Blog Stage Seven: The Electoral College System

I am in favor of the Electoral College system. Article II of the U.S. Constitution makes it possible to elect the president and vice president through the Electoral College system. What was going through the minds of the framers at this time? The framers always intended for the states to have the power in choosing the president. They believed that the people were not educated enough to put the right person for the job in office. On July 25, 1787, Delegate Gerry exclaimed, “A popular election, in this case, is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment." They believed if this power was placed in the hands of the people than it would lead to “tyranny of the majority”. The tyranny of the majority would be harmful to the minority and lead to subjugation to disliked ethnic, religious, or political groups.

In addition to the reasons stated above, it preserves federalism by sharing the power between the state and national government. Federalism is important because it makes it possible for people living in different parts of the country, with different needs and interests, to come together as one nation.

The United States functions as a representative democracy under a republic form of government. A representative democracy is where citizens elect representatives to serve on their behalf. Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution which states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form of Government..." This shows that the framers of the Constitution were aware that in order for direct democracy to work everyone would have to participate or the results would favor small groups of people representing their own interests and not the majority.

Political issues can be complicated and the need of an experienced and educated elector is important. Educating each and every citizen on such issue would be difficult and having many uninformed voters could lead to damaging results. A representative democracy allows the people to vote for a representative they agree with and allow them to sort out complex issues. It takes less effort than learning about every issue, taking up extra time most people do not have.

In addition, to achieve a direct democracy there would have to be an amendment to the Constitution. This is very hard to achieve, requiring a two-thirds vote from both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states. The Electoral College system gives the power to elect the president to the states, so it is highly unlikely that the states are going to give up that power.