Electoral College or not

Richard Fulton

This interim between the holidays and the inauguration of president-elect Trump are filled with Trump’s organization of his administration and hints of his policy choices.

This might be a good time to pause and give some attention to the manner in which we elect our presidents and how that system came about.

The Electoral College is a mechanism built upon the compromises that the 13 states made in creating a closer, more workable union in 1789. The constitution was forged by men who had serious concerns about the survival of a new state based upon significant differences in the character and interests of its component parts.

Real issues were involved in each part of the constitution’s formation. Issues of North-South differences, large state-small state power differences, and even issues of philosophy of governance.

Slavery was the primary interest of the North-South split. There would be no new union if this issue were not compromised. Indeed, the last vestiges of this issue constitutionally remains the Electoral College compromise.

Combined with the large-state, small-state division, the Constitutional Convention needed to determine the status of slaves. The issue of the legislative power was compromised by having a Senate with equal representation for states and a House based upon population.

You see the problem. The South had a decent population, but a large percentage were slaves. The compromise was to delegate slaves 3/5ths of people for purposes of representation. Thus the disproportionate influence of the South in the House.

And when the problem came on how to choose a president, the convention came to the same compromise. Each state would have one vote in an Electoral College for each member of Congress—two for each senator and the rest based upon population. Even if a state had a minimal percentage of the population, it still got a minimum of three electoral votes.

There were other large state-small state compromises (national government got control of interstate commerce states got no export taxes) but these were the ones directed towards voting powers.

The philosophical divisions went along lines of more or less democracy (direct participation of citizens). The founding fathers were a bit wary of “the people” as it turns out. After all, the “mob” had just overthrown one of the largest powers on earth.

So the Senate (which was not popularly chosen originally remember) and the electoral college (the states chose the manner in which the electors were chosen and often that meant state legislatures originally). Later winner-take-all popular votes determined each state’s electoral college votes and popular democracy gained favor.

The Supreme Court was to be chosen indirectly by the president and senate.

Anyway, the victory of Donald Trump came not so much through regionalism of north-south, nor small state-large state differences. It came by Trump winning narrow victories in the battleground states where large numbers of less educated white voters turned to his populist messages.

Four of the five closest states (1.5 percent or less), mostly in the midwest, went to Trump giving him 75 of their 79 electoral votes. Big states. Yet Clinton won the traditionally Democrat big states like California, Illinois and New York.

So, large state-small state differences? Nope. Regional differences? To some degree. It simply was a very close election. Hillary won the national popular vote by winning big states by larger margins, but Trump won the electoral college vote.

Did the Constitutional Convention compromises make the difference? Did those extra senate votes for small states come into play? Clinton won 7 of 12 of them so I guess not. Philosophically, however, we are still a republic, not a pure democracy.

Should we dump the electoral college for a national popular vote? There is evidence this year for both sides of the argument.