A lot of discourse regarding the National Popular Vote movement has come to the forefront of political discussion the last weeks, in Minnesota and elsewhere. Since this is a serious issue with serious potential consequences, it requires an equally thoughtful and researched response. Using historical foundation, I seek to explain why the Electoral College was considered a superior method for choosing the President over the considered alternatives in 1787 Philadelphia. Additionally, I will illustrate some of the negative ramifications for adopting the type of system proposed by National Popular Vote in the contemporary.
The founders largely feared democracy because they believed it would lead to an environment in which a majority could out-legislate minority faction and deprive them of liberty. I have written before about how democracy was viewed, even by the Federalists (supporters of the Constitution), as a flawed system which would amount to mob rule. James Madison put it this way:
“Democracy is the most vile form of government. … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
The National Popular Vote, in all of its intents and stated goals, enacts this type of control and incorporates it as an axiom over the United States presidential elections. It does so without regard to the interest of rural areas and places without large population centers. It does this without respect to what the founders said and wrote about the superiority of the Electoral College. The argument that this system would be “more democratic” should not be a reason to embrace it.
I’d like to provide some background regarding the Electoral College and why it was considered superior to other considered approaches for presidential elections.
The Electoral College was seen as a great compromise between various factions in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. The original proposal offered by James Madison and Edmund Randolph’s Virginia Plan would have emulated the Virginia system by allowing the Congress to appoint the President directly. Others, such as James Wilson of Pennsylvania, initially favored a direct popular election. Still others wished for the majority of the state legislatures to choose the President, much like they originally chose Senators.
Direct election of the President was not rejected because the founders doubted the public intelligence of the inhabitants of the states. Instead, they feared that without sufficient information about the candidates from other states (especially those which did not visit their own state), individuals would naturally vote for regional candidates. At that time, people were largely unaware of the records or reputations of candidates from outside of their own state. Even by James Monroe’s presidency, most did not even know what the President looked like.
Elbridge Gerry chimed in on the potential for a popular election of the President at the Philadelphia Convention:
“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.”
George Mason, now known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” made a comment suggesting that letting national elections decide the President would amount to letting a blind man choose colors.
When Wilson’s advocacy for a popular vote system was strongly rebuked by those of Gerry’s persuasion, he and the “Committee of Eleven” proposed a system which became the Electoral College on June 2nd in Philadelphia.
As such, Randolph and Madison’s Virginia Plan suffered a calculated defeat and the Electoral College won out.
The Electoral College was seen as a beneficial conciliation because political parties were unforeseen at the time of the Constitution’s inception, so many believed that few would ever obtain the requisite amount of electoral votes to be elected. As a result, George Mason remarked that in 19 out of 20 times, the House of Representatives would probably end up choosing the President. Still, provided a candidate did get the proper amount of electors, the Electoral College would allow the electors of the states to decide the race. Delegates from the small states generally favored the Electoral College, since they earnestly believed that large states would otherwise control each presidential election.
Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who penned much of the actual text of the Constitution, spoke of the benefits to this system on September 4:
“As the Electors would vote at the same time throughout the U. S. and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided. It would be impossible also to corrupt them.”
Morris realized that winning over geographic coalitions was a less corrupt model than allowing the smallest and most populous areas to form what he called a “cabal” to decide such things.
The founders, even those which initially proposed different models for presidential elections, never intended for the entirety of the system to be supplanted through the cession of electoral votes to national think tanks or the mechanisms of distribution developed by them.
It has been suggested that this system would not eradicate the Electoral College at all, since the states have this power according to Article I. However, the paramount goal of those who advocate this system is to replace the Electoral College entirely, and for each state to adopt this approach. In doing so, it is effectively a “backdoor” way of amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College entirely. The advocates behind this undertaking know that an actual constitutional amendment to do so would be unpopular and would ultimately be rejected, so they have embarked upon this path instead.
The supporters of National Popular Vote have sold this methodology as something which would empower the states, by allocating the electoral votes in a way they see fit. In truth, it would not, since it willingly diverts sovereignty and dominion over this power to entities that don’t even reside within the state. It uses criteria for distribution decided upon in advance by political interests, many of which are funded by those who would like nothing more for urban areas to have even more influence and control over national elections. As Gouverneur Morris and others prophetically highlighted, such an arrangement was to be reviled.
The system used to allocate electoral votes under the National Popular Vote movement is no more superior to any other system. Would apportioning the electoral votes based on what all owners of Ford cars within a state believed be considered an appropriate policy? One that understands the tenets of a republican form of government should think not. The system proposed would give full deference to what metropolitan cities think rather than states of lesser population believe, reducing those who live in smaller areas to an inferior condition. It perceives the Constitution as the centerpiece to a national government, rather than the compact between states that it is and was always meant to be.
Make no mistake: Minnesota has the constitutional authority to choose its electors and devote its elector votes the way it sees fit. However, the manner through which the National Popular Vote seeks for it to do so would be counterproductive to the sovereign interests of Minnesota and our republic. It ensures that presidential candidates will spend literally no time trying to win over our state or its people, and guarantees that the contestants will be surrounded by the interests of places like New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. The will of the people of Minnesota should always supersede the moneyed interests behind this effort.
