by Thomas Schipani

Created on: November 04, 2008

The simple answer is that the Constitution says they do. The Electoral College rules US presidential elections for the same reason that whales have tiny little legbones. The electoral college is a political vestigial organ left over from the founding of the United States of America. It serves no useful purpose and is part of our past.

One Nation: In modern times we are taught and we all think of the United States of America as "...one nation, under God, indivisible...". That was not always the case. An abbreviated history lesson will be useful to clarify the point. Getting the individual states to yield sovereignty to a federal government was a long and tough battle that really only ended with the War Between the States. Such a conflict today would be unthinkable because we think of ourselves as one country and we say "the United States is..."; i.e. the United States is a singular noun. Prior to the Civil War, people would say "the United States are...";i.e. the United States were plural. Before the Civil War, many people held their loyalty to their state above their loyalty to the nation. Such views today are not the norm.

Compromise: In order to get the sovereign individual states to agree on a single leader, each state voted for the presdent via the Electoral College. There was not, and still is not, any requirement for the electors to vote as a bloc by state, nor is there any requirement for the Electoral College to vote according to the popular vote. The Electoral College system therefore, makes the President accountable directly to the states (as was intended by the founders) and only indirectly to the voters. In this, the founders intentions were good and it was likely a necessary compromise to get all the states to agree.

The Common Man: The other reason for the Electoral College was that the founders believed the election of the president was too important to leave to the electorate at large and should be decided by a select group of people. Clearly, this idea has gathered some rust over time.

Unintended Consequences: Such complexity is bound to run afoul of the law of unintended consequences. In practice, the Electoral College system greatly enhances the power of special interest groups in states where the election is likely to be tightly contested. Hence, a relatively small special interest group that can vote as a bloc can have an influence on the election and party platforms all out of proportion to their numbers. A small group of votes can determine the outcome with Florida and the 2000 election as the worst example.

Let's Get Up-to-Date: Our electoral process needs to change to match our modern political reality; that we are indeed one nation. We should elect the president as one nation, by direct, popular vote.

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