An Argument in Support of the Electoral College.

[distraff]

We hear much outrage over the existence of the Electoral College system, because the current President lost the Popular vote by the largest margin in any prior situation. (There were four: George W. Bush 2000; Benjamin Harrison 1888; Rutherford Hayes 1876; John Q. Adams 1824).

People cry "Outmoded system! A national popular vote should elect a President!" That the USA is a Democracy and the Electoral college is a barrier between the will of the people and the holder of the office. That the 12 Amendment created the problem and did not go far enough to solve it.

IMO that thought process is wrong; and I point out the following:

1. Our nation is called a Republic because after the Revolution there were 13 "Colonies" which became independent "States" under a loose Articles of Confederation. Those "States" later opted for closer ties under the Constitution, but still considered themselves sovereign. This is where the Secession argument that eventually led to the Civil War came from.

2. The Electoral College was established under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. NOT the "12th Amendment."

3. There were four elections before the 12 Amendment rectified a problem originating with the development of political parties, resulting in two candidates from the same Party tying for President. It was not an attempt to make things "more democratic," but simply to clear up which candidate held which office.

4. Despite the Civil War, our nation remains a union of "Sovereign States." The only element of government that was originally designed to be Democratic was the House of Representatives. Recall "No Taxation Without Representation?" Article I allowed for citizens to vote directly for those elected representatives that had the power to tax and spend. The Senate and the Presidency remained the purview of the State's to choose, and the Electoral College was the method for selecting the President.

5. Senators were not elected by "popular vote" until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913. Their purpose has not changed however, there are still only 2 per State elected to represent each State in approving government appointments, treaties, appropriation bills coming from the House, etc.

6. The Presidency was always designed to represent the entire Nation, not just the most populous States. The holder of that office is supposed to consider even the least populated State when deciding whether or not to veto laws passed by Congress. If elected by purely popular vote, then States like New York and California would be the focus of all attention and decide the fate of all the other States in this Union.

Now despite the claim that the Civil War put an "end to the secession argument," nothing could be further from the truth. :no:

The Declaration of Independence states that revolution is a basic right of those oppressed by government tyranny.

The greatest fear among the Founding Fathers was central government tyranny, either that of a monarchy or that of a popular majority. The leaders of our nation with few exceptions preferred a Republic with checks and balances over a pure Democracy. Looking at our society today, I find that many of our citizens fail to see the problems with pure Democracy without such checks. Those who tend to argue for it are those who want to use current popular trends to impose their ideologies on the rest who do not agree.

The problem is that they failed to see two classic issues; one that this system can be eventually turned against them as popular opinions change, and the other is that it can easily lead to a populist dictatorship ala Nazi Germany, Maoist China, Leninist Russia, Islamist Indonesia, etc., etc..

I am fine with the electoral college but I want it to work more like it did originally in late 1700s when many states gave out electoral votes proportional to the percent of the vote the candidate got in the state. This will fix the problem where candidates only visit swing states and ignore most of the country.

 

[Captain Adverse]

You say that like it's a bad thing. People should oppose those that try to enslave them.

...And where did you get the impression I believed otherwise?

Did you miss the citation of the Declaration of Independence?

The effort was to decrease the concern over tyranny of the majority by NOT allowing popular vote selection of the Chief Executive; but instead polling each State as sovereign entities to select a national leader.

 

[Greenbeard]

Your "revisionist" opinion of history is wrong.

The discussions during the various Conventions and among the leading men of the time were about State's rights (in all sorts of ways) as among sovereign States who could secede at any time, and insurance that the executive would not be selected by the mob leading to a dictator or a king.

Nothing revisionist about it. Madison (who considered a popular vote the "fittest" mechanism for choosing a president) laid bare the politics of going with the EC in his convention notes.

Mr. MADISON. If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance even with an eligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted.

He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

I'm not just making up the history as I go, like some of you.

I don't think it was broken out of the gate. :no:

Rather I think it was a well-considered compromise among learned men of that time who were thinking not only of the "then" they were living in, but of the future of the nation.

Your argument is that its intent was to prevent the largest states from dominating the outcomes. Right out of the gate the EC generated the equivalent (for its time) of California and Florida producing our presidents over a forty year period. If the intent was what you claim--and, for the record, it wasn't--then I don't see how you can claim it wasn't broken from the start.

 

[Anarchon]

...And where did you get the impression I believed otherwise?

Did you miss the citation of the Declaration of Independence?

The effort was to decrease the concern over tyranny of the majority by NOT allowing popular vote selection of the Chief Executive; but instead polling each State as sovereign entities to select a national leader.

Your use of "otherwise" in your last paragraph...you know, the one I quoted.

 

[KevinKohler]

EC only works WITHOUT gerrymandering.



Lets get real, without gerrymandered districts, Trump might not have won.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Nothing revisionist about it. Madison (who considered a popular vote the "fittest" mechanism for choosing a president) laid bare the politics of going with the EC in his convention notes.



I'm not just making up the history as I go, like some of you.

From your own citation it was not an issue of "benefit slave-heavy states by allowing the "three fifths of all other Persons" that counted toward apportionment to also increase the state's influence in the selection of the president." :doh

His point against popular vote (which he was personally disposed towards) was the issue that the larger States like New York had commensurately larger eligible voting populations which would give them greater likelihood of electing President after President from their own population ranks. By using electors, this would separate the choice from both State Legislatures AND State populations, and place it in the hands of a select group from each State who once chosen could vote their own consciences.

The mention of the slave issue was merely to point out that those States had a smaller body of eligible voters. It is also of note, your citation is a summary of the discussions, not a word-by-word copy of the debates.

Further note, from your OWN citation:

Note Mr. William Patterson (from New Jersey) also argued for Electors in some ratio (1 for small and 3 for large) between small and large States. He also thought direct election was a good idea.

Note Mr. Elbrige Gerry (from Massachusetts) was against popular election because "The people are uninformed, and would be misled by a few designing men. He urged the expediency of an appointment of the Executive by Electors to be chosen by the State Executives."

There was also discussion about who best to choose electors, the State Legislatures or popular vote.

Note Edmond Randolph (from Virginia) thought elector selection by legislature would be best.

Note: Rufus King (from Massachusetts) thought electors should be selected by the people of each State.

Avalon Project - Madison Debates - July 19

So, as one can see trying to argue via selective quotes without recourse to the whole discussion does not win any arguments. MY statement is closer to truth than your select viewpoint. So who is "making up history?" :coffeepap:

 

[Greenbeard]

From your own citation it was not an issue of "benefit slave-heavy states by allowing the "three fifths of all other Persons" that counted toward apportionment to also increase the state's influence in the selection of the president." :doh

His point against popular vote (which he was personally disposed towards) was the issue that the larger States like New York had commensurately larger eligible voting populations which would give them greater likelihood of electing President after President from their own population ranks. By using electors, this would separate the choice from both State Legislatures AND State populations, and place it in the hands of a select group from each State who once chosen could vote their own consciences.

Larger states like New York? Virginia was the largest state. Both in terms of free white men and in terms of slaves. It was already the biggest and it still benefited the most from applying the three-fifths compromise to its influence over the selection of the president. And, again, it then produced decades of presidents. The point of using electors was that by basing them in part on apportioned representation states received additional influence derived from their slave populations via the three-fifths compromise. Madison is pretty explicit about this. (This is also fairly obvious.)

The EC, like many provisions of the Constitution, was designed to disproportionately benefit slave-heavy states to ensure they'd join the eventual union.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Larger states like New York? Virginia was the largest state. Both in terms of free white men and in terms of slaves. It was already the biggest and it still benefited the most from applying the three-fifths compromise to its influence over the selection of the president. And, again, it then produced decades of presidents. The point of using electors was that by basing them in part on apportioned representation states received additional influence derived from their slave populations via the three-fifths compromise. Madison is pretty explicit about this. (This is also fairly obvious.)

The EC, like many provisions of the Constitution, was designed to disproportionately benefit slave-heavy states to ensure they'd join the eventual union.

Forgive me. You are correct and I misspoke when I used NY as the example. In the North the White population was 95.5% in 1780, and only 61.6% in the South which led to the 3/5ths compromise. By 1790 it was 96.7 % and only 64.3% in the South. Simply substitute "Northern States" for "New York."

https://userpages.umbc.edu/~bouton/History407/SlaveStats.htm

So, even granting you the population issue with New York, there is no argument that indicates "benefiting slave states" somehow via use of the Electoral College. Why would it be an issue when the slave owners could vote their own slave percentages in addition to the greater population of Virginia's eligible voters and select President's by popular vote?

However, the North always held a larger population of "free" voters in the aggregate, so it would benefit them if the election was by popular vote. I don't see where your argument shows using electors would benefit the South due to "slavery."

The point of using electors was to eliminate the popular vote from the process of electing the President. Mr. Gerry made that point clearly in your own citation.

So my point stands. Aside from Madison's quote, which had nothing to do with the 3/5th issue, the discussions involved State's rights and keeping the people out of direct voting through some middle process, either State legislatures or electors chosen by each State in some way who could then vote their own consciences.

 

[Greenbeard]

So, even granting you the population issue with New York, there is no argument that indicates "benefiting slave states" somehow via use of the Electoral College. Why would it be an issue when the slave owners could vote their own slave percentages in addition to the greater population of Virginia's eligible voters and select President's by popular vote?

Slaves don’t vote, as Madison intimated. Ergo there’s no electoral benefit to having a large slave population unless you come up with a system whereby votes are awarded to states based in part on the size of their slave population. Which the EC did via the three-fifths compromise.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Slaves don’t vote, as Madison intimated. Ergo there’s no electoral benefit to having a large slave population unless you come up with a system whereby votes are awarded to states based in part on the size of their slave population. Which the EC did via the three-fifths compromise.

I'm beginning to see your argument. I could argue more but let's for the sake of argument agree.

Your own citation still points to more than one reason for the committee to recommend the establishment of the EC. Your point would be a States Rights issue (as I pointed out originally), but it was not the sole reason nor even the main reason. It was but one of several put forward to place a step between the people and the election of the President. Most of these men did not want a direct Democracy, either in the Senate or the election of the President.

 

[Aberration]

Progressive are just mad they lost. They’ll get over this one just like they got over Bush/Gore. Oh wait...

 

[MTAtech]

Our process is designed to elect the President via State, not Popular voting. The number of electors is determined by State population, giving each State one elector for each Senator and House Representative slot it has. That means each States has at least 3 votes for President. This means that no State can be completely ignored simply because of it's lower population level.

How it protects states from being "ignored" is by exaggerating low population states power by minimizing the power of high population states.

As others have said, the process' major flaw is allowing all of the electors to be won in states where the victory was marginal. That's what creates losers of the popular vote "winning" the election.

 

[MTAtech]

Progressive are just mad they lost. They’ll get over this one just like they got over Bush/Gore. Oh wait...

I'm still mad about the 1888, Benjamin Harrison election.

Anyone who cares about Democracy should want presidents elected by the majority. Otherwise, they want minority rule, like Iraq, where the Sunni minority lord over the Shia majority.

The idea is antithetical to American values -- 'anything that keeps the people I like in power.'

 

[Captain Adverse]

How it protects states from being "ignored" is by exaggerating low population states power by minimizing the power of high population states.

As others have said, the process' major flaw is allowing all of the electors to be won in states where the victory was marginal. That's what creates losers of the popular vote "winning" the election.

No it doesn't.

How many electors does Wyoming have? Three (3), one each for it's two Senators, and one for it's single Member of the House of Representatives.

How many Electors does California have? Fifty-five (55) currently, one each for it's two Senators, and fifty-three for it's Members of the House of Representatives.

But there are 50 States, 21 with 10 or more Electors, and 29 with less than 10.

Thirteen States have 4 or less, 8 (including Wyoming) have the minimum 3. Those 13 states share 44 Electors

That's the equivalent of New York (29), and New Jersey (15).

There are 16 others with between 5 and 9 electors for 115 votes.

That's equivalent to California, Pennsylvania (20), Illinois (20), Ohio (18) and Massachusetts (18).

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html

I listed the largest States that go Democrat Blue (typically).

Those "small" States control 159 Electors. So yes it does make a difference.

BTW those States also contain 98.7 million people. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population

Hillary ignored places she thought she had in the bag in the Blue Wall, and all the other small States that vote Red. How did that turn out?

 

[Fishking]

The one point that Electoral College-lovers consistently are unable to rebut is that yes, we understand "Tyranny of the Majority" is bad.

It does not then follow that the Electoral College system is sensible, nor does it make "Tyranny of the Minority" good.

There's absolutely no convincing argument that living in a more sparsely populated state demands an individual have more voting/electoral power than someone in a more densely populated state. None ****ing whatsoever. Especially when people in the same state don't even vote as a ****ing bloc.

There's no such thing as "tyranny of the minority" in this context. There is merely an ability of a minority to slow things down and block to a degree. If it is important enough, and really has enough of an approval of the people then it will still get passed.

There are plenty of convincing arguments, a lot in the OP actually. But seeing as this is the best you can muster up in response to what was written, I'm suspect of your ability to comprehend said arguments.

 

[Fishking]

the EC failed to protect us from a dangerously unfit for office candidate like Trump. i have defended it in the past for this and for other reasons. i now support an effort to get rid of it, as it doesn't work as intended.

It saved us from the alternative candidate that might have started WW3 so I'm cool with it.

 

[Fishking]

The same bad arguments.

1. Under a popular vote system, states don't vote. Arguing that "State X will determine the outcome" is a conceit of the Electoral College system, not a popular vote. The concept means nothing when every citizen, regardless of geography, is given an equal say in the selection of the president.

Wrong. The people of the states have a say in who gets elected for President, not the people of the nation.

 

[expat_panama]

...the process' major flaw is allowing all of the electors to be won in states where the victory was marginal. That's what creates losers of the popular vote "winning" the election.

You don't like the electoral college and I do --it means nothing until you can get a lot of folks to change it. Considering that we're talking about the United States of America, it makes sense to have states elect the president. Likewise, if we chose by popular vote then we may want to change the name to "The United People of America.

Something else, while it's true that Trump did not get more than half of the popular vote, please understand that Clinton didn't either (re https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf ). Determination by popular vote in 2016 would not have selected a candidate because Clinton failed to get a majority of the popular votes just as she failed to get a majority of the electoral votes.

 

[Aberration]

I'm still mad about the 1888, Benjamin Harrison election.

Anyone who cares about Democracy should want presidents elected by the majority. Otherwise, they want minority rule, like Iraq, where the Sunni minority lord over the Shia majority.

The idea is antithetical to American values -- 'anything that keeps the people I like in power.'

I don’t care about pure democracy. I don’t believe the President should be elected by the majority. Your attempts to shame me by irrationally comparing us to brutal dictators is pathetic. Get a real argument before you try to grandstand about American values.

 

[Aberration]

How it protects states from being "ignored" is by exaggerating low population states power by minimizing the power of high population states.

As others have said, the process' major flaw is allowing all of the electors to be won in states where the victory was marginal. That's what creates losers of the popular vote "winning" the election.

What you see as a flaw, others see as the advantage. I don’t want California and New York determining who is the President for the foreseeable future. LA has more people than most States. But what do they know about the rest of the nation? Nothing.

 

[HumblePi]

The Electoral College is one of the very worst features of American democracy, a residual mechanism that effectively reduces presidential contests to a few swing states. Republicans, losers of six of the last seven popular votes, are more than happy to keep things as they are. We've had 230 years of an unfair tradition and if Democrats take the majority once again, we may soon witness the last gasps of a dying Electoral College.

 

[Greenbeard]

Wrong. The people of the states have a say in who gets elected for President, not the people of the nation.

Except they don't. I've voted in a swing state and I've voted in sure states. And I can assure it's not the same experience.

The effect of the EC in principle is to devalue votes in high population states and to overvalue votes in low population states; in effect, it weights votes by geography for no compelling reason. And given the winner-take-all nature of all but two state's EC awards, those voting in the minority in any state have zero say on the outcome.

The effect of the EC in practice is to weight all votes in sure states, large or small, at zero. People pretend that small states are getting some sort of electoral attention under the EC that they wouldn't under a popular vote. Well, they aren't. As I already noted in this thread, across the two major campaigns there were a grand total of zero events in the eight 3-vote states in the 2016 election. That's unfortunate. But it's absurd that the three largest states in the country, covering more than a quarter of the nation's population, got virtually zero attention in the last election (2 events total, one in California and one in Texas, probably both fundraising swings). The reality is that virtually all attention and resources are devoted to a handful of swing states. And of those swing states, disproportionately the bigger ones, e.g., Ohio and Florida.

This is an all an artifact of a state-based electoral system. A popular vote wouldn't be state-based. It doesn't artificially weight votes by where they're cast, a vote in Delaware counts as much as a vote in Ohio. Candidates don't have to win states, they have to win votes. No state can swing anything because state boundaries are irrelevant. States don't decide, voters do.

 

[Aberration]

The Electoral College is one of the very worst features of American democracy, a residual mechanism that effectively reduces presidential contests to a few swing states. Republicans, losers of six of the last seven popular votes, are more than happy to keep things as they are. We've had 230 years of an unfair tradition and if Democrats take the majority once again, we may soon witness the last gasps of a dying Electoral College.

You do realize that changing the electoral college would require just a tiny bit more than a majority. Right?

 

[Greenbeard]

I don’t want California and New York determining who is the President for the foreseeable future.

California and New York are not relevant entities under a popular vote system. The national electorate is all that matters.

Only under the EC does where a vote is cast matter. Only under the EC does any state decide anything. And Oregon is never one of the handful of deciding states.

 

[Aberration]

California and New York are not relevant entities under a popular vote system. The national electorate is all that matters.

Only under the EC does where a vote is cast matter. Only under the EC does any state decide anything. And Oregon is never one of the handful of deciding states.

You’ve obviously not look at the last election results map. I don’t know who you think you are fooling.