The Brilliance of the Electoral College

by Don Fredrick, The Complete Obama Timeline, ©2023

(May 7, 2023) — As we approach the 2024 campaign season you can be certain to encounter increasing complaints from Democrat politicians and media leftists about the Electoral College system that allows a candidate to be elected president even if he does not win the nationwide popular vote. Those whiners look at the Electoral College as a bug in the constitutional system, rather than the feature it was intentionally designed to be.

The argument that the Electoral College system negates the “one man, one vote” concept is essentially an argument for the elimination of the Republic itself. (Of course, that may be the ulterior motive of those making the arguments.) After all, the House and Senate members who represent your district and state often do not vote as you would. They may, for example, have voted to give tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine (with no accounting of how it is spent) even if you vehemently opposed that. Why do you and every other U.S. citizen not get to vote directly on such matters? Why is not every issue before the House and Senate not subject to a direct vote by all adult U.S. citizens? The “one man, one vote” principle is violated every time there is a vote in the House and Senate on anything, and every time some unelected federal bureaucrat imposes a new rule or regulation on the citizens!

You do not have a direct vote on every issue because we live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy. Even with computers and the Internet, such a system would be almost impossible to implement, and the Founding Fathers certainly had no such electronic wizardry. They wisely established a republic, hoping that the citizens would be responsible enough to elect reasonable and rational representatives to serve them. The alternative would be mob rule, with the majority having an unfettered ability to eradicate the rights of those in the minority.

The Electoral College was designed to prevent mob rule. Its brilliance is that it fairly divides the power of electing the president across the country to prevent a handful of highly-populated areas from dictating policies for the rest of the nation. The power to elect the president is divided among the states, based on their populations, and that is entirely appropriate because the United States of America are a collection of separate states. (Note the use of the word are, which is technically proper. Almost everyone routinely writes or says, “the United States of America is…” when the word are should, in fact, be used.)

This nation is a collection of states, and the federal government was only intended to have the power and authority to do what the states could not individually do, such as declare war and regulate interstate commerce. That concept is emphasized by the Tenth Amendment — which is unfortunately routinely ignored by the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court.

Sadly, over time, the U.S. Constitution as a whole has also been largely ignored, the federal government has usurped many of the powers and rights of the states, and the office of the presidency has expanded its powers far beyond what the Founding Fathers intended. Congress has been a willing accomplice, giving increasing power to the president and allowing regulatory agencies and the courts to implement the rules and regulations it lacks the courage to enact — because the members of the House and Senate would be kicked out of office by the voters if they cast specific votes on those rules and regulations. One example is the attempt to prohibit the use of gas stoves. When did the House and Senate vote to do that? They did not. Where does the Constitution give Biden the power to do that? It does not. The tyrants simply allow the unhinged and unelected zealots at the Environmental Protection Agency to do their dirty work.

The big fuss over how the president is elected came about mostly because the power of the presidency has been improperly expanded. Under the U.S. Constitution the president has few powers beyond commanding the armed forces, negotiating treaties (but only with the consent of the Senate), issuing pardons, giving an annual state of the union report to Congress, and overseeing the federal employee workforce. If we actually followed the U.S. Constitution there would be little fuss over the Electoral College because the president would have far less power to act against the wishes of the electorate.

The howling over the Electoral College system comes from people who eagerly seek limitless power. They see the nation not as a collection of separate states, but as one country ruled over with absolute power. They do not want different rules among the 50 states. They do not want Wyoming and Texas and Florida having rules and laws that do not match those of California. They want a $15.00 per hour minimum wage in every state. They want unrestricted, taxpayer-funded abortions in every state. They want drilling for oil banned in every state. They do not want anyone in 49 “renegade” states having any more liberty than is permitted in California.

Similarly, the opponents of the Electoral College see the nations of the world not as separate sovereign states, but as stumbling blocks to borderless global socialism. They would be perfectly happy with no national borders and all power consolidated under one “enlightened” leader, such as Klaus Schwab, George Soros, or Greta Thunberg.

The European Union was an attempt to create a “United States of Europe,” with each European nation turned into a state lorded over by an unelected leader in Brussels. But the Brits do not want to give up their currency, the French do not want to give up cigarettes, the Swiss do not want to give up their tranquility, and the Hungarians do not want open borders and five Islamic calls to prayer blasted over loudspeakers across the countryside. If Europeans knew then what they know now, the European Union would never have been implemented. The average European now knows that the price of seeking power by joining a union was a loss of essential liberties.

The United States of America are 50 separate states, and more than a few people would not mind if it were to become 50 separate nations — with all the leftists staying in or moving to California, Oregon, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, and everyone else living in peace and prosperity with increased freedoms.

Leftists who read this will call me a Nazi for daring to support limited government and liberty for individuals — thereby proving my points.