Electoral College: Good or Bad?
It actually makes alot of sense.
It is the media and hapless politician’s fault that many people think we live in a democracy, or if they don’t, believe that we should. Democracies are an absolute disaster for one good reason; it is the people making law. You might think you have some excellent ideas for laws, but the truth is that the majority of people do not and cannot make effective and good policy. They are far too busy and uninterested to even vote once every 4 years for a president; why would you want to live under a government that puts them in charge?
The far better system we live under is the constitutional republic; this particular republic is the finest in all of history. This country is the greatest ever built for many reasons, but one of the principle among them is its purposeful defense of the minority from majority rule. That is what true democracy is; mob rule by the uninformed, unprepared and mostly unintelligent. The republic is the mediation between democracy and other government forms of more concentrated powers, like monarchies and aristocracies. Our republic takes the best of both of these worlds, with a well divided and decentralized government, as close as is can be to the people and their will without it becoming overbearing.
It is only “simple–minded majoritarianism”, as George Will put it, that brings people to support a national popular vote to elect the president. Proponents of the popular vote should first note that we actually do have a popular vote election–it occurs in every state and D.C. individually. This is an excellent example of states rights at work. Really what the issue with the electoral college highlights is that people against it either know nothing about it or the government structure that put it into place, or that they want to live in a authoritarian dictator state with no holds barred on what the mob wants of you and the country.
Note the size of the country. It is a huge mass of land, spanning across a continent to touch two oceans. On either side is the liberal coast, dominated by urban living situations. California and New York are some of the most populous states in the country. If we accounted for the popular vote, the liberal sides of each country would invariably win the vote a majority of the time. They would constantly possess the power to legislate policy for the rest of the country, states that look and are inhabited by people nothing like them. Imagine if it were reversed. Would the string of 5–6 presidents in a row all from Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma make policy good for southern California, or even the rest of the country? The importance of states rights here is integral, and it is why the states exist in the first place; national governments cannot create blanket policies that benefit everyone in this massive and diverse country.
Consider also that every candidate running for president and that is serious about it is aware and prepared for the electoral college. All of them play to win the game, that is to say, campaign with the intention to win the electoral vote, not the popular vote. Failure to win the electoral college but winning the popular vote does not even mean that the candidate is actually the most popular; it means they ran the most yards while the other team scored more touchdowns. If the popular was needed to win the presidency who is to say the outcomes would have changed given the appropriate strategy changes from both sides? Several elections have come down to within 200,000–100,000 votes, easily altered with a change in campaigning.
One clear issue with the electoral college is that, indeed, it was not made for the government it now elects. The power of the presidency at the time it was conceived was far less than what it is now. A majority of issues were meant to be solved at the state level, and the college elected a president who had little say in the individuals life. While it was better that way, it does not negate the need for the electoral college now. The electoral system serves as a powerful barrier against majoritarian rule, rule that is inherently corrupt, and persecuting of the minority. One day, the sides will be flipped, and minority will once again be the majority, and then both sides will be happy for a check against the will of an ignorant people.
