From: weekslb@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Weeks)
Subject: Re: Electoral C. vs Popular vote
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 20:35:03 GMT

byrd@lucerne.rice.edu (Marc J Byrd) once wrote: 
>In article <1992Nov6.195316.20974@anasazi.com>, best@anasazi.com (Mike Best) writes:
>> The purpose of the Electoral College is NOT to simply elect the
>> candidate who wins the popular vote.  If that were the case then why
>> would the founders have created this institution in the first place?
>> No, there are dreadfully serious reasons for it's existence and I
>> will illustrate just _one_ here for you now.
>
> Since you cannot determine a reason for the founders to have created
> the EC, you assert that is was to prevent majorities from ruling

Federalist LX, penned by Hamilton, touches this topic, as do later
Federalists. Hamilton mentions that all three branches of the federal
government were to be chosen in different manners, in order to
prevent just such a majority taking control, as has happened during
this last election. The House by popular election, the Senate by
state appointment, and the President by a body chosen expressly for
that purpose. We have dismantled this safeguard by making the
Senators directly elected, and now ignorant people speak of removing
the other safeguard and making the President directly elected. Such
folly. Democracy is like wine. It is good in small, controlled
amounts, but too much will lead to your undoing. Res ipsa loquitur.

> (hey, that sounds like democracy!).

You are flawed in your assertion that the process should somehow
"sound like democracy." This union was never intended to be a
national democracy. This is a constitutional republic, as it should
be, though much less one today than originally. You can have your
"one true democracy" in the states. Democracy has become some kind of
magic word in our culture. Some sort of admonition... "Oooooooh,
that's not DEMOCRACTIC!" So what? Large groups of people are
short-sighted animals who tend to think with their stomach, not their
brain, and their government, especially the federal level, should be
above that in some ways. We were given an intelligent form of
government, shame on us for continually wishing to pervert it to suit
our uninformed concepts of "fairness." Democracy means that government
derives its power from the people, the demos, not that we have to
directly elect each twit.

> I always thought the EC was simply a way of conveying states' votes
> to the capital.

Wrong. The people were never intended to vote for a final candidate.
They were to vote for electors, who in turn vote for a candidate to
the Presidency. This body of electors was not to be composed entirely
of supporters of a particular candidate, as most states currently
have. It was to be a general body, like a legislature, chosen for the
express purpose of choosing a President. The size of the body in each
state, and its number of votes, was determined in the fairest way,
namely to be the same as that state's delegation to the federal
government.

Specifically, the Electoral College would be chosen in each state by
popular election. The College would meet and evaluate the various
candidates, and choose the best. Presumably, the College would consist
of educated and intelligent people. Electing the College would be just
like electing the state legislature, only for an express purpose. The
members would vote, and their votes would be transmitted to Congress,
who would tally all votes. A President would be selected.

This idea that the Electoral College is in some way supposed to
represent the popular vote is bogus. There never should have been a
popular vote for the Presidency.

Larry
--
Larry Weeks        | "The American Republic will endure, until
dev@ecn.purdue.edu |  politicians realize they can bribe the people
-------------------+  with their own money." -- Alexis de Tocqueville
"The truly ignorant +-------------------------------------------------
 in our society are those people who would throw away the parts of
 the Constitution they find inconvenient." 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution