JSRG
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- Apr 14, 2019
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You will often see people say that it's done to make it so that the smaller states have more of a voice in presidential elections, or something about not letting cities not be way more powerful than rural areas. When people say this, they curiously never cite anyone who was involved with making the Constitution ever saying such a thing.
There are, as far as I am aware, only two sources by those involved in the ratification explicitly giving the reason. I could be wrong, but these are the only sources I am aware of; if anyone knows of others, please tell me!
The first is James Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, and the second is the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers, for those unaware, were a series of pamphlets distributed in New York to try to convince people to ratify the constitution that were written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Said papers go into detail on the reasoning behind the different things in the Constitution--or, at least, offer arguments as to why they're good ideas (again, the point of them was to convince people to ratify the Constitution, as it was of much controversy in New York). Madison, Hamilton, and Jay did not sign their names to them (they were published under the name "Publius") so we do not know for sure which person wrote which portions, but based on writing style analysis it is believed that the one that discussed the electoral college was written by Alexander Hamilton.
Let's look at the first source. Here is what James Madison wrote in his notes during the Constitutional Convention concerning the electoral college:
If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance even with an eligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted. He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
Source: Avalon Project - Madison Debates - July 19
So he says here that the big objection to a popular vote was that states that allowed more people to vote would have an advantage, specifically noting how the southern states would be at a disadvantage because the slaves didn't vote, but the electoral college would incorporate them (sort of--for the purpose of apportionment, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person). For obvious reasons, this really no longer works as a rationale.
The Federalist Papers offered another rationale:
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
Source: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-61-70#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493455
It then goes on to give arguments as to why the electoral college is better than simply having a pre-established group like the House of Representatives elect the president, but as our concern is popular vote vs. electoral college, I'll cut it off there. So as we see, the argument for the electoral college was that it would be best to leave it up to "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation" rather than the general populace but that the general populace should still play some role in the decision, hence the indirect election of president by the people.
Much like the explanation concerning slaves, this one hardly works nowadays either. Being someone who is "capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation" is actually a disqualifying factor nowadays for being an elector. Electors are specifically chosen because they are unlikely to do any such deliberations and will simply vote for their party's candidate. Some states even have laws prohibiting electors from voting for anyone other than their pledged candidate. Even if the electoral college originally fulfilled this goal, it certainly doesn't now, and hasn't for quite some time.
So we have two explanations, neither of them applicable in the present day (and neither of them, once again, having anything to do with large states vs small states or urban vs. rural, as you'll see quite a few people claim was the reason for the electoral college).
All that said, there is one argument for the electoral college which seems compelling: What happens if we end up with a razor-thin election on the national level? For a country with a smaller population this wouldn't be such an issue, but the US is the third most populated country in the world, and that would make nationwide recount attempts a nightmare. Neither of the two countries with a higher pouplation than the US have direct election of their leader--China obviously isn't democratic to begin with, but India is and it uses an electoral college system to elect the president. I expect most of the people on this forum are old enough to remember all of the chaos in Florida in 2000--now imagine if it was every state that had to go through that. That to me is the strongest argument for retaining the electoral college.
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