Hillary
Clinton blamed the Electoral College for her stunning defeat in the 2016
presidential election in her latest memoirs, “What Happened?” Some have claimed
that the Electoral College is one of the most dangerous institutions in
American politics. Why? They say the Electoral College system, as opposed to a
simple majority vote, distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy
because electoral votes are not distributed according to population.
To
back up their claim, they point out that the Electoral College gives, for
example, Wyoming citizens disproportionate weight in a presidential election.
Put another way, Wyoming, a state with a population of about 600,000, has one
member in the U.S. House of Representatives and two members in the U.S. Senate,
which gives the citizens of Wyoming three electoral votes, or one electoral
vote per 200,000 people. California, our most populous state, has more than 39
million people and 55 electoral votes, or approximately one vote per 715,000
people. Comparatively, individuals in Wyoming have nearly four times the power
in the Electoral College as Californians.
Many people whine that using
the Electoral College instead of the popular vote and majority rule is
undemocratic. I’d say that they are absolutely right. Not deciding who will be
the president by majority rule is not democracy. But the Founding Fathers went
to great lengths to ensure that we were a republic and not a democracy. In
fact, the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence,
the U.S. Constitution or any other of our founding documents.
How
about a few quotations expressed by the Founders about democracy? In Federalist
Paper No. 10, James Madison wanted to prevent rule by majority faction, saying,
“Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the
rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and
overbearing majority.” John Adams warned in a letter, “Remember Democracy never
lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a
Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide.” Edmund Randolph said, “That in
tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence
and follies of democracy.” Then-Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between
a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order
and chaos.”
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The
Founders expressed contempt for the tyranny of majority rule, and throughout
our Constitution, they placed impediments to that tyranny. Two houses of
Congress pose one obstacle to majority rule. That is, 51 senators can block the
wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The president can veto the
wishes of 535 members of Congress. It takes two-thirds of both houses of
Congress to override a presidential veto. To change the Constitution requires
not a majority but a two-thirds vote of both houses, and if an amendment is
approved, it requires ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
Finally, the Electoral College is yet another measure that thwarts majority
rule. It makes sure that the highly populated states — today, mainly 12 on the
East and West coasts, cannot run roughshod over the rest of the nation. That
forces a presidential candidate to take into consideration the wishes of the
other 38 states.
Those Americans obsessed with
rule by popular majorities might want to get rid of the U.S. Senate, where
states, regardless of population, have two senators. Should we change
representation in the House of Representatives to a system of proportional
representation and eliminate the guarantee that each state gets at least one
representative? Currently, seven states with populations of 1 million or fewer
have one representative, thus giving them disproportionate influence in
Congress. While we’re at it, should we make all congressional acts be majority
rule? When we’re finished with establishing majority rule in Congress, should
we then move to change our court system, which requires unanimity in jury
decisions, to a simple majority rule?
My
question is: Is it ignorance of or contempt for our Constitution that fuels the
movement to abolish the Electoral College?
Walter
E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
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