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Friday, November 11, 2016

Electoral College


They used to teach this in school but evidently don’t anymore because so many think we’d be better with Popular Vote determining Presidential winners.  The Founders had to have all the states behind their effort to write a constitution.  You can’t very well form a country out of 7 of the 13 colonies.  In this urgency they wrote a constitution that both recognizes popular vote for Representatives and state vote for Senators.  And they decided against popular vote for Presidents.  Instead they constructed an Electoral College as a special convention numbering as the sum of Reps and Senators from each state.  State popular vote gets the electors.  Why this method?

Simple.  They didn’t want the country ruled from one corner or one area of large population.  The President has to be President of all the people.  We can’t have a situation where the guy elected decides the people in the rest of the nation are nobodies, just flyover country—you guys in Dakota can vote if you wish but your vote doesn’t much count.  If USA were a popular vote Presidency, there is no reason to campaign in Utah or Kentucky.  Instead, all campaigns would be for the 15 large metro areas that professional sports calls “Large Markets”.  Win a big majority in those and you win it all.  If there were two candidates with close popular vote, like Trump and Clinton, they wanted the person whose colors covered the map most.  Take a look at this last election.  Though Hillary may have won the popular vote by 2,000,000, she has no states between the coasts except for NM, CO, MN, and IL.  Such a regional President would lack the ability to unite the country, the Founders reasoned. You have to win a majority of the Electoral College votes.

That majority of the College also means the political parties must be widely appealing.  In Europe they have parties of strict doctrine—socialists, communists, greens, farmers, labor—and nobody wins more than 27% of the vote among 8 parties running. But in USA, in order to rule, you must have a party that appeals broadly to many people from wide areas of the country.  That causes constant turmoil in our parties with conservatives or moderates or progressives vying for accendancy, but  we work it out.  In the rest of the world, parties are strict in belief and don’t try many new ideas. Parties are like tribes of fierce loyalty.  No independent voters, like in USA.

The Electors are not dullards. They are real people.  In case the President-Elect dies or turns into something really evil, they are free to vote their conscience. There has to be a transition time between the Presidencies if the new guy is to get organized.  If not, then we have to have a Parliamentary system like United Kingdom of Great Britain with cabinets and programs already in place. That sudden change has not made for peaceful transitions in many European countries.  Americans like to think of ourselves as one people, not warring factions vying to get the upper hand.

European democracies have also taught another lesson on why we are wise to have Electors.  If popular vote rules and nobody gets a majority—such as this last election, what do you do?  Do you allow the 35% guy to take office?  The other 65% will have no respect and the nation will effectively be leaderless like Poland in the face of Nazis attack.  Or do you make the further demand that any government formed must have the majority of votes?  In that case Trump or Hillary would be in negotiations to get Gary Johnson to form a coalition government—thus push vote total over 50%.  Coalition governments have a history of mundane gridlock to disastrous in Europe.  When Hindenburg needed a partner in 1933 he chose Hitler who had 14% of the vote.  Hindenburg died, Hitler diabolically burned down the Reichstag (legislature building) with all the opposition party members in attendance, decried the tragedy but emplaced his Nazis in power and declared martial law.  Coalition governments are how you get a 14% guy in power by trick or brute force.  

So add it up.  Presidents with wide appeal, big-tent parties, campaigns spread out over the land, transition time to govern, national unity and strong leaders/no coalition governments. This is why America is exceptional—an exception to the rule in governments—and darn well worth it.

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