An Essay on the Electoral College

Recently I learned about a bill that was heard in the Utah legislature, introduced as SB 252 by Senator Stephen H. Urquhart that many other states have signed into law, which would essentially abolish the Electoral College.  While the College would not be abolished in reality, the effect would be that the president would be elected by who won the popular vote on a national basis.  This bill has the state legislature commit their electoral votes to the candidate receiving the popular vote nationwide, even if they don't win the popular vote in their state.  According to nationalpopularvote.com, this movement currently has 135 electoral votes committed to the winner of the national popular vote.  Most of this is due to California signing the bill, having 55 electoral votes. 

Electoral vote apportioned to each state as of the 2010 census

I personally feel that this would be damaging to the system initially set up by the Founding Fathers.  In their discussion in writing this section of the Constitution, there was a lot of debate as to how the president should be elected.  They went back and forth between Congress getting to choose, and a popular vote method.  The problem with having Congress elect the president, they argued, was that the President would then be under the legislature's control.  Of the powers that needed to be kept checked and balanced, the legislative and executive powers were the two that needed to be kept the most separate.  

The other option was a national popular vote.  The problem with this method is that the people of the United States as a whole could be easily persuaded by a few men to vote a certain way.  I think this is the most dangerous part of this proposition.  The average American knows very little about foreign policy, economic policy, immigration policy, tax policy and the many other important issues on which the Executive Branch of the Federal Government needs to make decisions on an almost daily basis.  These issues are complex and affect a variety of different systems across the country and across the world.  Someone should not be given this job, based simply on the color of their skin, their charisma, or any other quality that becomes meaningless in this situation.  

George Washington, 1st President of the United States

This is why there exists an Electoral College.  The President of the United States is given a lot of power.  He is probably the most powerful person within the Federal Government.  The average American's uninformed opinion is subject to excitement by extreme movements, as has been recently seen in the Occupy and Tea Party movements.  An electoral college helps to smooth out those extremes.  By removing the election of the president by one step from the direct election of the people, the people can find those who are knowledgeable on national issues, and their potential affect on their home state, within their state, so that these people can make an informed decision.  

If we were honestly arguing that pure democracy should prevail, should we not also disband the legislature and become the legislature?  Shouldn't every law made require a majority of the popular vote to be approved?  That is why we are established as a republic with democratic principles, not a pure democracy.  We trust those found in our communities to be knowledgeable in governmental topics, or those of a good character who we can trust to thoroughly study the issues and make a good moral decision, to represent us in many other governmental venues, so that we don't have to spend a majority of our time voting.  This same principle should prevail in the Electoral College.

However, I do see a couple of problems.  First of all, I don't believe that the Founding Fathers were envisioning a two-party system existing in the United States.  I don't have a solution to that problem.  It has arisen and appears to be in an equilibrium.  Any change attempted is counter-balanced.  Even in countries with many parties, (Portugal is the one I know anything about) it appears that coalitions between parties place them into two major groups with many unimportant smaller parties that have little affect on the political process.  This is simply the way things tend to be.

The other problem is that we never see who we are really voting for on our ballots.  In Utah, for example, we see the names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates from each party.  In reality, these parties have submitted a list of five electors from their party to the Governor's office.  Whichever party receives the most votes has their electors chosen by the governor.  In Utah this is usually the Republican party that wins, which is the party that also usually controls the executive and legislative branches of the state government.  The result is that people already in positions of power get to vote in the Electoral College.  This isn't always a bad thing, as they are already involved in and understand the governmental processes that exist, making them more likely to make an informed decision.  I still feel that we should get to see the names of the electors for which we are voting.  At the same time, I count myself very lucky that my vote even counts at all.  In the Constitution in simply says that, 

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...  

 US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

The Constitution of the United States of America

In theory, the legislature could provide that the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the house, attorney general, and secretary of state are always the electors for the Electoral College.  Then no one would even have to go vote for president, since it would have been done when those officers were chosen.

As long as I'm on the topic of changing fundamental federal government processes, I feel that the 17th Amendment, granting the direct election of senators, should be repealed.  This amendment has taken a check from the state governments on the federal government away.  There are many laws that I feel wouldn't pass on a federal level if the state governments had a voice.  Again, these are the people that actually know what is going on.  They know what affect federal laws will have on our state.  They can encourage the good ones and discourage the bad ones.  This would also justify the six-year terms given to those elected as senators.  As of right now, they seem to act as a glorified House of Representatives.

I would also like to reduce the number of representatives in the House to 100, so that their meetings would be more manageable and more likely to get something done, but that's another essay that I have yet to write.