Why Do Democrats Want to Get Rid of the Electoral College?

 The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 gives the qualifications for electors for the Electoral College: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives 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.” 

Last week Minnesota Governor and Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said publicly at a fundraiser with California Governor Gavin Newsom how he feels about the Electoral College: “I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go. We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in.” 

Besides wanting to get rid of the Electoral College and elect our President by popular vote, there are numerous other parts of the U.S. Constitution that Democrats do not like. They threaten to pack the Supreme Court, and they would like to do away with the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal explained why the Electoral College works for the United States. 

The Electoral College is an integral, time-tested system of selecting American presidents. It preserves the federal nature of our system while not being wholly undemocratic. It’s one of the cornerstones of our remarkably stable republic.

Every state relies on a popular vote to determine who wins their electors, and each has done so since the early 19^th century.

The states are free to allocate the votes or award them in a winner-take-all system. Most have chosen the latter because that approach is slightly more appealing to presidential candidates. But that’s not set in stone.

By allocating presidential votes by combining the number of a state’s congressional representatives and the number of senators, the Electoral College ensures that the states with the largest population have the most votes. But that voting power is somewhat limited. It means that candidates still have to win over voters in small states and can’t focus only on the most popular ones.

Our presidential elections are therefore more likely to reflect the diverse viewpoints of this country and not just the highly populated urban areas.

There is no reason to think that switching to a national popular vote would be better for America, nor have proponents of abolishing the Electoral College ever really made the argument that it would.

They’ve always just gone with buzzwords about the popular vote being more “democratic,” but it’s clear that what they care about most is that the popular vote leads to more Democrats being elected. No surprise there.

However, getting rid of the Electoral College wouldn’t just be bad for Republicans – after all, there are plenty of small blue states too – it would be bad for the country.