To be or not to be, that is the Electoral College question. What’s the answer? This relic of the eighteenth century should be abolished forthwith.
The Founding Fathers created this bizarre system to avoid “mob-ocracy” which they feared, and an English-style monarchy, which they had just overthrown.
In the election of 1800, two hundred years ago, this strange election procedure almost caused a national disaster. Aaron Burr, arguably the first “politician” to emerge on the national scene, almost defeated Thomas Jefferson because of a quirk in this peculiar law. In what was thought a brilliant idea, our Founding Fathers deemed that the person having the majority of electoral votes would be president and the runner-up would be vice-president.
In those days, each elector was given two ballots. He was to cast both for president but his choices had to live in different states. Our founders thought the first vote would be for a favorite son but the second vote would be given to a little known candidate from another state. Thus the Electoral College was to be a nominating body with no nominee likely to get a majority. The election would be decided in the House of Representatives where, get this you democracy buffs, each state would get just one vote regardless of size.
This might have worked absent political parties but “factionalism” had already reared its ugly head and was inevitable anyway. In 1800 Jefferson and Burr ran as Democrat-Republicans (anti-federalists) and John Adams and Thomas Pinckney ran as Federalists. Because the electoral vote was so close (there was no popular vote in those days), there was a distinct possibility that President John Adams would be demoted to vice-president and the current vice-president, Thomas Jefferson, would become president.
Our democracy dodged this bullet, but took another shot when the vote was a tie. The election was thrown into the House. It was clear to everybody that Jefferson ran as the presidential candidate and Burr as vice-president but the electors each had two ballots to cast and since 73 of them were Democrat-Republicans, they cast their both votes for Jefferson and Burr.
In 1800 there were 16 states. Nine were needed to be elected. Reasonable people thought Burr would withdraw, but Burr was not a reasonable man. He was an astute politician He could see that he was only one state short of winning the big prize. Federalists controlled eight states and one state (Vermont) was divided and could not cast a vote. Burr thought he could get his home state, New York, to break from Jefferson and cast the ninth and deciding vote for him. It took 36 ballots over six days to decide the issue. In the end it was Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalists, who twisted enough electors’ arms from New York and other states to elect Jefferson, his political enemy, and to stop Burr, whom he hated passionately. Sticking his nose into this mess proved to be Hamilton’s death warrant as Burr killed him in their famous duel in 1804.
The twelfth amendment took care of the nonsense of having the runner-up be the vice-president. The electors still are given two ballots but they must cast one for president and one for vice-president, each from different states. That is why Dick Cheney had to rescind his Texas voter registration and rush to his native Wyoming and register there when he was tapped to be Bush’s vice-president
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We also dodged electoral bullets in the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and the recent disaster of 2000 when the Florida legislature was ready to throw out the popular vote and name its own slate of electors had not the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the count.
No single amendment can correct this eighteenth century folly, which has made us the laughing stock of the world. They ask, how can you get the most votes and still lose the presidency? The only solution is outright repeal.
Without an Electoral College where Indiana is always solidly Republican, maybe we would see a presidential candidate now and then. A popular vote or two in Evansville, Indianapolis or Gary might be worth a campaign stop.
