by Robert Hamm

Created on: May 22, 2009   Last Updated: May 27, 2009

To even answer that question, a person must first ask themselves this question. Why do we have the electoral college in the first place? I once had a college history teacher who didn't know the answer to that. Luckily I have a long memory and an eighth grade history teacher who knew a couple.

First and foremost, the electoral college exist so that densely populated areas couldn't enforce their will upon sparsely populated rural ones. Go look up a county by county map of the 2000 election and at first you'll wonder how Gore managed to win the popular vote at all. The country is blanketed with red and only a few patches of blue exist. Almost all of them centered around our most heavily populated areas.

More people may have voted for Gore, but most of the country voted for Bush, if you look at the county by county map it wasn't even close. The 2000 election wasn't a failure of the electoral college, as it is often portrayed. Quite the contrary. The 2000 election was the kind of race the college was meant for and it worked exactly how it was supposed to work.

Another reason the electoral college was devised isn't as relative today in part because of our 24/7 news networks and the level of intense coverage they give presidential candidates and in part because states have foolishly passed laws that force electors to cast there votes inline with the popular vote. What why would that be a bad thing?

Well, imagine a candidate wins on election day and the next week information comes out that he has stolen/lied/blackmailed/murdered or any one of a hundred other things that would cause people to now feel he is unfit for office. What do you do?

He's been elected but not sworn in and you can't impeach him. Do you really want to trust his running mate if he steps down? Maybe what he did wasn't a criminal offense, but it was enough that, now most of the people who voted for him; don't trust him to do the job. Well, if the electoral college hasn't convened yet, all the members who are able, can cast their votes inline with what people now know and think about the candidate.

As I said in our age of instant information, this is highly unlikely, but in a time when news and mail ran at the speed of a horse; it was a very practical and sensible way to deal with the possibility of last minute issues that wouldn't have had time to spread across the country.

To my knowledge, no member of the college has ever cast their vote out of line with the people of their state and I can't imagine anyone ever trying it without the full support of the public. This mechanism isn't a way for crooked politicians to beat the system. It's the last line of defense against a crooked politician before he takes our highest office.

We should always be careful when we mess with the articles of the constitution, especially ones that deal with the election and appointment of our politicians. The electoral college worked as it was meant to in 2000 and those of us that live in "fly over" country or the lonely rural areas, would be well served to remember that without the electoral college, it won't be long until their voices are drowned out by the millions jammed in our cities.

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