To the editor:
The Electoral College was created by the framers to counteract some of the dangers inherent in a democracy. James Madison’s fear was that a faction (large population center) could grow to encompass more than 50% of the population, at which point it could “sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.”
There is no mention of a popular vote anywhere in the Constitution. The Constitution establishes the country as a Representative Republic. Each state receives a number of electors based on the number of representatives and senators it has, and the number of representatives is based on the state’s population. The Constitution directs that states may appoint electors in any way they choose, which means it does not need to be by popular vote at all. It is the states that choose these “winner take all” systems.
As far as the election process for the executive as described in the Constitution having any correlation with slavery, there is only one small mention of the issue throughout the entire convention in connection with the election of a president. They did not form the Electoral College system to placate Southern slave holders, but to recognize states’ interests and sovereignty and provide a voice in electing the executive in proportion to their population and interests. As a matter of fact, New York had over 20,000 slaves at the time of the Constitution, so the 3/5 rule would have benefited the North at that time, since its white population was greater than the South’s. Slavery existed in all the colonies at the time of the Constitution, although many Northern states were planning to remove it after the Revolution.
The Electoral College system keeps the election of a President out of direct hands of the legislature since they appoint electors who cannot themselves be congressmen or senators. As far as the “one man, one vote” idea, it is the legislatures of each state that chose a “winner take all” system for the electorate. If they wanted to balance the electors by population within a state, it could easily be done. In 2016, California gave 61.5% of its popular vote to Hillary Clinton, so she collected all 55 electoral votes. That majority, however, was in from only 33 counties. Trump won in 25 counties, but Clinton got all the votes because that is the way California decided to award its electors. California could establish an allocation system proportional to its population voting patterns and award electoral votes that way. The Constitution does not restrict the states in any way on how they want to select the electors.
Lately, racism seems to be the cause of every issue on the horizon, often masking the real reasons for establishment of some idea or event. By doing that, it is often possible to change or remove something that is functioning very well, just because someone does not like the outcome on a given day. Be careful what you ask for, you may get it. Like the “nuclear option.” The Electoral College is our best protection against the “tyranny of the majority” as discussed by Alexis de Tocqueville.
Martin Greenan
Greenfield
