Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Now, Just How Do We Elect A U.S. President Again?


The Electoral College by Barbara Moore

 

When examining an important concept whose effects have far-reaching consequences to our lives, it seems sensible to regard who brought into being, what it actually is, and why it was established.

It was said of the men who gave us our unique plan of government, our matchless constitution, that “we will never have seen, an assembly (of men) more respectable for the talents, knowledge, lack of self-interest, and patriotism of those who compose it.”  James Madison said “that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively… devoted to the object committed to them.”  John Adams called it “the greatest single effort of national deliberation the world has ever seen and the greatest exertion   of human understanding.” I would say that those illustrious statesmen were the most virtuous, brilliant, scholarly, and practical ever gathered together throughout all of history.

The method of electing the President of the United States is an indirect process conceived by the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitution Convention in Philadelphia and subsequently authorized by the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme law of the land, as stated in Article 6 of that document. A number of methods were suggested and discussed, but few delegates actually favored the president being directly elected by the people.  That idea was not really on the table.  It was understood that the entire populace would not likely be adequately informed about the potential candidates. “It was also peculiarly desirable, to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in # 68 of the Federalist Papers. Direct election by the people would also be unfair, favoring the heavily populated states with large urban centers and disfavoring the rural agricultural states and smaller states with fewer people.  (And today, the “Heartland of America and the “Bible Belt” would not have a voice in a popular vote election.) Indeed, one of the reasons that James Madison opposed the popular election of the president was that “the people would prefer a citizen of their own state, thereby subjecting the small states to a disadvantage.”

Recently there has been a clamoring to do away with the indirect presidential voting through the Electoral College, particularly by democrats and progressives. Unfortunately great numbers of people have been wrongly taught that the United States is a democracy rather than a Constitutional Federal Republic.  A democracy allows the voters to directly vote on every issue.  It’s impractical, cumbersome, and ineffective.   The wise Founding Fathers identified a democracy as a “mob-ocracy”and Constitution signer John Adams wrote, “Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”  A democracy is “majority rule” with no objective standards, but based on the popular feelings of the people at any particular time. The source of the authority is just the temporary feelings of the voters, which can be quite easily manipulated.  Constitution architect James Madison wrote, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”   

A Constitutional Federal Republic requires adherence to the Rule of Law, protecting the life, liberty, and property of every American individual, with representation of the states and the people, and that not of the people directly except in the case of directly voting for district candidates for the House of Representatives, or “The Peoples’ House”.  Every part of our constitutional system was designed to slow, deliberate, balanced, orderly, complex and structured, based upon immutable principles of right and wrong, not on the fleeting feelings of a majority of people at any given time.   

In 1787 some favored the U.S. Congress electing the president but that was dismissed because of the superb doctrine of Separation of Powers with high walls between the three branches of government.  There was much discussion about the fear of an aristocracy and a tyranny being created if the U.S. Senate had the authority to elect the president, and thankfully that idea was rejected.  They were very concerned about corruption in presidential elections.  In the Federalist Paper # 68 Alexander Hamilton, signer of the Constitution, wrote, “Nothing was more to be desired, than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue and corruption. He said, “It was desirable, that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided.  This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any pre-established body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at a particular conjuncture.”

What is the actual plan for electing the President of the United States?  Article II, Section I says, “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as to which the state may be entitled in the Congress, but no Senator or Representative, or Person Holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector…The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote…make a list of all the Persons voted for and number of votes…sign and certify, and transmit sealed…to the President of the Senate… (who shall) in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open and count…” Now, if there is no majority, the House of Representatives elect the President, with each State having one vote.  Article II also states that, “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”  (That day is the Tuesday, following the 1st Monday in November in even numbered years, every four years)

The voters of every state choose the electors which are pledged to a particular political candidate. With the advent of political parties, their chosen candidates from the primary elections will have electors on the ballot in the general elections.  When the votes are counted within the state, the electors of the majority candidate with the popular vote get all the electoral votes.  So the popular vote counts within each state.  It is “Winner Take All” system.  In Alabama we have 7 congressional districts so 7 representatives plus 2 senators gives us 9 electoral votes.  When the less populated states in the “Heartland of America” along with the “Bible Belt” vote the same way there are a good number of electoral votes although not as many as the heavily urban states.  Any presidential candidate would have to also win a “battleground” state with lots of electoral votes.  But it has been done, as in the Bush victory with the Florida votes.

Alexander Hamilton concluded that, “If the manner be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”

Thursday, September 6, 1787

“A visible sigh of relief swept over the delegates today when 10 of the 11 States approved a modified plan for electing a President, thus ending one of the most hard-fought, frustrating, and fatiguing decisions of this Convention…today’s actions create a three-tiered government, rendering the President independent of Congress…One observer points out that an American President chosen by an Electoral College system has only two foreign historical precedents: the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Vatican and the Holy Roman Empire.  The Maryland State Senate is the immediate domestic model for the delegates.”    

 

 

Sources Used

 

Constitutional Journal by Jeffrey St. John

Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen

Original Intent by David Barton

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay

1787 The Grand Convention by Clinton Rossiter

United States Constitution