By Steve
Farrell
web posted
Entrusting political power
to imperfect human beings is rarely a safe idea. Such power tends to swell the head,
corrupt the manner, afflict the soul and eventually make war on the neighbor of
everyone who tastes of it. This is just as true whether those who possess such
power consist of the one, the few, or the many. It’s human nature. And human
nature has never changed.
Because the
My last
piece brought to the stand American Founders Edmund Randolph,
Elbridge Gerry and James Madison to testify that the natural byproduct of
democracy is socialism. This they knew to be true because any form of “absolute
power,” will as the maxim declares, “tend to corrupt absolutely.” Democracy is
absolute power in the hands of the majority - a majority who will eventually,
especially in times of moral decline, vote to themselves advantages over
minorities.
By minority, the Founders
meant almost anything. It could refer to the rich, the merchant, the small
state, the immigrant, the unpopular religious sect or viewpoint, or a thousand
other things.
But the Founders had a
cure, a mixed republic, which ingeniously created various centers of powers,
divisions of powers and modes of representation, with two objects in mind:
Number one, to reach out and represent as many groups as possible (generally in
broad sweeps); and number two, to make it extremely difficult for any one group
to ever become a majority over all the others.
This is the genius of
republicanism: to prevent the people from producing “a mandate” for government,
but rather keep the government so locked up in gridlock that competing power
centers will only come together on policies which are universally acceptable to
all. (See Federalist 51) The electoral college was part of this plan, and it
was a brilliant idea.
Today, this column will
briefly look at how the electoral college helps protect three minority groups
from the tyranny of the majority: Small states, rural cultural/religious
values, and minority ethnic groups.
The Founders considered at
least 10 different plans to elect the president (the subject of an upcoming
essay), only one of which was by the direct election of the people. But as we
know, the one which stuck was the indirect election of the president by
electors chosen by the states.
The formula mirrors the
representative plan for each state in the U.S. Congress. Each state, therefore,
is guaranteed two electoral votes ( as per their two votes in the U.S. Senate);
plus additional electoral votes apportioned according to the size of the
state’s population as determined in the Census (as per their assigned slots in
the U.S. House). The numbers are identical. If your state’s congressional delegation
consists of two U.S. House members and two
This feature was
incorporated consistent with the “Great Compromise” in the Constitutional
Convention over congressional representation. That is, each state’s two votes
in the Senate protect the sovereignty of the smaller states (an equality of
states rule), while each state’s proportional representation in the House favor
fairness for the larger states (an inequality of states rule).
This is a republican
governmental feature which forces at least one of the candidates, usually both,
to seek broad support, rather than local or regional support, which in turns
tends to favor the protection of state sovereignty, the cultural and religious
values of rural
Let’s discuss these.
Rights of Small States
As just stated, one half of
the electoral formula is proportional, as mentioned, while the other half - the
two votes - is not. This equality gives smaller states a disproportionate
advantage and thus a check on the interests of the larger states.
Individually, this two vote
small state check on larger states is helpful, collectively, the small state
check can be powerful. William C. Kimberling, deputy director, Federal Election
Commission, Office of Election Administration, gives us an example:
“In 1988 ... the combined
voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdiction of
Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College
(21 electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of
Florida. Each Floridian’s potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight
of a potential vote in the other States listed.”
This Electoral College feature
protects small states. Leave it alone.
Rural Cultural and Religious Values
Because of the above
example, a need for candidates to find a message that appeals to smaller but
collectively valuable population centers is created. This has another positive
effect, it protects rural cultural and religious values. Yet, some of you may
ask, why is that important?
Thomas Jefferson believed that
it was on the farm, on the ranch and in small-town
We only have to observe the
elitist lifestyles, on the one hand, and the rampant crime, moral decay,
welfare enrollment percentages and lower public school performance levels, on
the other hand, in the big cities, to understand that
For a free people to long
survive, the bedrock values of virtue, religion and education - more prevalent in
rural communities – must sufficiently offset their opposites. Inasmuch as the
Electoral College permits rural states to band together and wield an influence
disproportionate to their numbers, this Jeffersonian wish is accomplished
through the electoral college.
And it does work. Consider
how the big city, liberal, gun control advocates of the Democratic Party were,
by their own admission, forced to back down this election because the rural
campaign trail unveiled a different perspective, that is the prospect of
hundreds and hundreds of small towns where people use guns responsibly for
hunting, target practicing and self defense. Similarly, how the Republican
candidate was persuaded to take a public stand against abortion, because his
electoral base was projected to be strongest in rural
This Electoral College
feature protects small town cultural and religious values. Leave it alone.
At the National Democratic
Convention, in April of 1860, Yancy gave one of the world’s most famous
orations. In it he stated: “Constitutions are made solely for the protection of
the minorities in government, and for the guidance of majorities.”
Ethnic minorities, are one of
those minority groups which must be protected.
An example of how the Electoral
College helps is found in the September 30th –
“Latinos cluster in some of
the most populous, and, therefore electorally desirable, states.
Think about this. Latinos
make up 11.7 percent of the population, but are a strong voting block that must
be addressed in 61 percent of the electoral votes. This does not mean, that
they will be the only group addressed in those cities, and thus capable of
forcing policy on the majority, but it does mean, that their concerns, like
everyone else’s, had better be addressed by the candidates. And they were.
This Electoral College
feature helps protect minority rights. Leave it alone.
The Founders in their
wisdom devised a representative plan, which although imperfect, does a better
job than any other political machinery in the world to address and protect the
across-the-board interests of a nation. Or, in other words, it does this in a
manner, said Madison, “[which comprehends] in ... society so many separate
descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of
the whole very improbable, if not impracticable.”
It is republican government
at its best. The idea is to protect liberty for all, not just for the majority
– to preserve liberty for a millennium, not just for a decade. Let’s be smart,
and leave the Electoral College alone.
Steve Farrell is a
freelance writer, a graduate of the University of New York, and a
constitutional law student at
Campus Christians