From: Nancy Hoover
Columbus
These past few months, two people took to Facebook to school me on the purposes of the Electoral College.
It got me thinking.
Apparently, neither of these folks had made the effort to read beyond an outdated high school civics textbook to attempt to discover the history of the development of this strange institution, and chose to accept what they saw on the surface.
Why does the United States of America join Burundi, Estonia, India, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Trinidad, Tobago, and Vanuatu in this practice?
The publicly stated reason for the Electoral College is, of course, to prevent states with larger populations from controlling national elections simply because more people live there (i.e., state-based federalism).
Good idea, right?
However, might there be other reasons for the Electoral College? In an article for Time magazine published in October, Akhil Reed Amar wrote, “One Founding-era argument for the Electoral College stemmed from the fact that ordinary Americans across a vast continent would lack sufficient information to choose directly and intelligently among leading presidential candidates."
But mostly there was slavery.
James Madison pointed out that the northern states were more densely populated with voters than the southern ones because many people in the south (slaves) could not vote. The northern states were largely opposed to slavery and thus posed a danger to this vile practice upon which the economy of the south depended.
So, yes, the Electoral College does balance the impacts of more densely populated areas of the country with the less populated ones. Is it possible, however, the actual reasons behind the creation of this institution are not as lofty as fairness to the populace?
By the way, the constitutional framers addressed the problem of the southern population by declaring that each slave was equal to 3/5 of a person!
My point? Of course, we can all make up our minds about the efficacy of the Electoral College — or on anything else for that matter. But please do a little research to support opinions. We must look beyond what we are fed on social media or television.
As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, an educated citizenry is a vital requisite to our survival as a free people.
Being educated in America was indeed difficult for many in the late 1700s. Today, what’s our excuse?
