What Did the Founders Think of Democracy and Electoral College?

Numerous Democrats -- including President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz – claimed that Donald Trump would destroy democracy if he were elected. Republicans, on the other hand, claimed that Trump needed to be elected to save democracy from the Democrats.

Mark Levin, sometimes known as “The Great One,” is an expert on the U.S. Constitution, and he says that we need to remind Americans that we do not have a democracy in the United States. He said, “[Our Founding Father] didn’t support democracy; they supported republicanism. The wise men who wrote the Constitution created a democratic republic, not a democracy. 

The staff at Blaze Media transcribed some of the information from a video where Levin discussed the work of the Founding Fathers. I encourage you to watch the video, but at least check out these comments by Levin as reported by Blaze:

“Democracy means factions can take over or a majority can be tyrannical,” he says, adding that our Founders saw this in other countries and “didn’t want anything to do with it.”

“They wanted republicanism; they wanted checks in power,” he explains.

That’s why they enshrined certain principles in our Constitution.

That way, “you can’t have people vote away your rights,” says Levin. If “90% of them don’t think you should have the right to bear arms, that’s too damn bad.”

The fact that our forefathers foresaw the inevitable issues with a true democracy and created our brilliant system proves that “they were geniuses.”

Their installation of the Electoral College was equally brilliant.

Even though we see people like Tim Walz advocating for the demolition of it, Levin knows the truth: It’s for our nation’s protection.

“You choose a president not through a direct election” but rather via an “Electoral College. Why?” asks Levin. “One person is the head of an entire branch; we can’t just leave it up to a popular vote” because then “the cities will choose the president.”

“In order to have a union and in order to make sure every aspect of the society was represented, they came up with this brilliant Electoral College,” he explains.

Because of this brilliant system of balance, “California doesn’t get to drown out Montana, Wyoming, [or] Idaho.”

“If you had a national popular vote, that’s what [California] would do,” says Levin.

A system in which “the president [is] chosen by the people through the Electoral College but not chosen by the legislature” was “unheard of” at the time. So was the idea of “staggered terms” and a “bicameral congress.”

“So the accumulation of power, the centralization of government is limited,” Levin explains.

For more wisdom straight from the mouth of Levin, check out this video. Two reminders we all need after the election: We are NOT a democracy, and the Electoral College is good | Blaze Media

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.

Who Should Be Counted in the Census?

             The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the U.S. Census. Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that the population of the United States be counted every ten years. However, a recent report by the Census Bureau showed that the bureau made some serious errors in the census count taken in 2020.

            The population of eight states was overcounted, while the population of six states was undercounted. The states, like Florida, which were undercounted did not receive all the representatives to which they are entitled. At the same time, states, like Minnesota and Rhode Island, have too many representatives in Congress.

            In addition to under-representation and over-representation in Congress, the Electoral College votes for those same states will be wrong. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution sets the number of electors for each state to be the same as its representatives in Congress – two U.S. Senators plus the number of its representatives.

            There are 435 members in the U.S. House of Representatives. Article I, Section 2 states that “each state shall have at least one representative.” That means that 50 members represent the 50 states, and the other 385 members are divided among the states according to their population. Hans von Spakovsky wrote the following about the effects of the 2020 Census. 

 As our nation has grown and added more states to the Union, the House has added more members. In 1929, however, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act, which limits the size of the House to 435 members. After the 2020 census numbers were determined, those 435 members were divided among the states based on the total population of the country (a bit more than 331 million people).

That reapportionment gave six states additional seats and reduced the number of seats held by seven states. Texas gained two representatives, while California and New York each lost a congressional seat. As noted earlier, however, the Census Bureau made significant mistakes and deprived citizens in eight states of appropriate representation in Congress.

Another pathology associated with apportionment is that it is based on population totals that include noncitizens, including illegal aliens. In a nation where the population of both legal and illegal aliens now numbers in the millions, the sheer volume distorts congressional representation.

How bad is this distortion? In 2015, the Congressional Research Service issued a report on how apportionment would have changed after the 2010 census if the 2013 estimated citizen population had been used, excluding aliens here both legally and illegally.

According to the report, using citizen population only would have shifted seven congressional seats among 11 states. California, for example, would have lost four seats, while states such as Louisiana and Missouri would have each picked up a new seat.

Including the alien population in apportionment unfairly and unjustly alters political representation in the House and devalues the votes of citizens.

Some argue that the language in Section 2 that apportionment is based on the “number of persons in each state” means that aliens must be included in the apportionment calculation. However, the term “person” has historically been interpreted in this context to mean an individual who not only has a physical presence, but also some element of allegiance to a particular place.

That is why the Census Bureau, for example, does not include noncitizens who visit the U.S. for a vacation or a business trip in the population count, since they have no political or legal allegiance to any state or the federal government.          

            Since the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of a case about apportionment including aliens. Maybe Florida or another – or maybe all – of the states missing representation will take the matter to court. The Supreme Court should weigh in on the question about whether illegal aliens/undocumented immigrants will affect the apportionment of representation in our nation.

Will We Lose the Benefits of the Electoral College?

             The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the importance of the Electoral College. The Framers of the United States Constitution tried to organize a government where power would be spread among different positions. The power was divided between the federal government and the states, and between three branches of government – executive, legislative, and judicial.

The Electoral College was another way to divide the power. Each state has two senators and the 435 representatives are spread among the fifty states according to population. The electors for each state are the same numbers as the state’s representatives in Congress. This means that national elections will not be decided by residents of New York City and Los Angeles County. It also means that presidential candidates must consider the needs of states like Wyoming and Alaska with their small populations as well as California, Florida, Texas, and New York with their large populations.

The presidential election is won or lost on the number of electors that vote for them. Some Democrats won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote, the latest being Hillary Clinton. This is the reason why Democrats want to get rid of the Electoral College. They want the election of the president to depend solely on the popular vote – rewarding the populous states at the expense of the less populous states.

The Electoral College has been in danger for numerous years. Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal said that it could now be in greater danger than previously. He reported on an event held recently at The Heritage Foundation to discuss the Electoral College. He quoted the following statement from Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James made to introduce the topic. 

For over 200 years America has elected its presidents through the Electoral College….

While it’s a unique method for choosing a president, our country’s framers intentionally designed it this way. They wanted to strike a critical balance between people being able to choose their leader and states having proper representation in the process.

            James claimed that the Framers “took care in crafting a system that they hoped would prevent a tyranny of either the majority or the minority.” She used the success of “stable and fair elections throughout its history” as evidence that the Framers created a successful project.

            Despite the stability and fairness provided by the Electoral College, Democrats are plotting to get rid of it with their National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. James described this “movement is a threat that should concern all Americans because it would fundamentally change the way we elect our president and destroy the safeguards that the Electoral College provides.”

            According to Stepman, the movement is gaining supporters because “15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on to the pact.” The compact will “go into effect with a few more states whose Electoral College votes total 75.”

            The host of the event at The Heritage Foundation was Hans von Spakovsky, and he explained how the National Popular Vote Compact would work.

Basically, in the compact each state says, “We will award our Electoral College votes not to the presidential candidate who the majority of our voters voted for, but to whoever wins the national popular vote.

            Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) explained the intent of the Framers who sought to “ensure that the diverse interests of states would be heard and represented in selecting a president. The Framers were concerned about the smaller states and that their interests would not be “neglected or sacrificed” (James Madison).

            Inhofe stated that “60% of Democratic voters” want “to abolish the Electoral college.” The national popular vote movement is targeting specific states, including Arkansas, Arizona, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Virginia. These particular states have representatives who have voted to get rid of the Electoral College.

            Even though the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact must be approved by Congress before it would go into effect, Democrats currently hold a slim majority in the House and control the Senate with a 50-50 split. The Electoral College, as well as the Supreme Court, stand in great danger due to the power held by Democrats.

 

Why Is the Demand for Popular Vote Wrong?

             Democrats have been clamoring to get rid of the Electoral College for some time. The cries increased when Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election over the favored Hillary Clinton. They are louder and shriller now.

            A recent editorial at The Washington Post declared, “Americans are not going to be satisfied with leaders who have been rejected by a majority of voters, and they’re right not to be. It’s time to let the majority rule.” The editor apparently forgot that the Founder had a reason for putting the Electoral College in the Constitution. 

            People who support the idea of doing away with the Electoral College are upset by the fact that a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election. If the candidate with the most votes won the election, there would be no need for presidential candidates to deal with any states except New York, California, Florida, and Texas. The rest of the nation would not matter.

            David Harsanyi published an article at The Daily Signal refuting The Washington Post editorial. He explained why the “popular vote” does not matter. 

The fact that the Electoral College doesn’t align with the “popular vote” isn’t alarming. It is the point.

If the Electoral College synchronized with the outcome of the direct democratic national vote tally every election, it wouldn’t need to exist. It isn’t a loophole; it is a bulwark.

The Electoral College exists to diffuse the very thing the Post claims is most beneficial; namely, the “overbearing majority,” as James Madison put it.

If majoritarianism is truly always the best means of deciding an issue, then the Post would support a mere majority of states being able to overturn the First Amendment or decide abortion policy.

But if states still matter, then the Electoral College’s “virtues” are far stronger today, in an era when federalism is ignored and Americans are more likely to cluster in urban areas, than it was in the founding generation when Washington was largely powerless.

It is one of the institutions that makes a “democracy” tenable in a truly diverse and sprawling nation.

On the most basic level, the Electoral College helps compel presidents to govern nationally, rather than represent a handful of states. We saw it when former Vice President Joe Biden was forced to temper his positions on fracking and defunding the police because he had to appeal to those outside of urban areas.

If he is to be successful, Biden must govern in ways that are popular to diverse cultural and geographical areas – such as North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Arizona, and not just California and New York.

Harsanyi continued by explaining that Donald Trump could have spent all his time in California and New York if he had been running for the popular vote. He did not because the “election is geared toward winning states, not people.” He pointed out that the Electoral College is part of a system that “has been the most stable in the world.” He explained that most nations do not use the majority vote to elect their executives.

Electoral College

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College. The Founders wanted the power of the government to come from the people, but they were concerned about giving the power directly to the people in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is the power to elect the President.

            There were several proposals discussed at the Constitutional Convention about the election of the President. One idea was to allow Congress to elect the President, but this idea did not sound good to those people who wanted to keep the power of the federal government separate and contained in the three branches. Another idea was for the state legislatures make the decision, but this idea concerned people because they thought the President would be obligated to state interests. All of them seemed concerned with the idea of the people directly electing the President. James Wilson proposed the Electoral College, and his idea was accepted.

            The term “Electoral College” is not found in the Constitution, but the electors chosen to choose the President “are traditionally called a College. In the context of the Constitution, the meaning of college is not that of a school, but of a group of people organized toward a common goal.”

            The Electoral College is one of several concepts in the Constitution that are republican principles. Another is the original idea for state legislatures to elect the Senators for each state. These are republican principles. When the procedure to elect Senators was changed from state legislatures to the people voting directly for their Senators, the principle changed from a republican principle to a democratic one.

            There is a movement in the United States at the present time to change the procedure of electing a President. The people involved in the movement want to get rid of the Electoral College and have the people vote directly for the President. This movement is called the “interstate compact,” and it is designed to “sidestep the Electoral College system defined by the Constitution.” Colorado legislature to pass a bill to join the compact, and the governor says that he will the bill. Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal says that the Colorado electoral votes will bring the total to 181 out of the required 270 for the compact to become effective. He then explains how the compact would actually affect elections. 

While the Constitution, intentionally, gives wide latitude to states to create their own electoral systems, the law passed in Colorado, along with the rest of this effort, would be unprecedented. It would be the first time states potentially outsource their Electoral College votes to the will of the nation as a whole, rather than having elections determined by their own voters. The result of this, ironically, could be very undemocratic.

For instance, if the people of Colorado vote overwhelmingly for a Democrat, yet the total popular vote of the nation goes Republican, all of the state’s votes would go to the Republican, essentially overturning the will of the people of Colorado.

The Electoral College is already fairly democratic. Nearly every state switched to direct, democratic elections of electoral votes in the early 19^th century, as opposed to selection by state legislatures. What the national popular vote would do is overturn the concept of federalism, which recognizes that states have unique interests that deserve representation in the electoral system. We are not just a nation of individuals, but a nation of communities and states.

Some have dismissed the Electoral College system as outmoded and unjust. But they are mistaken – the Electoral College system remains highly relevant and necessary today. The 2016 election actually demonstrated that.

In 2016, states that had done Democratic in presidential politics for a generation flipped to Republican, in large part because of a unique candidate who appealed to their interests. While one candidate capitalized on their support, the other took them for granted and focused elsewhere. The result was a startling upset that demonstrates why the Framers wanted an Electoral College.

Without an Electoral College, candidates could more easily write off certain constituencies located in limited areas. The Electoral College binds those votes up with a larger mass of votes so that in order to win the whole, candidates have to appeal to the interests of more constituents.

Under a popular vote system, candidates could ignore entire localities and focus on driving up votes among their natural supporters.

            The numbers of Electoral College votes already tied into the compact shows that our nation is heading for trouble. Under this compact the states would give all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate that wins the national popular vote.

            The legislation has been introduced in all 50 states. As of this month eleven states and the District of Columbia have adopted the compact with Colorado joining soon. One legislative chamber in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, and Hawaii passed the legislature in 2007 when the compact was introduced in 42 states. One chamber in the following states has adopted the legislation: Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Oregon. New Mexico passed it in both chambers but in two different sessions. Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington have attempted to repeal the compact, but their repeals failed. The twelve states that have adopted the compact have 172 electoral votes – 32.0% of Electoral College and 63.7% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.

            The compact is not good for America, and it is a part of the effort to turn the United States into a socialist nation. If it had been in effect for the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton would have become President of the United States. She would most likely have continued down the same path that Barack Obama was taking us. Therefore, we would not have had the roaring economy, low unemployment rates, recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and US embassy moved there, and approximately 70 other great things that have happened under the direction of President Donald Trump.

The Genius of the Electoral College

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College. Article 2 of the Constitution is specifically about the Executive Branch. Section 1of that article is specifically about the President. Clause 2 of Article 2, Section 1 states: “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.”

            In plainer words this clause tells us that the Electoral College consists of a certain number of electors. This number corresponds to the number of Senators and Representatives in the U.S. Congress – 535. Each state is represented in the Electoral College with the same number of representatives as it has in Congress. For example, Alaska has two Senators and one Representative. This means that Alaska has three electoral votes.

            There are 100 Senators and 435 Representatives for a total of 535 members of Congress. However, Amendment 23 gave the District of Columbia three votes in the Electoral College – the same number that it would have if it were a state but no more than the “least populous State.” This means that Washington, D.C. has the same number of electoral votes as Alaska. This brings the total number of electoral votes to 538. When we divide 538 by half, we get 269. A candidate must receive more than half of the electoral votes to become President, so this means that the lowest number possible is 270.

            Democrats are upset because the candidate from the Democrat Party twice lost the electoral vote while gaining the popular vote. Al Gore supposedly received more of the popular vote than George Bush did, but he lost the election because Bush had more electoral votes. The same thing happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton seems to have received more popular votes but Donald Trump received more electoral votes.

            One of the first things that Democrats did after regaining the U.S. House of Representatives was to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. One of the reasons that they use is that Americans expect the winner of the popular vote to become President. This simply means that too many Americans do not understand the Constitution and how the Electoral College works.

            Another reason given for the attempt to eliminate the Electoral College is the Seventeenth Amendment. This amendment changed the procedure to elect Senators from election by state legislature to a popular vote by the people. The writers of the Constitution gave Americans two legislative houses – the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate was supposed to represent the states with Senators being elected by the state legislatures, while Representatives were elected by a popular vote. This gave the states total control over their representatives in the Senate. If the Senator was out of line with the goals of the state, the state legislature could recall them. The Seventeenth Amendment made the election of Senators by popular vote and destroyed all means of controlling them. This writer is not so sure that we got the best of the deal.

            An important reason why this argument does not meet the test of the Electoral College is the population of the state. The Alaska state legislators are residents of Alaska, and they basically think like the majority of Alaskans. It was not such a large step to move the election for Senator from the legislature to the people. However, abolishing the Electoral College would change our constitutional republic to a democracy and set the stage for the destruction of our constitutional way of life.

            Author, lawyer, and Electoral College expert Tara Ross made a video for PragerU that explains how the Electoral College works and why it is better than a majority-rule voting system. To put it in very simple words, the Electoral College forces candidates to campaign in every part of the nation. A simple majority vote would allow candidates to stay in the population centers of the nation and silence the voices of Americans living in other parts of the nation. Do you want the people of California, New York, Florida, and Texas selecting your next President and Vice President, or do you want to have a say in the matter? The Founding Fathers thought that every person should have a vote, so they created the Electoral College to make it happen.

            The Blaze published the following statement about the importance of the Electoral College. It may or may not be part of the transcript from the PragerU video.

The key benefit of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes control over the election. Currently, a presidential election is really 51 separate elections: one in each state and one in D.C.

These 51 separate processes exist, side-by-side, in harmony. They do not – and cannot – interfere with each other.

California’s election code applies only to California and determines that state’s electors. So a vote cast in Texas can never change the identity of a California elector.

NPV [National Popular Vote] would disrupt this careful balance. It would force all voters into one national election pool. Thus, a vote cast in Texas will always affect the outcome in California. And the existence of a different election code in Texas always has the potential to unfairly affect a voter in California….

We would see the end of presidential candidates who care about the needs and concerns of people in smaller states or outside of big cities….

            The Founders of our nation were geniuses. In addition, they were humble, teachable, and willing to follow inspiration from heaven. The Constitution of the United States is a brilliant document that has kept the United States strong for over 235 years and will continue to keep it strong for many more IF the republican principles of our democratic republic – such as the Electoral College – are not taken out of it. If the nation becomes a pure democracy, it will be on the road to ruin because no true democracy can avoid eventual destruction.

Democracy vs. Republic

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the foundation of our government. The Founders of the United States established a republic, not a democracy. They wanted a government that would last, and they knew that democracies do not last long.

            Walter E. Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University, is a very wise man. Whenever I see his name as the author of an article, I always read the article. He recently posted an article at The Daily Signal about the Electoral College titled “Why We Are a Republic and Not a Democracy.” I believe it is worth reading in its entirety, but I will share some ideas from it.

            Williams first reminds us that Hillary Clinton and many of her supporters blame her 2016 presidential defeat on the Electoral College. They think that the President of the United States should be elected by a simple majority vote that is sometimes known as the popular vote. They think that the Elector College system “distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy.” The reason that they have this belief is because “electoral votes are not distributed according to population.”

            Using the examples of Wyoming and California, Williams shows exactly why people want to do away with the Electoral College. Wyoming has about 600,000 residents with one representative in the U.S. House and two U.S. Senators. They have three electoral votes or “one electoral vote per 200,000 people.” California has the largest population with about 39 million people and 55 electoral votes or “one vote per 715,000 people.” “Comparatively, individuals in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as Californians.” He continues his explanation with these paragraphs.

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 Constitution, or any other of our founding documents.

            Williams shares quotes from several of the Founding Fathers expressing their views about democracy and why they did not want the new government to be one. He then continues his explanation.

The Founders expressed contempt for the tyranny of majority rule, and throughout our Constitution, they placed impediments to that tyranny. Two house 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.

            Clearly the Founders did not want our government to be a democracy, and they put many “impediments” in the way of it turning into a democracy. The best idea that I have ever heard for not doing away with the Electoral College is from an unknown source, but it basically goes like this: If there were no Electoral College and the presidency were chosen by a majority vote, then the president would be chosen by the residents of New York City and Los Angeles County.

            I want you to think about that idea. Do you really want to give up your vote for president? Even worse, do you want New Yorkers and the people who live in Los Angeles County to decide who will be your president? I do not, and the Founders did not. This is the reason why they set up the government the way they did. We should be applauding and praising them, not trying to undo their work.

Ginsburg and the Electoral College

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College – again. Donald Trump won the election in November, and he was confirmed to be the president-elect on December 19. Yet, some liberals continue throwing temper tantrums in an attempt to stop Trump from doing his job as President of the United States.  Others are still trying to change the Electoral College.

            One of those liberals calling for change in the Electoral College is none other than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Some students at Stanford University asked Ginsburg what she would like to change in the American way of life. Ginsburg answered that she would like to change the Electoral College, but she allowed that this task would be “powerfully hard to do.” She was not clear about how she would like to fix the Electoral College; she just wants it fixed.

            Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal writes that the most common fix wanted by liberals “has been to move toward a national popular vote selection process.” He says that this “proposal would completely undermine the carefully constructed electoral process the Founding Fathers created at the Constitutional Convention and would further erode the essential concept of federalism that lies at the heart of the republic.”

            Stepman continues his explanation by reminding his readers that the “Founders had a deep understanding of history. They knew that an unclear process of succession from one leader to another has often destroyed countries – it most certainly contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire.”

            The Framers of the Constitution were intelligent men who had studied various nations and governments. They set about their task of establishing the United States of America knowing full well the dangers the new nation would face. They discussed and debated many different ideas before they arrived with the finished U.S. Constitution. When they finished their task, they had established a completely new kind of government – a democratic republic.

            Stepman writes that the Constitution “constructed a system that produced over two centuries of peaceful transfers of power from one administration to the next – a near miraculous feat in human history littered with civil strife and broken political systems.

            “It would be foolish to abandon this remarkably stable process without first understanding why it was created.

            The Framers did not want the presidential elections to turn into a mere popularity context. They established a democratic republic and not a mere democracy. They had good reasons to do so. I encourage you to read the rest of Stepman’s article. Then you will be prepared to defend the Constitution.

Reforming the Electoral College

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the Electoral College – again. Various people continue to clamor for change in the Electoral College, but most of them want to do away with it completely in order to elect leaders by popular vote. As my regular readers know, I am completely against this concept.

                Today I happened upon a suggestion on how to reform the Electoral College that has real merit. Bruce Walker wrote an interesting article with the title of “How to Get People to Vote.” I passed over the article several times simply because I did not like the title. It sounds a whole like coercion to me!

                I finally clicked on the article and read it. It seems that Walker has a couple of proposal about reforming the Electoral College. The first one suggests that state legislatures choose the electors for their state. This is the way presidential electors were selected at the beginning of our republic.

                Walker’s second proposal concerns how states choose their electors, following the example of Maine and Nebraska. As you may recall, there were questions about how the electors for these two states would go. This site has a good explanation on how Maine and Nebraska choose their electors. 

                In his own words, Walker’s proposal says: “have those presidential electors attributable to the state’s apportioned House seats elected by congressional district and have those two presidential electors attributable to the state’s two senators elected statewide.

                “Why would this be good? Presidential candidates today need spend little time or attention in those states that either will be carried by that candidate no matter what or will not be carried by the candidate no matter what. The Constitution does not envision a president being elected because most Americans want him, but rather because the different parts of America, each with different interests and values, find him acceptable.

                “States are the proper level of government to make that choice, but the most populous states today can safely ignore whole sections of the state because large metropolitan areas swamp the votes of less populous parts of the state. What that means in a reliably leftist state like California is that the third of the state in the rural eastern ridge, who will be outvoted in statewide elections, really have meaningless votes not only in the presidential race, but in senatorial races as well.”

                Liberals are upset because Hillary Clinton won popular vote by several million votes, but Trump won the electors.  If the liberal voters in LA County and New York City were not counted, Trump would have also won the popular vote. This means that the liberal votes in those two areas outweighed the conservative votes in other areas of each state. If Walker’s proposal was adopted by all the states – but particularly by California and New York – votes would be more equal.

                “If the electoral votes of California were chosen by congressional districts, then the voters in Republican-leaning congressional districts would have an incentive to vote, as would voters in swing districts. What would be true of rural Californians would be true of upstate New Yorkers, downstate Illinoisans, and so on. These effectively disenfranchised Republican voters would have a reason to go to the polls in presidential elections.”

                Walker then explains “how this would have affected recent presidential races.” He says that Trump would have won by 307 electoral votes rather than 304 in 2016. He also says that Mitt Romney would have won in 2012 by 282 electoral votes, but John McCain would have still lost in 2008 “with 220 electoral votes instead of 173. The changes in electoral votes reflect the fact that each state, still, would cast two votes statewide (as the Senate portion of the state’s electoral vote) but that the few big states upon which Democrats rely would give some votes to Republican presidential candidates.

                “That would be some advantage to Republican presidential candidates, but the primary effect would be to make much more of America relevant in presidential elections….”

                I have given the main idea presented by Walker, but I encourage you to read the article to get the entire proposal. This is an issue concerning the states and should be decided by individual states, but I believe it has merit and should be considered.  With the electors chosen by congressional districts, Democrat districts would have Democrat electors and Republican districts would have Republican electors. Then the entire state would determine the two at-large electors just as Senators are elected at large. I think that I could support this proposal. What do you think?

Electoral College

                Early in the morning on November 9, 2016, Donald Trump was declared President-elect of the United States because he won more than 270 electoral votes. It does not matter that Hillary Clinton might have won the popular vote. (I say “might” because I have heard that Trump won the popular vote.) 

                Immediately after the results of the election were announced, Change.org published a petition urging members of the Electoral College to reject the votes of the states and give the election to Clinton. About the same time, protestors “spontaneously” began marching in the streets of numerous cities to demand that Clinton be made President. Several of those marches turned into mobs that began destroying property.

                I have personally had a running discussion with several friends about the Electoral College. Three of those friends seem to stand on the conservative side and support keeping the Electoral College. The discussion has been interesting and educational. I started the discussion by posting a link to this video on Facebook. I encourage you to watch the video to gain greater understanding of the Electoral College.

                A couple of my friends explained that the Founders divided the powers of the national government. After much debate the Founders compromised on how the leaders are elected. Each state has two Senators – no matter how many people live in the state. Each state also has Representatives elected according to the population of the state. This is an example: Alaska has three electoral votes while Florida has twenty-nine electoral votes. A state’s senators and representatives are added together to make the total number of electoral votes from that state. If the Census, taken every ten years, finds that population has shifted from out of a state, the number of representatives are decreased from that particular state and added to another or others. There are always 100 senators and 435 representatives, making 535 electoral votes. The District of Columbia has three electoral votes. This makes a total of 538 electoral votes. 

                Jarrett Stepman at The Daily Signal has an interesting article titled “Why We Use Electoral College, Not Popular Vote.” He writes, “The Electoral College remains in place over two centuries after the framers of the Constitution empowered it to select presidents. Though occasionally maligned, this system of electing a chief executive has been incredibly successful for the American people….

                “The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College after much debate and compromise, but it has provided stability to the process of picking presidents. Though the winner of the national popular vote typically takes the presidency, that vote failed to determine the winner in four elections: 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000 [and possibly 2016]….”

                Stepman quotes Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert at The Heritage Foundation, as stating: “In creating the basic architecture of the American government, the Founders struggled to satisfy each state’s demand for greater representation while attempting to balance popular sovereignty against the risk posed to the minority from majoritarian rule.”

                By following the link to the article by Hans von Spakovsky, I found the following information: “Since the 2000 U.S. presidential election, there have been many ill-informed calls to abolish the Electoral College. Even before that contentious election, there had been more than 700 proposals introduced in Congress to amend the Constitution to change the Electoral College – more than on any other topic.

                “The latest scheme, the National Popular Vote (NPV) plan, is bad public policy. The NPV plan would:

[1] Diminish the influence of smaller states and rural areas of the country; [2] Lead to more recounts and contentious conflicts about the results of presidential elections; and [3] Encourage voter fraud.

                “The NPV plan also strikes at the Founders’ view of federalism and a representative republic – one in which popular sovereignty is balanced by structural protections for state governments and minority interests.”

                Here is a link to a video about the National Popular Vote (NPV) about doing away with the Electoral College and electing our presidents on purely popular votes. I encourage you to watch this video. Please note that the supporters of NPV are more than half-way to their goal.

                The Electoral College has worked for electing our presidents for over 200 years, even as the population has increased greatly. I see no reason to throw something away that is still working. Those who want to do away with the Electoral College want to elect our presidents on a purely popular vote. I believe this is unwise. The Electoral College helps to make our nation a constitutional republic instead of a democracy. Adolf Hitler was elected in a democracy, and he was not good for his country. Democracies destroy themselves in a short period of time while our constitutional republic has lasted for over 200 years. There is no reason to do away with the Electoral College.