Dakota Beacon

Our Founding Fathers were smart, educated and wise. They took to heart the sentiments of the Roman philosopher, statesman and lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero when he said, “Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing is more obscure than human intentions, nothing is more deceptive than the whole electoral system.”

Whereas Article 1 of the US Constitution establishes the legislative or law-making branch of government, Article 2 sets up the executive branch of government. The Constitution gives executive power and responsibility to the President. How the President acquires his office is also spelled out in the Constitution though, embarrassingly, many citizens cannot describe how or why.

Checks and balances were intended not only between branches of government. They extended to the selection of elected officials as well. The Founding Fathers feared the tyranny of the 51% (mob rule) as much as they feared centralized government (a king). For this reason they instituted checks on the popular will. That, in good measure, is why we elect the President and Vice President through the Electoral College rather than by popular vote.

Our Founders debated the Constitutional balance between federalism and pure democracy time and again. They feared tyranny in any form acquired by any means. In Federalist #39 James Madison postulated that the Constitution intended our government to be state-based as well as popular-based. Alexander Hamilton explained the rationale in Federalist #68. Congress had a state-based Senate. State legislatures chose their states’ US Senators (at least until the 17th Amendment changed the Constitution in 1913). The people, on the other hand, chose a popular-based House. The President and Vice President would be elected by a combination of the popular vote and federalism expressed in the Electoral College.

Two explanations are given for the creation of the Electoral College. First, as mentioned above, our Founding Fathers had a healthy suspicion of the popular vote.

Second, the Electoral College provided a compromise to settle a dispute at the Constitutional Convention over the lack of power the less populated states had in choosing the President. Without the Electoral College, small states would always be dominated by states with large populations. North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana would be at a perpetual and distinct disadvantage in a popular vote.

Every state has a number of electors equal to its combined number of Senators and Representatives. Each state selects electors on a winner-take-all basis based on the statewide popular vote. Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, voters actually are choosing the electors for their state. The electors are pledged to cast their vote for President and Vice President based on the popular vote.

A word of caution is in order. Citizens should not confuse Electoral College electors with delegates selected by political parties at state conventions who participate at national conventions. Using North Dakota as an example, ND voters choose their electors when voting for a presidential candidate. The North Dakota Century Code 16.1-14-04 states …”presidential electors shall meet at one p.m. in the office of the governor in the state capitol on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointments by election….”

Beware the hue and cry to abolish the Electoral College. Liberals and progressives would love to stack the deck by manipulating the popular vote, reinforcing it with illegal aliens, allowing anyone and everyone to vote unchallenged and keeping school students ignorant of American Constitutional history.

Some argue the Electoral College does not reflect the national will. In the 2000 presidential election Bush won 271 electoral votes of the 270 required. Gore gained 266 electoral votes even though he won the popular vote. Others list encountering “faithless” electors. This has happened 158 times in our history in which electors broke their pledge. Still others say there is a risk of depressing voter turnout (“my vote doesn’t count so why vote?”).

What if the Electoral College vote results in a tie? The presidential contest then moves to the House of Representatives. The House would choose among the top three electoral vote-getters. In the current contest this would mean the contingent vote would be taken in the incoming 115^th Congress to be seated January 3, 2017. This process occurred once before in 1824. John Quincy Adams won the House vote even though Andrew Jackson won the popular vote. Interestingly, this happened during the break-up of the old Democrat Party leading to the eventual formation of the Republican Party.

The likelihood of abolishing the Electoral College is nil. It would require amending the Constitution. That would require support of 2/3 of Congress or 2/3 of the state legislatures to call a Constitutional Convention. Then, 3/4 of the state legislatures would have to ratify the proposed amendment. Again, the likelihood of that happening is nil.

What better illustration of the Founding Fathers’ wisdom in dealing with the fallacy of pure democracy than their solution of federalism when drafting the US Constitution?

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)