by Tom Koecke

Created on: December 30, 2007

This is always a tough sell because of the sheer number of people who will vote that the electoral college should be eliminated. If the arguments encountered in this debate are typical arguments presented in other debates I have had on this topic, the arguments will include (1) the US was founded as a democracy, (2) the Electoral College did not exist prior to 1804, and (3) modern technology does away with the need for the Electoral College. Each of these arguments is incorrect, and the numbers of people who buy into these falsehoods is the greatest argument for retaining the Electoral College.

Though it sounds nice to say the US was founded on the principle of democracy, it was actually formed as a representative republic. The intentions of the founding fathers were to limit the control the federal government has on the states. The founding fathers recognized that the interests varied from state to state. They put forth that ideal in the formation of Congress, in which each state is granted two Senators and a varying number of Representatives based on population. The argument that the country was founded as a democracy is further eroded by the fact that population, for the purposes of representation in Congress, included calculating slaves as worth three-fifths of a natural person. While some historical facts about the US include racist and misogynist elements, those have been corrected with regard to representation in the federal government. The point is not to defend those ethics as valid, but rather to prove that the US was established as a representative republic and not a democracy.

The argument that the Electoral College was created through the twelfth amendment to the Constitution is also incorrect. The amendment in 1804 served to allow the Executive to select a Vice President running mate. The amendment changed Article II of the Constitution that declared the candidate with the second most electoral votes as the Vice President. This resulted in odd combinations in the Executive Branch of government in that John Adams, the man who would be king, served as Vice President for George Washington, who rejected the offer to become king. Jefferson, who was politically opposed to John Adams, served as his Vice President. Though the government worked through those administrations, the next Vice President, Aaron Burr, who killed the first Secretary of the Treasury in a duel, proved the need for those in the Executive Branch to work in concert with the Executive

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