Should the electoral college be abolished?

No

7 of 18

by Ken Burnside

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

Say Yes To The Preservation Of The Electoral College

The electoral college comes up as an article of debate every presidential election cycle, and, as always, there's some group (usually the ones who lost the last election) demanding that the electoral college be disbanded.

Let's look at the historical and mathematical basis of the electoral college and play "what if" it gets disbanded.

First and foremost, the electoral college was instituted for security reasons it was thought that running a direct vote across the breadth of the sparsely populated United States would be unfeasible this is also why, until FDR's term, the US President's term of office started in March rather than January, to give time for the newly instated president and his cabinet to reach Washington.

The electoral college was meant to be a protection against vote fraud, and a significant guarantee of the rights of the individual States in the overall Federal government, in much the same way that, prior to the 17th Amendment, Senators were elected to go to Washington by their respective State Legislators and confirmed by the state Governors. Senators were charged with looking after the interests of the individual States, while the house of Representatives were charged with looking after the interests of the people.

There's the historical context. Now, let's take a look at the mathematical consequences.

The electoral college, like the makeup of Congress, represents a balance between equal parity between the states and representation based on demographics. Removal of the electoral college and going to a direct vote means that a political candidate need only appeal to the 91% of the population that lives in five metropolitan areas: Los Angeles/Orange County/San Diego County (78 million people), the Boston-Washington Corridor (106 million people), Chicago and surrounding areas (38 million people) and Houston, Texas (33 million people).

In a direct election, only the residents of those cities matter in choosing the Presidency. The person who carries those precincts carries the country. While the current system is still heavily weighted towards certain states (New York, California, Florida and Texas chief among them), the disparity of electoral college votes is merely 27% of the total. A candidate, as a result, has to appeal to a broader range of constituents, and cannot simply be beholden to the larger urban areas. This results (in theory) in a President who represents all of America.

It is interesting to note that the 17th Amendment was framed in the same populist rhetoric used against the Electoral college now. With that change, instead of Senators selected by State Legislators and confirmed by the Governor, all Senators were directly elected by the people. With the best of intentions, the Senators were elected by the mass of the people, and the people's voice was heard. Supposedly. In practice, what happened was that the financial and railroad industries of the 19th Century were better able to buy Senatorial elections, because instead of having to deal with state legislators, they only needed to buy campaign advertisements and smear campaigns against their opponents.

The great promise of the political campaigns leading up to the 17th Amendment was that it would allow the voters to turn out the incumbent senators, and make them more directly responsible to their constituents. The end result was even less turnover of incumbents in the Senate after the amendment was passed than there was before, as the political machines could ensure that nobody could run against their chosen candidate.

This is a lesson we should consider deeply before dismantling the Electoral College and disenfranchising the voters who don't happen to live in the major urban metroplexes.

Learn more about this author, Ken Burnside.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.