Hands of the People

As the 2024 Presidential election is coming near, something is always brought up. The popular vote and the electoral college. The United States is the only democracy in the world where a presidential candidate can win the popular votes and still lose the election. Because of the Electoral College, this has happened five times in the United States history. The most noticeable and recent was in 2016, when Hillary Clinton got more popular votes than Donald Trump but lost in the Electoral College.

But why did the founding fathers make the electoral college? The founding fathers were deciding how to choose the president for the first time in the world’s history, they were setting a precedent. There were three main reasons why they did not want to have a popular vote. Mainly, they did not trust people in the 18th century to be informed enough to make educated decisions. Second, they feared a headstrong “democratic mob” would steer the country astray. And lastly, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

However, the electoral college also has racist origins. When deciding how many electors to assign to each state, the question of whether the count of enslaved persons should be included as a portion of the count of a state’s total population confounded the authors. in 1787, around 80% of Southerners were enslaved Black people who could not vote, however, Southerners wanted more representatives, and came up with the "three-fifths compromise" where three-fifths of the enslaved Black Population would be counted to allocating representatives and electors and federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Souther States would ratify the

 constitution and gave Virginia, home to more that 200,000 slaves, a quarter of the total electoral votes required to win the president. For 32 of the United States first 36 years, a slave-holding Virginian occupied the White House.

The Electoral College was for a country that has slavery and masses of uneducated voters who would elect demagogues and dictators who would destroy the nation. Mostly, the Founding Fathers’ assumptions proved untrue. When the electoral college was created in 1787, there were no political parties, however today most electors have to vote for their party’s candidate. It was also assumed that each elector’s vote would be counted, however, all but two states passed laws to give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state's popular cote count, and there is no semblance of elector independence. The founding fathers also assumed that most elections would not be decided by the people or the electors, but by the House of Representatives. After George Washington's unanimous election, they believed future elections would feature a large amount of candidates who would divide the electoral pie in smaller pieces, giving Congress a chance to pick the winner, however when political parties formed, the number of candidate shrank. Only two elections have been decided by the House, and the most recent one was in 1824.

When the electoral college was first formed in the United States other countries followed as well. In the Americas, Colombia adopted an electoral college in 1821, Chile adopted one in 1828, Argentina in 1853. In Europe, Finland adopted an electoral college in 1925, and France in 1958. However, over time, these countries changed their minds. All of them abandoned their electoral colleges and switched to directly electing their presidents by popular vote. Colombia switched in 1910, Chile in 1925, France in 1965, Finland in 1994, and Argentina in 1995. The United States is the only democratic country with an electoral college.

Many people argue that the electoral college gives power to smaller states and ensures that that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the President of the United States.

However, I have to disagree because, if anything, it allows swing states to decide instead of the people. In a democracy, the people should have the power to decide who is in or out of the office, it should be in hands of the people. The President should be a representative of and by the people.

Eight years ago I wrote something about the Electoral College.  We have the same opinion about it.