Carson City daily appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1907-1930, 1916-11-14
DO AWAY WITH ELECTORAL COLLEGE
New York World.1

New York World
Woodrow Wilson is reelected president of the United States by the
voteso of the American people.
But again the Republicans are making preparations to defeat n the
Electoral College a president whon the American people have elected at
the polls.
Again the American people have received an impressive warning that
the Electoral College is a menace TO the political stability of the United
States.
Even more important at this time than the meaning and the lesson
of President Wilson's reelection is the danger to American peace and
safety which is involved in the conflict that is again created by the exist
nee Of n Electoral College.
Twice has this crude and clumsy piece of mechanism thrown the cleo
ton of a president into the house OF representatives. Once it brought the
country to the verge OF another Civil war. This year it has produced a
situation in which the election OF a president could be turned by a hand
full Of votes in a handful Of states.
The returns from forty-cight states show that President Wilson is
reelected. A majority of the qualified voters of the country at the polls
have so determined. But a trihine error OF tabulation might change the
legal result. The disqualification Of a presidential elector here Or there
might change the legal result. A triAng technieality of the election law
in II state or another might change the resuf. what is worse a ION
test Of this kind, narrowing down to a question OF a few votes in three Oh
four states that are almost evenly balanced, is a temptation to fraud and
corruption which should never be tolerated.
A position now exists in which it is possible for the Republican Ma
tional committee backed by the colossal power of Wall Street money to
keep the presidency in legal doubt until March 4h by challenging the
open for months, the country torn by doubts and party passions and the
government of the United States yrippled in the midst of a world crisis
while the contest proceeds-al because the legal power of election is
vested not in the people but in presidential electors who are not ven
names to the voters who chose them.
The Electoral College is a n undemocraic institution. 1t a. created
in distrust of the ability of the American people to elect a president. The
dent should be delegated to a few superatvely wise and superlatively vr-
tuous trustees who would retire into sanctuares in the various states and
give the country the kind OF a chief magistrate that they thought the
country ought to have.
That theory did not long survive American democracy rejected it
contemptuously and with much ingenuity proceeded to evolve a effective
method for multiplying the Electoral College provision of the constitution.
For more than a century the presidential electors have been only clerks
for the majority in each OF the several states recording the will of the
majority; but recording it under a system which makes it possible for a
minority of the American people to choose the president, and which also
makes it possible for the result to hinge upon accidents and stratagems
that actually defeat the expressed will of the people at the polls.
The president of the United States ought to be elected like a governor
or a senator by the voterst themselves. The majority should determine
regardless OF artificial devices. The Electoral College has been an ana