The Electoral College: Why it Matters

There’s been a lot of talk in the last few weeks about the Electoral College, as usually happens after an election, particularly an election like this one, where it was so close that the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the Electoral College vote.  People talk about how that shouldn’t be possible and argue that it’s a bad system, but I don’t agree, and I know plenty of other people, some of whom are smarter than I, who agree with me.

The Electoral College itself is fairly simple.  It’s a process wherein each party selects a number of electors in each state who cast votes on behalf of the people of that state.  The number of electors a state receives is equal to the number of congresspersons that each state has.  Every state has two Senators, so that’s your baseline.  Maine, for instance, with 5 Electoral College votes, has two senators and three representatives.  California of course has two senators and holds a whopping 53 seats in the House, and thus has 55 Electoral College votes.  This is because the number of Representatives a state has is based on population; a more populous state will have more representatives.

So when we cast our votes for president, we’re in a sense voting for which set of electors will get to vote.  And 48 of the 50 states have a winner takes all policy where the EC is concerned.  This is where some people get tripped up, because the winner take all system means that candidates win on a state-by-state basis and not by a strict popular vote count.  Some question how this is a fair system.

To really understand this, I think you have to consider how you think about the United States of America.  We think of ourselves as one big country, and certainly, we are, but what does statehood mean?  What is a state?  Is it just a geographic locality?  Or is it something a little more?  Merriam-Webster offers several definitions.  Only two are applicable to the United States:

Obviously No. 7, but that one is kind of useless, like saying the definition of a can is “a thing in a six-pack.”  I’m going with No. 5, which is a bit more specific.  Of course this is all just definitions, so let’s look at the founding documents of our country.

The Constitution on its own does not define our nation; rather there is a continuity of founding documents that define it, beginning with the Declaration of Independence and moving through the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.

There have been a great many debates, and even some legal cases, on this subject, but my brand of patriotism says that to fully understand the Constitution you have to consider the full continuity; especially since the Constitution, in opening with a line about forming “a more perfect union,” references the Articles of Confederation.  Reaching back, then, to the Declaration, Jefferson wrote that “these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Under Article 2 of the Articles of Confederation it was elaborated that, “Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation, expressly delegated to the United States, in congress assembled.”

This is echoed in the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

As you know, your state has its own laws, its own police force, its own governor and legislative body.  Its own court system.  These must all meet the basic guidelines established by Federal Law in the Constitution, but states are also given leeway to make their own laws according to the will of the people who occupy those states.

In effect, the United States is exactly that: a group of free and sovereign states, banded together for economic gain, security, and defense.  The Articles of Confederation gave states more leeway than they currently have, down to each state having its own money, and there being no federal law enforcement at that time, crime was out of control, there were economic problems, and things were generally a mess.  So the Constitution is in effect a revision of the Articles of Confederation, a new system that is more complex, more detailed, and in some ways more restrictive.  But it unifies the states economically and by law.

The states also ratified the constitution, thereby freely entering into the union.  Viewed in this way, the constitution may be seen as a contract between free states that have agreed to abide by a set of rules for their mutual benefit, another through-line that began with the Declaration and continues through each successive document.  That being the case, it makes sense that presidential candidates must win whole states, in order to win the presidency.  To only count the popular vote means that the states themselves don’t matter, and that’s dangerous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it would favor the will of people in more populous states, like California, over a state like Wyoming.  That’s why the popular vote is kind of irrelevant in a close election.

That’s also why even though California’s population is 66 times greater than Wyoming’s, they only have 11 times the number of Electoral College votes.  What this does is create a balance, by letting the less populated states still have a voice.  And that’s important, because a voter in LA and a voter in Manhattan may have certain things that matter to them, but I’m pretty sure a coal miner in Kentucky couldn’t possibly care less what either of them says.  Consider the states as separate, yet contractually linked and having the same rights, and you understand why the population of the individual state shouldn’t necessarily determine the outcome of a national election.

Consider that each of the original thirteen colonies was founded by a different group of people having come here for different reasons.  If you were a puritan in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Quaker in Pennsylvania, a Catholic in Maryland or a Virginian who just got shipped over to find economic opportunity…you had different goals, different values.  That informs how each colony developed, and the identity of each of those states, even to this day, is what it is because of that.  Even as we move forward, knowing where we came from and how we got where we are is useful.  You can’t plot a journey if you don’t have a beginning and an end point.  You can’t map progress without these fixed points.  The past matters.  It matters on a national level, but it must also matter on a state level.  The idea that each state should be able to determine, within reason, what its own needs are and how best to meet them, is only natural.  This is particularly valuable in modern America, as we have so many different cultures represented within our borders, whose values and traditions vary, that the voices of individual groups matter as much as the voice of the majority.

This is why we have congressional districts, and why we have representation in congress.  It is also why every state has its own legislature, its own judicial branch, and its own executive branch.  You have a voice within your state, and a voice within the Federal government, and a national election must observe that hierarchy.  You vote as a citizen of your state, which is a member of the union, as opposed to voting as a citizen of the country on the whole, if that makes sense.  The system honors the sovereignty of the states, and in this way the diversity of the American people.

We talk a lot about changing things in this country, about rearranging our government, and hell, nothing could be more quintessentially American.  But it’s useful to understand what things are, and why they exist, before you get too deep into that conversation, else you say little of value.

What do you think?  Feel free to comment below and let me know.  I welcome intelligent discussion here.  Just stay respectful to others who may comment as well.