Electoral College Myths
Every presidential election cycle we hear the same opinions about the Electoral College.
Some say that it was intended to ensure “Proportional representation.” Others, that it was intended to “limit the influence of the more populous states.” Still others insist that the popular vote is pointless, since “a small group of electors actually chooses the president.”
From reading James Madison’s notes on the original Constitutional Convention, it is clear that there was great disagreement about how to choose the nation’s “chief executive.” Some distrusted the masses, and wanted either the state governments or the federal legislature to make the selection.
Others DID trust the people, but believed that it would not be possible for presidential candidates to reach so many people on any kind of meaningful level.
This latter group won the day.
What was decided on was that each state would choose its own group of electors. And, in order to ensure that each state’s influence was equal to its proportion of the overall population of the country, that is to say “democracy,” the number of electors assigned to each state was based upon its total number of congressional delegates, which was itself based upon its population. For instance, based on its population, Mississippi has four congressional districts and two senators. Consequently, it is assigned six electors.
Since the Constitution allows for a maximum of 1 congressional representative for every 30,000 people, it can be seen that as each state’s population grew, its congressional delegation was expected to grow also, thus ensuring that each state’s representation was proportional to its population in relation to the rest of the country. This is what “proportional representation” originally meant.
Since each state’s electors would be acting on behalf of their state’s populace, it follows that, like that populace, they were expected to vote their own consciences for the candidates they felt were the most qualified. That is to say, rather then staging popular elections involving the entire population of each state, each state’s electors would vote in place of the populace.
Let’s consider how we’d go about electing a group of electors for the State of Mississippi that will then vote for president.
Each community would elect a respected individual from within their number to represent them. This elector would then meet with all the other elected leaders from the other communities within the Voting District. These individuals would decide among themselves who would be the best to represent their Voting District at the Supervisory District level.
The persons elected by each Voting District would then elect, from their number, a person to represent their Supervisory District. The representatives of the Supervisory Districts within a county would then meet to elect a representative of their county. Then all the representatives of each county within a Congressional District would elect a member to represent them at that level. You see how it would work.
Please note, throughout the whole process everyone who casts a vote does so for an individual whom they’ve met face to face and with whom they’ve spent some time. Various arrangements and criteria may be established to ensure that each group of people has a means of properly evaluating their counterparts prior to voting.
Once a group of electors is established for the state, representing all the Congressional Districts and the two “at large” electors based upon our two senators, those electors are ready to evaluate the various candidates for president.
Let’s consider how presidential elections would operate under the “electoral college” concept.
Let’s say each state has chosen its group of electors. We have fifty groups. Current media campaigns last about a year. That is, 52 weeks.
What if, instead of relying on the television as both a medium and a shield, each candidate for office had to spend a week with each state’s electors?
The week can be spent in many different ways. The candidate can give speeches, after which he’d be asked a lot of questions. The electors can take them fishing, camping, hunting, to auctions, and/or play sports to determine their character. During all of this week-long interaction the electors will be able to form a fairly good opinion of each candidate’s personality, character, and wisdom.
Also, whereas a candidate today ALWAYS avoids answering “tough” questions, and gets away with it, each candidate would know that were he to act in such a manner with these electors he would be immediately ejected from the process.
Such an arrangement would ensure that only serious candidates with character and wisdom would make it to the final stages of the process. Also, candidates would need only enough money to pay for travel and lodging during their campaigns.
This type of arrangement would, I believe, eliminate the influence of television, and thus, big money, over election campaigns, and would enable candidates whose ideas currently are completely ignored to come forward and be heard.
And now to return to the original point of this essay:
The reason so many people (including Dr. Walter Williams, a syndicated columnist and libertarian supporter) believe that the Electoral College was intended to limit the power of the more populous states is the result of the arbitrary limitation on the number of members allowed in the House of Representatives. This limit was established by law in 1911, presumably to prevent that body from becoming unmanageably large.
Since the number of congressional representatives for each state was intended to grow along with each state’s population, and the total number of representatives for the entire country was now to be limited to a set number (435), the number of electors assigned to each state would likewise be limited. Thus, the larger, faster growing states’ congressional delegations could not increase by the same proportion as their populace, since to do so might require depriving smaller states of any representation at all. Consequently, the number of electors assigned to the faster-growing states likewise failed to keep up with their growth.
Basically, the fact that the Electoral College now DOES limit the influence of larger states is the result of a law passed 120 years or so after ratification of the Constitution, and so could not have been the Founders’ intent.
The last myth that needs exploding is the notion that “a small group of electors supersedes the popular vote.”
Recall that I stated earlier that each elector was EXPECTED to vote his conscience. The very fact that he’d been chosen as an elector meant that his judgment and wisdom were trusted and so he was expected to use his abilities in making his choice. Once all electors’ votes were cast, these votes would be collected and sent to the House of Representatives to be counted.
The way it works now is that each party that has candidates for president and vice-president on the ballot in a state would pick its OWN electors, and whichever pair of candidates won the popular vote would send all of its electors’ votes, for THEIR candidates of course, to be counted.
Thus, the popular vote, in each state at least, DOES select the president and vice-president.
This makes the calls for eliminating the Electoral College rather silly. Also, those who think that the poor quality of the presidents we get is due to the Electoral College, believing that a popular vote would provide better people, should see that since it is actually the popular vote that currently selects the president, they are proposing as a solution to the problem what is actually its cause.
Which, to me, is another good reason to give the task of electing the president to a small group of qualified people.