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"U.S. politics is a beautiful fraud...." - Shirley Chisholm A stern centurion at the gate of supreme power, the Electoral College keeps out the riffraff while nominally paying lip service to democracy. Nobody can get by it without a lifetime membership in the status quo. Founded in an era when the landed aristocracy feared mob rule, these patrician electors seem to enjoy giving an occasional thumbs down to the vox populi.
With the notable exception of Madison and Morris, the framers of the Constitution didn't trust their fellow Americans to choose a responsible leader. They argued back and forth about which was the best method of disenfranchising the masses and settled on the unwieldy mess described in Article II, Section I. Each state got a number of votes (personified by electors) equal to the total of its representatives and senators. How to choose the electors was left up to the states. Some states decided to do it in the state legislature, while others used something called a general ticket, which can best be described as a winner-take-all popular vote. A third method was to vote on electors by congressional districts.
None of these methods worked very well, even when modified by the 12th Amendment. People were unhappy with voting for electors and wanted to vote for who was actually running for president and vice-president. Instead of listening to the voice of the people, many state governments fraudulently deleted the names of electors from the ballots to make it look like voters were voting directly for the candidates. But they didn't really fool anybody and many otherwise diligent people will tell you that the reason that they don't bother to go to the polls on election day is that they know that their vote doesn't count.
When compared to the Electoral College, New York's Boss Tweed and Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley were a couple of amateurs. Why take a risk of going to jail for stuffing ballot boxes? The best way to rig elections is to do it legally.
Forget all that mandate-of-the-people election day propaganda on network television - what you don't see is what hurts you. On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, electors meet in their respective state capitals to vote for president and vice-president. They are not sworn to ratify the people's choice and have been known to change their minds at the last minute. To decrease the chance of having a president and vice-president from the same state, at least one of the candidates for whom they vote must not reside in the elector's state. Certified lists of votes cast for the two offices are then transmitted to the president of the United States Senate. Finally, on the following January 6th, the president of the Senate opens the certificates during a joint session of Congress, and the votes are counted. Needless to say, this is a far cry from what they tell us in the press.
The Electoral College is deeply entrenched. Nothing short of a constitutional amendment could get rid of it. But an amendment would have to be ratified by three fourths of the states and this is unlikely to occur because small states (of which there are 39) have a proportional advantage under the Electoral College system.
Although California's population is 68 times larger than that of Wyoming, California only gets 18 times as many electoral votes as Wyoming. Question: What kind of system gives more than three times as much clout to the voters of one state than to the voters of another state? Answer: An extremely skewed system that makes a mockery out of the cherished principle of one man, one vote.
An amendment (Senate Joint Resolution 56) recently introduced in the Senate by Dick Durbin (Democrat-Illinois) seeks to abolish the Electoral College and provide for the direct popular election of the President and Vice-President. Passed by a two thirds vote in the Senate and the House of Representatives, it now goes on to the states for their consideration. This particular amendment also provides for a runoff election if no candidate receives more than 40 percent of the popular vote.
In the 1992 election, third party candidate Ross Perot almost succeeded in keeping the other candidates from getting a majority of electors. Should that ever happen again (the last time was in 1824 in the race between Jackson and John Quincy Adams), then the election would be decided by the House of Representatives.
The quirky disputed outcome of the 2000 presidential election screams for abolition of the Electoral College. What could argue more against a way of doing something than that after two hundred years of modifications it still doesn't work right?This page last modified on November 10, 2000.
