Electoral College

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday comes from Article 2 of the Constitution of the United States and concerns the Electoral College.  The Electoral College is the process through which we elect the President of the United States.

                The Electoral College has become unpopular over the last few decades because people do not understand the importance of it.  Chad Kent spoke with Tara Ross about the Electoral College and discussed their interview here.  Tara Ross wrote a book about the Electoral College titled Enlightened Democracy, and Mr. Kent highly recommends it, claiming it is thorough and easy to read.  Ms. Ross explained, “The Electoral College isn’t a bumper sticker.  You have to sit down and think about it for a few minutes to see why it’s so important.”

                Agreeing with this statement, Mr. Kent stated, “And she’s right.  The Electoral College doesn’t jump right out at you as a brilliant and effective method for choosing our presidents.  You have to stop and think about all the challenges we face in a huge country like ours before you start to appreciate what an incredible system it is.”

                Mr. Kent explained that the first thing we need to understand is that we do not directly elect our President.  He said that “democracy is a terrible idea that always fails.  A country as large as ours will not function properly unless it has strong characteristics of federalism in how it’s designed.  The electoral college is one of the indispensable parts of our government in Washington, D.C. that make it a federal government – and not a national one. 

                “Because federalism works – and straight democracy doesn’t – it’s actually the States who elect our president.”  When we go to the polls on Election Day, we are simply voting for the person we would like our state to support in the Electoral College.

                Mr. Kent’s article is very interesting with video clips of his interview with Ms. Ross.  I encourage you to go to his page to gain more information about the Electoral College; however, I will tell you that Ms. Ross beliefs Al Gore lost the 2000 election because of West Virginia and not Florida.  I found this information to be very interesting because we certainly did not hear much about it from the media.

                America is very different now than it was in 1787, but the electoral process designed then is still relevant today because we are humans.  Human nature has not changed.  The Framers of the Constitution put a process in place to keep as much corruption out of our government as possible by separating the powers.  The Electoral College is part of that process.