Why The Electoral College?

[Montrovant]

I read about this years ago in a class on Constitutional Law. In the late 18th century, the Founders were faced with a population of voters, most of whom had very little education.There were no public schools. Many could not read at all. The men at the Constitutional Convention were worried that one or more unscrupulous demagogues could hoodwink the voters into putting them in office with deceptive speeches. Their solution was to set up an electoral college which would include only educated men who could check on the backgrounds of candidates for office to see if they were qualified and honest.

Today, with widespread public education a reality, this would not be necessary.

None of that is true, but you go on with your bad self.

The electoral college was put into place to keep the big, more populace states from running roughshod over their rights.

What do you base that on? I know it's a popular idea, but did any of the founders write that they were worried about more populous states having power over smaller states and that's why the EC was created? I haven't found much writing directly about the system from those who were involved in creating it.

I've read that there were some who wanted Congress to elect the president, some who wanted a popular vote, some who wanted state legislatures to elect the president. There were problems with each: political corruption seemed like an issue with the first, difficulty with the populace becoming knowledgeable about candidates was an issue with the second (regardless of education level, information just wasn't as easily disseminated), a lessening of federal authority was an issue with the third. The EC was supposedly a compromise, rather than an idea created because it was seen as exceptional.

Of course, there were no political parties at the time. The men who agreed upon the EC may not have had any notion of what it would end up becoming. Would they still have agreed with it if they knew how it would involve political parties, winner-takes-all distribution of EC votes, and how easily information about candidates is now spread? That is impossible to know.

If you study the writings of the time (there are too many for Me to list in a simple post) you'll get a huge understanding of what their thoughts were when they formed this country.

They actually had the Feds compartmentalized away from power and gave the real power to the States. The Federal Government existed for the sole purpose of settling disputes between the States, but more importantly, the President wasn't a figure of power in our nation. He was the Chief Law enforcement, but the main job of the President was to be the "Front man" of the people to the world. Nothing more than just that. That is why foreign policy is invested in the President.

When we first formed this country, the States were treated as individuals, and they had rights separated from the Citizens. That is why we have a Senate and a House. One represented the interests of the States, the other the interest of the people.

It was from the Senate and the States looking after their interests that lead to the debates over the Electoral College and the demand that each State be treated as an equal to every other State.

I'm not disagreeing with those things. However, again, from what I've read the Electoral College was a 'best they could come up with in a short time' sort of compromise, not anyone's ideal way to elect the president and vice president. Additionally, I was under the impression that some of the founders were actually in favor of a very strong federal government.

While many of our founders may have wanted more powers for the states than the federal government, and while the states may have been treated more like individual, almost independent areas than they are today, that doesn't actually lead to the conclusion that the EC was created to prevent large states from having too much power over small states. What I'm wondering is if there are any quotes from those who were involved in the creation and approval of the EC which would indicate that preventing the populous states from having too much power was a reason the EC was designed the way it was. I don't think a more generalized sentiment of strong states' rights does that.

To be clear: I'm not trying to claim that such statements don't exist, or even that such an idea wasn't part of the reasoning behind the EC. I just don't know if there's any clear evidence that it WAS part of the reasoning. It seems quite possible that it would not have been, considering how differently things worked at the time (lack of parties, no winner-takes-all distribution of votes).

 

[Viktor]

I read about this years ago in a class on Constitutional Law. In the late 18th century, the Founders were faced with a population of voters, most of whom had very little education.There were no public schools. Many could not read at all. The men at the Constitutional Convention were worried that one or more unscrupulous demagogues could hoodwink the voters into putting them in office with deceptive speeches. Their solution was to set up an electoral college which would include only educated men who could check on the backgrounds of candidates for office to see if they were qualified and honest.

Today, with widespread public education a reality, this would not be necessary.

None of that is true, but you go on with your bad self.

The electoral college was put into place to keep the big, more populace states from running roughshod over their rights.

So, you are claiming that you know more about the subject than a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. Try that con on somebody else.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I read about this years ago in a class on Constitutional Law. In the late 18th century, the Founders were faced with a population of voters, most of whom had very little education.There were no public schools. Many could not read at all. The men at the Constitutional Convention were worried that one or more unscrupulous demagogues could hoodwink the voters into putting them in office with deceptive speeches. Their solution was to set up an electoral college which would include only educated men who could check on the backgrounds of candidates for office to see if they were qualified and honest.

Today, with widespread public education a reality, this would not be necessary.

You're kidding right? Modern "education" produces far less educated "graduates" than most of original colonists who at least had horse sense derived from life lessons in an live and let live economy.

 

[Pellinore]

You're kidding right? Modern "education" produces far less educated "graduates" than most of original colonists who at least had horse sense derived from life lessons in an live and let live economy.

Fewer.

 

[Pellinore]

I read about this years ago in a class on Constitutional Law. In the late 18th century, the Founders were faced with a population of voters, most of whom had very little education.There were no public schools. Many could not read at all. The men at the Constitutional Convention were worried that one or more unscrupulous demagogues could hoodwink the voters into putting them in office with deceptive speeches. Their solution was to set up an electoral college which would include only educated men who could check on the backgrounds of candidates for office to see if they were qualified and honest.

Today, with widespread public education a reality, this would not be necessary.

This is one of the reasons why, although it is debatable whether our modern-schooled population now is any more resistant to an unscrupulous demagogue, and if so, to what extent. The other reason was so that each state would formally commit their votes in their own state capital; there was a fear that collecting everyone in one place would subject them to the possibility of manipulation by DC-based mass shenanigans.

The most popular reason that it *wasn't* created was to protect smaller states from being muscled around by larger, more populated states. That was the reason for creating the bicameral Congress, with equal representative in one chamber and relative representation in the other. The EC used those counts as a base for its voting system, but it wasn't the reason it was created.