States Rights and the Electoral College

       
If we were forming a new government today, would include the EC?  I believe so.  We are a nation composed of states.  States have always been important.  In the beginning there were only states; then there was an advantage to having a limited centralized government to deal with foreign governments, fight off pirates, Indians, Britain, France, Spain, etc.  But the rights of states were never to be infringed.  [see our Tenth Amendment:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution ]

The nature of our union at the beginning was a collection of states and that hasn't changed.  Implied in your argument is the idea that states are as anachronistic as the EC.  For if you invite us to form a new government to see if we would choose to have an Electoral college or not, you are putting us back to being individual, independent states, and if we went back to that we would very likely have several states saying that they don't trust the centralized government enough to form a union.  The big reason the states were willing to give up some of their powers in the formation of the United States is because of the threat of the invasion by England.  Some modern states might calculate and decide they can defend themselves against any foreseeable threat and prefer to remain independent.

It may not seem important to non-Americans, but States still have their separate identities and will not go willingly into oblivion.  Part of the deal was that despite not having as many people as the big states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, they would get a minimum number of electoral votes, just as they would get two senators, and an additional number based upon a formula derived from population.   The small states became part of the Union with the understanding that their rights would not be infringed and they were especially interested in their role in the national government. 

In the beginning electors voted for two people and the one with the most votes became president.  The one with the second most votes became vice president.  As it happened however the vice president always got as many votes as the president so a Constitutional Change was required.  The 12th amendment was created to deal with this matter.  https://www.google.com/search?q=12th+amendment&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

The smaller states exude some sour grapes over this amendment because it lessened their power.  It was a big deal when they got to gather around with the big states' electors and decide who was going to be president and who vice president.   In fact that is how Jefferson became president and Burr vice president.  It was a close call.  There could have been a President Burr instead of a President Jefferson.  But after the 12th amendment that couldn't happen.  The various parties would decide that in advance.  This lessened the power of the electors and gave those wanting to ban them a bit of ammunition:  "since they aren't as important as they used to be let's get rid of them altogether."

The states are still jealous of their individual powers, whittled away though they have been by the Supreme Court and various central government administrations.   But thanks to the Founding Fathers the powers and individual rights of the states cannot all be swept away.  A state cannot seize to exist any more than it can leave the union without significant difficulties.  And, it should be known that the small states still resent the larger states telling them what to do.  And as our nation has developed so many cities with such huge concentrations of people, the small rural-type town as well as states especially resent being told what to do by people who live in big cities and big states.

What you are proposing is in effect telling small states that since they don't have as many people as larger states their previous guarantee of a certain number of electors is hereby revoked.  Popular vote henceforth will trump the guarantees given states under the constitution.  They will not have as big a voice in the selection of the chief executive as hitherto.

Here is what it would take to get rid of the electoral college:  (1) it requires a constitutional amendment.  (2) Any constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and (3) the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.  In some future (Democratic administration; since they (traditionally) own the big cities)  one can imagine the house and senate voting to end the EC, but what could induce the small states to vote away this power?   Can you imagine them saying, "Come on big cities and big states, you take all the power and rule over us.  We are an anachronism and shouldn't have as much power in the central government as we used to."

Our Founding Fathers, when they created the Constitution and Bill of Rights, strove to balance the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government such that not only could no branch rule over the other branches but that the states and individual citizens should not have their rights infringed.  They did not build into the constitution the ability of the centralized government to infringe the rights of the individual states.  See our tenth amendment:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Our constitution did not specifically deny the right of a state to secede.  During our Civil War 16th states seceded.  The Supreme Court declared that each state by joining the union made their part in the Union unalterable except by a change in the constitution.  The various secessionist movements in the U.S. seem to concede that:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States  

Pertaining to the electoral college

Here is a site  (and written by by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration) providing background about the electoral college:  http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_history.php  specifically,

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.

Here is a U.S. government provided PDF file on the electoral college:  https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/The%20Electoral%20College%20(Jan.%202011).pdf    Note especially the conclusion:

The Electoral College has worked well for 56 elections with the exception of a few historical

anomalies. Even in close elections, it gives one candidate a majority of electoral votes with

which to claim a mandate to govern. While it is not a direct election of the president, the public

has significant influence in the outcome and much more than in parliamentary systems in which

  the executive is chosen by the ruling political party.

Aside from modest statutory changes, the Electoral College has not been structurally changed

by Constitutional amendment since 1804. There have been attempts to change or abolish the

Electoral College through the years. Still, while the Electoral College may be a system that

  some people today and the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention regarded as
  imperfect, it remains likely the way Americans will continue to elect their president.

Note also this Washington Post in a November 9th article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/09/getting-rid-of-the-electoral-college-dream-on-democrats/  specifically,

. . . If Trump wins every state left -- Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire -- he could even win by more than 100 electoral votes, 320-218. Take Minnesota away, and it's still 310-228 -- a very big margin.

So you can bet that there are a whole bunch of Democrats right now that would like to put an end to this whole electoral college thing.

The bad news: They have virtually no power to make that happen -- and even if they did have any power, it'd be immensely difficult.

The electoral college, after all, is enshrined in our Constitution, which means getting rid of it requires a constitutional amendment. That's a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.

Democrats not only lost the presidency on Tuesday; they failed to win a majority in the Senate and didn't gain as much ground in the House as they had hoped. The idea that this would even be brought up in a GOP-controlled Congress -- much less approved with a two-thirds majority in both chambers -- just isn't in the cards. And even if it passed that congressional threshold, 38 states aren't going to ratify it. Red states won't like the idea because it's been a perceived boon to Republicans, and swing states won't like it because it means they lose their prized status in the presidential campaign.

Such efforts have also been tried -- unsuccessfully, of course -- several times before.
 

COMMENTS:
1)  Of the elections wherein the candidate winning the electoral college majority did not win the popular vote, the election of 1828 may not be pertinent to modern times because both Adams and Jackson were at the time in the same party.  The Hayes-Tilden 1876 election may also not be pertinent since it involved the deal that gave the presidency to Republican Hayes in return for the end of reconstruction in the south.  The election of 1888 in which Harrison got 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 145 may also not be pertinent to the modern discussions because Harrison was a Democrat.  If you follow my reasoning here we are left with just two elections which disturb some modern voters, the 2000 election in which Gore got about 500,000 more popular votes than Bush but lost the electoral college vote by 266 to Bush's 271.   And the current election in which Clinton got 232 electoral votes to Trump's 290; although I can't tell if Michigan's votes are being counted in the 290.  They seem to be still counting up there.  The current Michigan count is 2,279,221 for Trump vs 2,267,298 for Clinton with 100% reporting; so I don't know why the election map at http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president doesn't show Michigan as having allocated its 16 electoral college votes for Trump.

2)   It seems more than coincidence that those arguing most stridently for the elimination of the electoral college at the president time are Democrats, the losers of the current election.  These Democrats preponderantly inhabit the big cities which of necessity require greater bureaucracies to run than the smaller outlying cities and towns.  These smaller cities and towns might understandably view such attempts to get rid of the electoral college with alarm.  It might seem and in fact be the case that the larger cities wish to tell the smaller cities and towns how to behave, and this was one of the concerns at the very beginning.  Note Thomas Jefferson's comments on July 30, 31 Aug 1st in regard to the Articles of Confederations ) page 28 in Library of America's Thomas Jefferson, Writings:  This isn't quite the same thing, but inasmuch as it pertains to article 17 (i.e., how to amend the constitution) of the constitution it touches not only on the thinking at the time but something of what would need to be involved to eliminate the electoral college:

"Present 41 members.  Mr Chase observed that this article was the most likely to divide us of any one proposed in the draught [sic] then under consideration.  That the larger colonies had threatened they would not confederate at all if their weight in congress should not be equal to the numbers of people they added to the confederacy; while the smaller ones declared against a union if they did not retain an equal vote for the protection of their rights.  That it was of the utmost consequence to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation & independence would render us a miserable people.  That our importance, our interests, our peace required that we should confederate, and that mutual sacrifices should be made to effect a compromise of this difficult question.  He was of opinion that smaller colonies would lose their rights, if they were not in some instances allowed and equal vote; and therefore that a discrimination should take place among the questions which would come before Congress.  That the smaller states should be secured in all questions concerning life or liberty & the greater ones in all respecting property.  He therefore proposed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants."


3)   Here is a site that shows how the nations of the world elect their leaders:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_by_country    While it was said  someplace that I shouldn't consider Germany in this regard, I have to consider them this one last time inasmuch as this site lists Germany's means for selecting its leader as an "Electoral College." 

I did a further check to see how European nations voted in their leaders.  Not as many use direct vote as one might think.   I used this site:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_by_country

4) I have heard the argument that the US electoral college system is old and obsolete and should therefore be abolished and replaced with the Direct system of selecting our leader, but look at our European models.  One might reasonably argue that a "Monarchy" is an even older and more obsolete system then the one we use in the U.S.  Are there movements in each of these monarchies to abolished them and replace them with a modern system?  Possibly.  I know there are such movements in Japan, but the emperor as also the Queen of England, remains.  May our electoral college not like them remain as well?
Lawrence

A German view of our electoral college

Someone wrote, "Among the points it would make is that it is inadequate to use the notion of "Republic" as trumping "Democracy" - or many tacit versions of this notion: whether based on the history, evolution and theoretical underpinnings of the US political system and its constitution. We need to look at the underlying merits (rather than presenting certain kinds of fact as if they, without further ado, constitute adequate justification)." 

I don't think "trumping 'democracy'" is a valid concept.  Our form of government is a Republic and we use democratic means for electing our electors.  Behind the elector concept, something I didn't mention in my previous note, is the idea that the people au naturale are subject to demigods.  The 18th century "founding fathers" didn't trust the gullibility of the ordinary citizen who got to vote.   So perhaps if you want to enter into the United States experience and argue that the electoral college ought to be done away with by an amendment of the constitution, and this is true even though no one believes that you could get something like 2/3 or 3/4 of the states to vote for such an amendment, you would want to show that the American people today aren't as gullible and easily influenced as their 18th century predecessors.  I would be very interested in such an argument for I myself could not make one.  Our ordinary citizens seem to me at least as gullible and perhaps even more so than their 18th century predecessors.  Perhaps the electors don't debate the choices before them, but they could, and at least once did in the case of Hayes vs Tilden for the good of the country, or at least the good of the South by making the end of Reconstruction as part of the deal.   There are three million signatures thus far on the petition intended by die-hard Hillery followers to be presented to the electors in hope they will over-turn the Trump victory.  Hillary herself (from all reports I've seen) on the other hand has conceded defeat and is moving on.  But not even the Democrats aren't saying that the pure popular vote "trumps" the electoral college mediation.

Further down you write, "Without going further in the merits and demerits of the current US system, I do not think Lawrence's comments about the "Republic" and its relation to "Democracy" amount to anything like an adequate defence of that current US 'electoral college' system on the merits. That such comments may suit Republicans for the purpose of defending the recent outcome is, frankly, neither here nor there as far as the true underlying merits are concerned. (Fwiw, we may bet what Trump would be saying if he had won the popular vote but lost the 'electoral college'; and what he might be saying to protestors against Clinton.)" 

You should probably rephrase this to some extent because I don't think our form of government needs a "defense."   We developed the first modern democracy and all those in the west and elsewhere followed our model to some extent.  Francis Fukuyama decided upon the term "Liberal democracy" to encompass the Western nations and those others such as Japan and South Korea who have been influenced by our systems.  Fukuyama, an American, doesn't find it necessary (at least in the books by him that I've read) to rehash the details of our voting system.  He bases his devinition upon the particular freedoms that we enjoy.  Our Bill of Rights was something else adopted to a greater or lesser extent.  Nations where citizens have these rights and freedoms are considered "Liberal Democracies."    Notice that while the United States considers itself a "Republic", Britain with most of the same rights and freedoms and considered a "Liberal Democracy" by Fukuyama calls itself a "Constitutional Monarchy."   Are there some in Britain who want to get rid of Monarchy in a similar fashion to those in the U.S. who want to get rid of the Electoral College system?  As it happens there are. 

The British and German people don't get to vote directly for their Prime Ministers.  Have they need a defense of their systems?

I scrolled down several times to see who was responsible for the following site but my computer kept locking up.  In any case the distinctions it present between Republics and Democracies seem . . . valid:  http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democracy_vs_Republic

On the U.S. Electoral College

Wikipedia explains things as follows:
The Constitutional Convention in 1787 used the Virginia Plan as the basis for discussions, as the Virginia delegation had proposed it first. The Virginia Plan called for the Congress to elect the president.^[14] Delegates from a majority of states agreed to this mode of election.^[15] However, a committee formed to work out various details including the mode of election of the president, recommended instead the election be by a group of people apportioned among the states in the same numbers as their representatives in Congress (the formula for which had been resolved in lengthy debates resulting in the Connecticut Compromise and Three-Fifths Compromise), but chosen by each state "in such manner as its Legislature may direct." Committee member Gouverneur Morris explained the reasons for the change; among others, there were fears of "intrigue" if the president were chosen by a small group of men who met together regularly, as well as concerns for the independence of the president if he was elected by the Congress.^[16] Some delegates, including James Wilson and James Madison, preferred popular election of the executive. Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to get consensus on the proposal given the prevalence of slavery in the South:

There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.^[17]

The Convention approved the Committee's Electoral College proposal, with minor modifications, on September 6, 1787.^[18] Delegates from the small states generally favored the Electoral College out of concern large states would otherwise control presidential elections.^[19]
In The Federalist Papers, James Madison explained his views on the selection of the president and the Constitution. In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two modes.^[20] Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68 laid out the key advantages to the Electoral College. The electors come directly from the people and them alone for that purpose only, and for that time only. This avoided a party-run legislature, or a permanent body that could be influenced by foreign interests before each election.^[21]
Alexander Hamilton explained the election was to take place among all the states, so no corruption in any state could taint "the great body of the people" in their selection. The choice was to be made by a majority of the Electoral College, as majority rule is critical to the principles of republican government. Hamilton argued, electors meeting in the state capitals were able to have information unavailable to the general public. No one who is an elector can be a U.S. officeholder, so none of the electors would be immediately beholden to a given presidential candidate.^[21]
Another consideration was the decision would be made without "tumult and disorder", as it would be a broad-based one made simultaneously in various locales where the decision-makers could deliberate reasonably, not in one place, where decision-makers could be threatened or intimidated. If the Electoral College did not achieve a decisive majority, then the House of Representatives were to choose the president, and the Senate the vice president, selecting among the top five candidates, ensuring selection of a presiding officer administering the laws would have both ability and good character.^[21]
Additionally, in the Federalist No. 10, James Madison argued against "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction" in an electoral system. He defined a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." What was then called republican government (i.e., federalism, as opposed to direct democracy), with its varied distribution of voter rights and powers, would countervail against factions. Madison further postulated in the Federalist No. 10 that the greater the population and expanse of the Republic, the more difficulty factions would face in organizing due to such issues as sectionalism.^[22]
Although the United States Constitution refers to "Electors" and "electors," neither the phrase "Electoral College" nor any other name is used to describe the electors collectively. It was not until the early 19th century the name "Electoral College" came into general usage as the collective designation for the electors selected to cast votes for president and vice president. The phrase was first written into federal law in 1845 and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. § 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors."^[23]

Perhaps Germans don't like our electoral college and think they have a better hold of how best to vote (although they have an electoral college of their own).  In any case we have a system that has worked for us for a long time.   Would it be appropriate for the leader of one of the competing parties to declare, "I reject the Electoral College system and will declare myself president if I win the popular vote"?  Well, Tilden seems to have done that in a sense (see below), but Hillary never said anything like that.  She and her team strove to get at least 270 electoral college votes because she knew as everyone who has striven to be the American president has known that the popular vote by itself isn't going to get one elected president.  Usually the one who wins the electoral college vote also wins the popular vote but not always. 

There was a time when many of the original States behaved, some of the time, as though they were independent nations.  But the solution we decided upon  provided a system that would allow these independent states to "unite."    Although no provision was made to prevent any state from succeding until after the Northern States defeated the Southern in a Civil War.

This is the fifth time in American History that the winner of the electoral college vote did not win the popular vote.  Read about the other times here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_where_winner_lost_popular_vote

The election of 1876 contended by Hayes and Tilden was the most acrimonious -- even worse than the Bush/Gore controversy. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ugliest-most-contentious-presidential-election-ever-28429530/?no-ist   It is possible for the electors to declare Hillary the winner and over-rule the "popular" votes in the states that selected Trump as the winner.  A decision was made in 1876 to the effect that if the electoral college would declare Hayes the winner, the North would end reconstruction and pull its troops out of the South.  Tilden had plenty of support in objecting to this agreement:  "

While Hayes and the Republicans presumptively claimed rights to victory, Tilden proved to be a timid fighter and discouraged his party from challenging the commission’s decision. Instead, he spent more than a month preparing a report on the history of electoral counts—which, in the end, had no effect on the outcome.
“I can retire to public life with the consciousness that I shall receive from posterity the credit of having been elected to the highest position in the gift of the people,” Tilden said after his defeat, “without any of the cares and responsibilities of the office.”
His health did indeed fail him shortly after the election. He died in 1886 a wealthy man, leaving $3 million to the New York Public Library."