THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 138, June 8, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SELECTING THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A.:
WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE DECIDES
By Alan Caruba
THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM & THE PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION PROCESS: THE ROLE OF THE ELECTORAL
COLLEGE IN THE CHOICE OF THE PRESIDENT -- THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN IN THE SELECTION
PROCESS -- HOW THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM DEFUSES POWER & PREVENTS TYRANNY -- THE U.S.A. AS A FEDERAL
REPUBLIC
FULL STORY:
Call it the Gore Curse. In 2000, Albert Gore had a slim margin of popular votes nationwide, until the U.S. Supreme Court shut
down what had already become an endless process of re-counting the votes in Florida. When, as U.S. Vice President and Senate
President, Gore presided over the counting of the Electoral College votes in the presence of a joint session the U.S. Senate
and House of Representatives, it was George W. Bush who was the winner.
That was precisely the way the Founding Fathers intended the election of a President should be. It is also pretty much a
mystery to most voters who assume that whoever gets the most popular votes is the winner.
As U.S. Senator Mitch M. McConnell says in an interesting book on the subject, Securing Democracy: Why We Have
an Electoral College, this unique instrument of the United States Constitution, was “the only thing that kept us from an
even worse national nightmare.”
I recall thinking at the time how calmly Americans accepted the Supreme Court decision and the outcome of the election.
The judges had read the U.S. Constitution!
What many Americans do not realize when they go to the polls is that presidential elections are “state-by-state battles to
accumulate a majority in the Electoral College.” As McConnell explains it:
“When our citizens go to vote, they are technically not voting
directly for President. Rather, they are voting for a slate of
electors who are pledged to vote for a particular presidential
candidate.”
The Constitution is such a devilishly clever — nay, brilliant — instrument of government that I can’t blame the average
citizen for a lack of understanding of it, but its essential principles are not difficult to understand. First, all power resides in
the nation’s citizens. They in turn elect Electoral College and congressional representatives on the basis of population per
state (updated by regularly scheduled census) to conduct the nation’s affairs.
Thus, several weeks after an election, those electors meet in their state capitals where they cast two ballots — one for
President and one for Vice President. Those ballots are then sealed and sent to Congress to be opened and counted in
January. In theory the electors are free to vote for whomever they want. In practice, they are party activists and loyal
supporters of the presidential candidate in their state. All the votes are then counted in a joint session of Congress.
That’s how the President and Vice President are chosen! One candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes cast
to become President. These days, that number is 270, out of 538 total electoral votes. Failure to achieve that would throw
the election into the U.S. House of Representatives, where each state's U.S. Representatives would vote as a state
delegation, not as individuals.
It is ingenious and it reflects the fact that America is a federal republic composed of separate regional republics, the fifty
semi-autonomous states, each of which has a constitution of its own. The U.S. Constitution delineates the specific powers
of and limitations on the U.S. national government, while specifically stating in the Tenth Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people.”
The whole purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to defuse power so that neither the President, nor the Supreme Court, nor
Congress could become a tyranny over the people. It deliberately made the process of passing legislation laborious in
order to slow it down for adequate deliberation and for the people’s voices to be heard.
As Gary L. Gregg II, the editor of Securing Democracy points out:
“Properly understood, the Electoral College and its origins point to
the ideas and values that undergird the entire American constitutional
system, as these were embedded in the foundations of the Electoral
College itself.”
Everything about the Constitution is about the republican form of government that is dependent on “the consent of the
governed.” That implies, as it should, that citizens have a responsibility to be involved as voters and be responsive in
terms of letting their elected representatives know what they wish their government to do.
As the Democratic Party met on Saturday, May 31, to figure out what to do with their horrid primary system that left
Michigan and Florida hanging like so many chads, the argument that Senator Carl Levin of Michigan put forth was that
two nearly all-white states, New Hampshire and Iowa, should not and do not have the right to go first on the primary
calendar and thus force candidates to spend an inordinate amount of time and money in order to influence the other
state primaries.
This is why the nomination process came down to the power of the Democratic Party’s super delegates. It is the Gore
curse. Hillary Clinton may have the popular vote, but Barack Obama has the delegate votes. She could argue she is more
“electable,” but he had worked within the system devised to secure the party’s presidential nomination.
In January 2009, the Electoral College will have the final vote as to who becomes the next President of the United States
of America. This is precisely the outcome the Founding Fathers and the Constitution intended.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity