Evening star., 1940-12-01

House, honorary pice chairman: Jar
John J. Doyle, erecutiDe secretary.
TN groups of from 3 to At, there will
l. gather on December 16 at the 48 State
capitals 531 individuals, often party
hacks and political nonentities, who
alone, in population of 131 400, ,881,
possess the legal right to elect a Presi-
dent and Vice President of the United
States. A single exception would arise
in the event that no candidate obtained
a majority of their ballots. Then, from
the three mastering the highest num-
ber of votes for that Office the House of
Representatives could elect a President.
From the two highest on their companion
list, the Senate would choose a Vice
President.
This ghostly chamber is the Electoral
College, which functions for one day
only every four years. The Constitution
provides against its ever meeting as a
body or consulting as a whole. Without
its suffrage, however-save for the con-
/ tingency specified above-no President
or Vice President can lawfully take
Office. Since 1790 1t has survived as q
monument to the distrust of the national
fathers in the wisdom of the masses 1t
is regarded as the outstanding example
of how an unwritten Constitution Of the
United States operates side by side with
the instrument as written, and in many
respects actually supersedes it.
Vote Could Be Abandoned.
The unusual prominence given to the
Electoral College in the recent campaign
aroused widespread curiosity as to this
invisible foundation" Investigators
looking into the subject have encoun-
tered numerous surprises, among which
the following may be noted:
Under the Constitution, it would be
legal to choose President or Vice Presi-
dent without an appeal to the people at
all. They are the only elective officers
of the Federal establishment of whom
this is true.
The States have never relinquished to
the Federal Government Jurisdiction
over the method by which presidential
electors are chosen or over their quali-
f1cations, except that they cannot be
United States Senators or Representa-
tives or Federal oficeholders. Court de-
cisions have held that they must possess
the qualifications of voters in their re-
spective commonwealths.
For three generations, under State
laws, the final choice of electors has
been subjected everywhere to popular
vote. But it is in the power of any
State Legislature to repeal it's statutes
on the subject. The Legislature could
then resume the power it once enjoyed
and name them itself. 1t could author
ize the Governor or any person to do
so. 1t could even empower President
of the United States, standing for re-
election, to nominate the electors who
would decide his candidacy.
If electors obeyed the clear intent of
the Constitution, they would disregard
campaign results and exercise their own
private judgment in the choice of the
country's Chief Magistrates. They are
under no Federal compulsion to act as
registers of election returns, and are
theoretically at liberty to choose Earl
Browder for President and John L. Lewis
for Vice President.
One Case of Betrayal"
Here, as in many other cases, the
unwritten law operates as an effective
restraint. Only once in the Nations his
tory, it is declared, has an elector "be-
trayed" the ticket on which he was
chosen. Samuel Miles of Pennsylvania
was elected as Federalist in 1895, but
voted for Thomas Jefferson. He was
vigorously admonished that he was au-
thorized by his constituents ito act, and
not to think"
Certificates OF electoral ballots are
communicated to Congress by the State
Governors. Nothing in Federal law pre-
vents a Governor from falsifying the
lists or refusing to send them. II, by
this means, President or Vice Pres
ident were elected by fraud, Congress
could do nothing about 1t, according to
Representative Summers, Democrat, Of
Texas, chairman Of the House Judiciary
Committee.
Presidential electors ere named in the
first instance by party committees In the
congressional districts and are later
nominated" at State conventions Of the
parties. Should contest arise-as hap
pened this year in California, with Roose-
welt and Garner tickets In the fleld-the
rival states Of electors fight it out In the
primaries.
Though charged with q crowning re-
sponsibility Of the Federal system. the
members Of the electoral college are
agents of the States and not the central
Government. They serve without pay or
perquisites, except the cost, betrayed by
the States, Of Quadrennial junkets to the
local capitals.
At the rate Of Is cents mile one way,
Congress formerly paid the expense Of
6siiveeing ~ slsetoei bailots = Wash-