar to what is done in parliamentary elections in Europe).
This could also work for slates of electors. Of course, each political party will run their own slates, but this would not prevent other slates from being put forward by non-political parties, who are not pledged to any political party tickets.
These are, of course, theoretical reforms, each with their own issues. This is not a comprehensive solution to the problem, but it is a step towards such. If the desire is for the United States to be a country with few safeguards against a potential dictatorship of the majority, then abolishing the Electoral College will help achieve this goal. If is to continue to be one with checks and balances against such an outcome, while still allowing the governed to select their governors, then reforming and supporting the Electoral College should be seriously considered.
