The Electoral College

The Electoral College, this discussion only becomes a hot topic every four years, when we all should be putting our heads together to get rid of it. This lesson may become a little boring, but it is something I felt needed to be discussed. Why have we kept this practice for so long, the nation is large enough today to allow the popular vote to speak for itself.

To understand why it was created we must go back to 1787, when the decision was made to no longer have a King, they wanted an elected executive. How he would be selected held up the completion of the Constitution. They debated and debated until they were left with three different ways either the Congress, the State Legislature or the Popular vote would select the President, remembering back then only White, Landowning men were allowed to vote.

If Congress were chosen some felt that would create an issue and bring about a division of power that was established in the first three articles of the Constitution. They felt if selected by Congress the President may feel indebted to Congress and fold when the country might need him to stand strong, they agreed not Congress.

Some believed giving the States power was a great idea, others said no because if a state decided to pick a weak President things could get out of hand and the States would be doing what they wanted to without any direction or purpose, they agreed the State Legislature was not a good idea.

What about the power of the people? Let the people choose, that should work perfectly, so they thought....they were almost 50/50 on the people because the dispute regarding the people dealt with the number of people that could not vote. Yes the south had a large population, but most of them were slaves, and were not allowed to vote, and in the north their numbers were also high but they had a lot of women who were also not allowed to vote, so they agreed the popular vote would not work either.

I know at this time we all knew of the 13 colonies, but I am going to take a wild guess and say within the 13 colonies there were 11 states, because the delegates decided to pick one person from each state creating an 11 man committee to decide how the President should be selected because this large group of screaming men could not decide.

It took those 11 men just four days to come up with their idea for the country to adopt a system of electors. This idea would allow both the people and the state to select the President, where they believed that the public may be swayed or misled by others the state would be there to catch it make sure with the help of the popular vote the right person would be selected, and the runner up would be the Vice President, this plan started good, but it did not last long.

Due to Political parties rearing it's little head, and the fact that Presidents and Vice Presidents were not listed on separate ballots they ran into a tricky yet humorous situation. They were left with a Democrat, and a Republican as running mates tied in the Electoral College causing the tie to be broken by the House of Representatives who selected the Democrat as President, and the Republican as Vice President, that had to be a mess. In 1804 with the 12th Amendment that issue was fixed with having those positions listed on two different ballots so that the mix of parties would not happen again.

Now if you have kept up with me thus far it is quite easy to understand why the Electoral College was created, but why does it still exist today? Everyone can vote today, all except those incarcerated, on parole or illegal immigrants. Today we can make our own decisions, we do not need someone to take our hands, and decide for us what who we as President. Today this system is so outdated and needs to removed.

The last two close elections that we had neither of the popular vote winners was made President, we all felt it and could not doing anything about it. The people spoke and the Electoral College selected who they thought needed to be in that Oval Office.

Something needs to be done, but where do we start? Who do we start with? Who handles the College today? I do not believe anyone really knows or wants us to know. We need to remove this ancient rhetoric.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America" (Constitution of United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992).

How do we start off with such encouraging words only to tell us later that we are not smart enough or strong enough to pick the leader of our country? To tell us that our Electors have the final word after we tell them what we want is truly asinine, and totally disrespectful......

So, what are we going to do about?

Please let me know, I am in!