The Electoral College is probably the most misunderstood and falsely maligned safeguard within our Constitution left to us today, without which our nation would not have lasted fifty years and will not if we are deceived into repealing it. The process was designed to prevent a few large-population states from controlling the Presidency. The argument is that a pure popular vote should elect the President; one person, one vote. If our forefathers had been that naive, we would not have had a nation to begin with. Let me state at the start that it is perfectly possible to have a popular vote with the Electoral College, and its demise is not needed unless you wish to aid in the destruction of our nation.
In Article II, section one of the Constitution it states:
2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature 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
This simply means that each state gets several electoral votes for President equal to the number of Congressional districts plus two, one for each Senator. How the states elect and operate under this system is up to them to decide. When we go to the polls and vote for President, we are actually voting a person into the Electoral College, a representative of the candidate, who has sworn to vote for your choice as a member of the College. Most states, if not all, are operating under a winner-take-all system. That is, whichever candidate received the most popular votes at the polls is awarded all the Electoral College slots, to be filled by those sworn to vote for him. It does not have to be this way; it is the State’s choice. This is where the detractors of this system have a legitimate argument and also where they fail to see Colleges necessity.
Our Electoral College system ensures that the various interests of the nation as a whole geographically are considered and prevents the control of the presidency by a small minority of heavily populated areas. The presidency is not supposed to be won by one national popular vote, but by a majority of State popular votes reflecting the nation’s diverse interests. The Electoral College is a system designed to meet the needs of all. It is heavily weighted toward a national popular election by virtue of the number of Electors being determined by population, while it affords the less populated states with less divergent interests to band together their Electoral votes and have, if not an equal, a greater say in Presidential politics. At the same time, it affords the more densely populated states the ability to divide their numerous Electoral votes and render a strict popular vote. Under a pure national popular vote for President, he would be elected by half the East Coast and California. The interests of the least populated states would be of no concern to anyone running for the office. States that have more than twenty Electoral votes should consider dropping their winner-take-all system and split them among the top two or three candidates with the highest votes. The pundits say that this will erode our two-party system by allowing greater access to smaller fringe parties. Well, our system was not specifically designed to be a two-party system; with a greater chance to win, one or two of those fringe parties may just turn out to be more mainstream than they appear.
The Electoral College is a balance between the voice of the people of the less populated states and the voice of the people in states with larger populations.