American Exceptionalism - The Electoral College

By

M. Richard Maxson

      Many today, who have not been educated of the workings of our nation and the Constitution, are once again in an uproar over the results of this past presidential election. Democrats, for the second time in sixteen years, are bemoaning the electoral college. They claim that this is not democracy – and they are right. What they forget is that this country is a Republic – a Republic of individual states with individual

rights. (i.e., federalism, as opposed to direct democracy) Our Founding Fathers established the Electoral College because those larger states, those larger areas, don't necessarily need to be the ones that rule. If that were the case then the today's elections would be decided by the four most populated states making the other 46 insignificant. The Electoral College process was actually put in place to ensure a nationwide system of fairness.

      James Madison,in the Federalist No. 10, argued against "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction" in an electoral system. He defined a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

      What was then called republican government with its varied distribution of voter rights

and powers, would countervail against factions. Madison further postulated in the Federalist No. 10 that the greater the population and expanse of the Republic, the more difficulty factions would face in organizing due to such issues as sectionalism. His vision was extraordinary.

      In The Federalist Papers, James Madison explained his views on the selection of the president and the Constitution. In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two modes.

      

      Another of our country's Founders,Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 68 laid out what he believed were the key advantages to the Electoral College. The electors come directly from the people and them alone for that purpose only, and for that time only. This avoided a party-run legislature, or a permanent body that could be influenced by foreign interests before each election. Hamilton explained the election was to take place among all the states, so no corruption in any state(s) could taint "the great body of the people" in their selection. The choice was to be made by a majority of the Electoral College, as majority rule is critical to the principles of republican government. Hamilton argued, electors meeting in the state capitals were able to have information unavailable to the general public. Hamilton also argued that since no federal officeholder could be an elector none of the electors would be beholden to any presidential candidate.

      Under our unique system the people only indirectly elect the president, as the national popular vote is not the basis for electing the president or vice president. The president and vice president of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 presidential electors from the fifty states and Washington, D.C. Presidential electors are selected on a state-by-state basis, as determined by the laws of each state. Since the election of 1824, most states have appointed their electors on a winner-take-all basis, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. Maine and Nebraska are the only two current exceptions, as both states use the congressional district method. Although ballots list the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates (who run on a ticket), voters actually choose electors when they vote for president and vice president.

      The states stay together as one country because each is treated equally and not dominated by the states with higher populations. The Electoral College gives a very fair perspective, so that those who are in the rural areas are able to have an equal voice with those who are in the urban areas. These rights, assigned by the Constitution, gives the population of each state an equal vote in who is their leader and they cannot be destroyed just because the coastal states have more population. This is one of the pillars in this government known - as The United States.