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What was the Founding Fathers' reasoning in creating the electoral college?

What was the Founding Fathers' reasoning in creating the electoral college?

  • To prevent the public from electing an unqualified man to be President.

    Votes: 9 21.4%

  • To prevent concentrated population centers from selecting the President.

    Votes: 14 33.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 19 45.2%
  • Total voters
    42
apdst said:
The right kind of people "chosen by the people" was what Hamilton actually said.

The people aren't going to choose electors that are going to choose the wrong guy.
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But he assumed only the right kind of people would do the choosing. Universal suffrage was not in place at the time.
 
devildavid said:
But he assumed only the right kind of people would do the choosing. Universal suffrage was not in place at the time.
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Not sure any of this is what the true debate about the electoral college is all about. My sense is the true debate in NOT about the people chosen to be electors. This is a pretty meaningless strawman. What we are talking about is how the different states would be represented. Would the small states be dominated by larger states.

So lets get to the real question. How about getting rid of the senate, which has the same problems that are present in the way we pick our president.

Or take a different side. Why do we have winner take all winners in gerrymandered house races. Why not apportion seats to the parties within a state according to votes by party. We are very much like a parliament where members vote along party lines anyhow.
 
washunut said:
Not sure any of this is what the true debate about the electoral college is all about. My sense is the true debate in NOT about the people chosen to be electors. This is a pretty meaningless strawman. What we are talking about is how the different states would be represented. Would the small states be dominated by larger states.

So lets get to the real question. How about getting rid of the senate, which has the same problems that are present in the way we pick our president.

Or take a different side. Why do we have winner take all winners in gerrymandered house races. Why not apportion seats to the parties within a state according to votes by party. We are very much like a parliament where members vote along party lines anyhow.
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The people chosen to be the electors are the key to the success of how the electoral college is supposed to function. If they truly are the right people, they will do what is best for the country, even if it means going against the majority. But regardless of the majority, it is their job to ensure that only a fit person becomes president, one who will truly be best for the country as a whole.
 
devildavid said:
The people chosen to be the electors are the key to the success of how the electoral college is supposed to function. If they truly are the right people, they will do what is best for the country, even if it means going against the majority. But regardless of the majority, it is their job to ensure that only a fit person becomes president, one who will truly be best for the country as a whole.
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All that may be true. Though it does seem to reflect the reality of how electors vote.

That being said, it has nothing to do with what Connecticut and other states are talking about. They effectively want to do away with the concept of how we apportion the electors don't care about which individuals are involved.
 
devildavid said:
But he assumed only the right kind of people would do the choosing. Universal suffrage was not in place at the time.
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He also specifically wrote that they would be chosen by the people. You can leave that out all you want, but it isn't going to make that fact go away.

The Founders wanted the president to represent all the states, not just the states that voted for him.
 
Greenbeard said:
So a plurality vote isn't tyranny of the majority. There goes that argument.
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I knew you couldn't answer the question, so I'll answer it for you: the president is the only natinally elected office in the land. There's no other election where my vote in Louisiana effects you in Massachuesetts and vice versa.
 
apdst said:
I knew you couldn't answer the question, so I'll answer it for you: the president is the only natinally elected office in the land. There's no other election where my vote in Louisiana effects you in Massachuesetts and vice versa.
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You've already conceded that plurality elections don't represent tyranny of majority (which is good, as such a position would be absurd and untenable under our form of government). At this point there's no Madisonian rationale for opposing a popular vote. Not least because Madison himself favored a national popular vote for the presidency.
 
Greenbeard said:
You've already conceded that plurality elections don't represent tyranny of majority (which is good, as such a position would be absurd and untenable under our form of government). At this point there's no Madisonian rationale for opposing a popular vote. Not least because Madison himself favored a national popular vote for the presidency.
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No I didn't. You said that. Stop lying to cover up your ignorance.
 
apdst said:
No I didn't. You said that. Stop lying to cover up your ignorance.
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Are you of the opinion that Madison considered every election for every office in the United States (other than the presidency) to be "tyranny of the majority"?
 
I didn't read all of them, so I don't know if this point has been made. President Trump campaigned mightily throughout the states that he needed to win based on the electoral college rules. The fact that he didn't campaign in California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and some of the other dark blue states is lost on the "he lost the total vote count" crowd. Are you people so ignorant that you believe that ending the electoral college would change the outcome of elections? Do you think that President Trump wouldn't have campaigned in California and New York and wouldn't have picked up hundreds of thousands of more votes? This entire point is meaningless...total votes are meaningless. The electoral college is fair.
 
itsforthekids said:
I didn't read all of them, so I don't know if this point has been made. President Trump campaigned mightily throughout the states that he needed to win based on the electoral college rules. The fact that he didn't campaign in California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and some of the other dark blue states is lost on the "he lost the total vote count" crowd. Are you people so ignorant that you believe that ending the electoral college would change the outcome of elections? Do you think that President Trump wouldn't have campaigned in California and New York and wouldn't have picked up hundreds of thousands of more votes? This entire point is meaningless...total votes are meaningless. The electoral college is fair.
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Okay, so the EC is an anachronism that's meaningless. Let's ditch it then.
 
Greenbeard said:
Okay, so the EC is an anachronism that's meaningless. Let's ditch it then.
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If there was enough support for ditching it, it should be easy...but alas, there isn't enough support. It's much like everything the left stands for..."70% of Americans want this or that...." If that were true, why not change it? answer...because it's NOT true.
 
itsforthekids said:
If there was enough support for ditching it, it should be easy...but alas, there isn't enough support. It's much like everything the left stands for..."70% of Americans want this or that...." If that were true, why not change it? answer...because it's NOT true.
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Argumentum ad populum doesn't paper over the fact that the EC as used today serves no purpose other than to selectively weight and de-weight citizen's votes relative to each other. There's no contemporary justification for that (and its original rationale, rooted in slavery, thankfully is no longer applicable).
 
Goofy thread.

One point, the Founding Fathers didn't want parties, and built a one party system.

When that quickly devolved into parties, that started us down the road where we find ourselves today.

They didn't anticipate parties, demographic changes, or the level of corruption we have.

It makes arguments based on what the Founding Fathers said, problematic at best.

But you can be pretty sure they didn't want losers winning, and that happens a lot, not just in presidential races.
 
late said:
Goofy thread.

One point, the Founding Fathers didn't want parties, and built a one party system.

When that quickly devolved into parties, that started us down the road where we find ourselves today.

They didn't anticipate parties, demographic changes, or the level of corruption we have.

It makes arguments based on what the Founding Fathers said, problematic at best.

But you can be pretty sure they didn't want losers winning, and that happens a lot, not just in presidential races.
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Perhaps they didn't foresee electors being turned into mere pawns of the popular state result. So even their intent wasn't carried through. If they had known how future state laws would govern the allocation of electors' votes and that the electoral college would one day lead to a situation with consistent minority rule, I'm guessing they wouldn't have been so hot on the idea.
 
late said:
Goofy thread.

One point, the Founding Fathers didn't want parties, and built a one party system.

When that quickly devolved into parties, that started us down the road where we find ourselves today.

They didn't anticipate parties, demographic changes, or the level of corruption we have.

It makes arguments based on what the Founding Fathers said, problematic at best.

But you can be pretty sure they didn't want losers winning, and that happens a lot, not just in presidential races.
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Yes, you are right about not wanting parties. That was part of what Madison brought up in Federalist 10. He envisioned a union where all could agree on what was best for the union. I guess the founders were not too realistic or accurate about how it would turn out, including not knowing themselves well enough. But they should have had a clue from the very battle that the federalist papers were all about, a means of fighting against the anti-federalists. Divisiveness was built into the new government they formed fro day one. They weren't all that realistic and wise as some would like to believe.
 
devildavid said:
Yes, you are right about not wanting parties. That was part of what Madison brought up in Federalist 10. He envisioned a union where all could agree on what was best for the union. I guess the founders were not too realistic or accurate about how it would turn out, including not knowing themselves well enough. But they should have had a clue from the very battle that the federalist papers were all about, a means of fighting against the anti-federalists. Divisiveness was built into the new government they formed fro day one. They weren't all that realistic and wise as some would like to believe.
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They were following their ideals. Remember this was brand new, no one had done it before. That they did as good a job as they did is amazing.

My all time favorite political dig is "If Jefferson is elected, our women will be raped in the street." That was said by the president of an Ivy League college.

I take a Darwinian approach, adapt to changing circumstances or die. We seem awfully eager to die.
 
I saw mention of "slavery" in your thesis, but think that might need some elaboration.

The Electoral system was certainly created to help overcome the disadvantage of being a small state, but it was also included for the most practical reason of all: to get the new Constitution off the ground. Only white males could vote in 1787, and that placed the Southern states into the "small state" column despite their geographic size. A new nation without Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia was unthinkable. Hence, the Constitution's "Deal with the Devil" not only involved the infamous 3/5ths rule for slave owners to vote in place of their slaves, but also included the Electoral system as a further inducement for those Southern states to join the club.

The ensuing "Virginia Dynasty" wasn't entirely accidental :)
 
I'm not sure of their reasoning, although the "they can go against the people's will if the people pick an unqualified candidate" may or may not be involved.

That said, for those saying "it didn't work", remember that never have all the people voted, and we haven't even breached 65% turnout in 110 years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/262915/voter-turnout-in-the-us-presidential-elections/

I sometimes wonder what the results would be if every person in the US was registered to vote, had the time and means to vote, and did vote.
Without any of the bull**** voter suppression tactics we see in use throughout the country.
 
Greenbeard said:
Argumentum ad populum doesn't paper over the fact that the EC as used today serves no purpose other than to selectively weight and de-weight citizen's votes relative to each other. There's no contemporary justification for that (and its original rationale, rooted in slavery, thankfully is no longer applicable).
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Yet, most on the left don't care about the super majority, which basically chooses your nominee for you. Besides, as I stated, if it was all based on the popular vote, candidates would campaign much differently.
 
It was supposed to keep the southern states from being overrun by the northern states, particularly with the 3/5 compromise. Also, back then, it took a bit of time to count all of the votes so the easier thing to do would be to have the states count them then send in electors on horseback to elect the president.
 
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