Should the electoral college be abolished?

No

8 of 18

by Rick Badman

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When the electoral college was established, small states needed to be protected from the dictates of larger states during national elections. Without it, a Presidential candadate could concentrate on reaching the voters in a handful of states and forget about states like Rhode Island, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, South Carolina, and Delaware. Why waste time in those states? But when every state is important, the people will feel like they have power. Candidates will have to win more than the dozen or so large states in order to become President.

I have a friend I call Crazy Dan who believes the electoral college should be abolished. If it had been in 2000, we would have had President Gore and maybe more terrorist attacks since he most likely wouldn't have formed Homeland Security. We may not have gone to war in Iraq. Instead, the people would still be fearing their government and the death toll of Iraqis would probably be greater than it has been since 2003.

When I explain to him that without the electoral college, candidates wouldn't waste their time compaigining in states like Wyoming and Montana and Alaska, he says they would. Then I ask him why. He can't answer that. He says the wishes of the people should be honored and not that of 538 people who are electors. I point out the protection of the little people to have their votes count and he could care less.

Here's an example of the importance of the electoral college: A candidate appeals to people in the urban areas and immigrants. He wins California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusettes, Washington, Oregon, and Michigan. That gives him 256 electoral votes which is short of the 270 he needs. But he beats his rival by a million votes. That means the will of the people in eleven states would determine what happens in the other 39 states. Does that sound fair?

Worst yet. What if the turnout were mainly in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusettes, and Illinois and the turnout was nearly nothing in the other 45 states? A candidate could win the election even though maybe 40 million voters stayed home. Another Hitler could seize control of the government with as few as 10% of the people supporting him if the electoral college was abolished.

In the everyday world, pure democracy can promote bad things. Let's say there were 22 boys in a classroom and 18 girls. The boys had 10 electoral votes and the girls also had ten. The teacher could break any tie. If at recess time the boys all voted that the class should play tackle football and the girls voted that the class should play volleyball, if it had been a democracy, the girls would have been forced to play tackle football. The boys would have enjoyed it. But the girls would have probably hated it. The teacher would vote that the class should play volleyball. It is still a bit rough. But at least the girls wouldn't be injured thanks to electoral votes.

There has been voter fraud for years. In Pennsylvania there have been some districts with around 105% voter turnout. In New Orleans, a Republican was going to win a Senate seat until the Democrats loaded the busses with voters and took them around to vote wherever they could. One man complained that he could have been given more money if they had taken him to more places to vote. As the saying goes in Chicago, vote early and vote often.

The electoral college should control some of the voter fraud to balance the illegal voting in many districts with legal voting in others. Just because your grandfather voted Democrat when he was alive doesn't mean his vote should count now that he is dead. Jimmy Carter may be proud that in the Georgia legislature he had a bill passed which prohibited votes from being counted if the people had been dead for more than three years. How many other people were elected due to "ghost voters?"

We have a republic and not a democracy. Often the will of the people must be tempered by elected officials. What if during the Great Depression the communists had swayed the people to overthrow the government? What if they elected communists in the urban areas and the agricultural areas and both the Democrats and Republicans could only get 32% of the vote each? The communists might have 36% of the vote which would be the majority. That vote might have been only 18 million people. But they could have inflicted their will on the other 85% of the people. If you think Obama's plans and programs are radical and costly, imagine how a communist government might have been.

The electoral college saved us from having some people as President who might not have done as good a job or the nation wasn't ready for. Andrew Jackson was defeated by John Quincy Adams due to the electors in the electoral college. Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and like the Democrats of today wanted to help the little guy even if it meant hurting the economy. The four-year delay might have tempered him a little. But what he did while President made him into an imperial President which this nation managed to survive the reign of.

The electoral college saved this nation for Gore and his plans that might have cost us trillions more than what Bush was blamed as costing us. We might have had an economic collapse years ago if his alternative energy and global warmng programs had been enacted. The 9/11 day of infamy would have gone on as scheduled. But I don't believe his response would have been sufficient. There's no telling how many thousands would have died by now or how many would have committed suicide after his failed economic policies would have driven them to killing themselves. It's bad enough that Obama has the potential of destroying our economy. But there's no telling how bad it might have been if the Bush tax cuts hadn't helped the economy grow.

The electoral college will always frustrate those who think the majority should rule. But as long as the minority needs to be protected from the abuses of the majority, the electoral college will be needed. They used to say something like this: 40 million Frenchmen can't be wrong. But what if they support anarchy? The electoral college is the safety valve which keeps the flow of democracy controllable instead of a surging flood of destruction.

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