We Need the Electoral College Now More Than Ever | RealClearPolitics

If you’ve ever puzzled why America wants the Electoral College, the state-by-state course of for electing a president, look no additional than the indignant mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Without it, contested elections, large political protests, and civil unrest would possible happen with a lot larger frequency. 

The framers of our Constitution distrusted authorities energy, however additionally they anxious about mob rule. To shield us from these twin evils, our founders intentionally created a decentralized system for selecting our chief govt. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives that the president is to be chosen by “electors” chosen by every particular person state.  

The U.S., subsequently, doesn’t conduct a single nationwide election or function a unified election system. Rather, the 50 states and the District of Columbia every conduct their very own fashionable vote for president. Based on these outcomes, the 51 jurisdictions appoints electors who solid direct votes for president in a course of that we name the Electoral College. 

By constitutional design, electors solid their ballots for president and vp of their respective state capitals, away from the undue affect of out of doors pursuits. This decentralized course of ensures that concerted political stress (or mob violence) directed at a single establishment gained’t alter the result. 

The federalist ideas embedded in our Constitution not solely stop anyone entity from overruling a presidential election, additionally they make it troublesome to rig the result within the first place. That’s as a result of election tampering and voter fraud can solely have an effect on the general consequence if it happens in key states, which might be laborious to foretell forward of time.  

Does that imply that voter fraud isn’t an issue? Of course not. Voters are proper to be involved about election integrity. But no matter one thinks about claims of a “stolen” election, final week’s protesters and rioters had been barking up the fallacious tree. Our founders clearly supposed for the states to handle these type of election points.  

Those who expressed concern about President Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Joe Biden must be notably involved about makes an attempt to switch the Electoral College with a nationwide fashionable vote. With the Electoral College, recounts are restricted to circumstances the place the vote tally in a selected state may change the Electoral College consequence (equivalent to Florida in 2000).  As a end result, refusal to concede is very uncommon. With a nationwide fashionable vote, it could turn into the norm. That’s as a result of within the United States, the nationwide vote depend is usually shut in relative phrases. Electoral College outcomes, nonetheless, are nearly at all times decisive.  

Consider, for instance, the 1960 presidential contest between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It stays unclear whether or not Kennedy or Nixon gained extra votes nationwide. (It’s truthful to say it was, basically, a tie.) But within the Electoral College, Kennedy gained decisively — 303 to 219. Despite the shut nationwide vote depend and widespread allegations of voter fraud, notably in Chicago, Nixon conceded. It is unlikely he would have executed so beneath a nationwide fashionable vote system, which might have given Nixon an incentive to litigate the depend in any jurisdiction the place he stood a change of selecting up votes. How such a situation would have performed out is anybody’s guess. But, by encouraging finality, the Electoral College in 1960 very possible averted a real constitutional disaster.  

So, what would American elections appear to be with out the Electoral College? They’d look so much like 2020 — however probably a lot worse. To start with, there can be elevated incentives for voter fraud, as fraud anyplace may tip an election. There would even be extra litigation, because the loser of any shut race would possible problem the result in precincts all throughout the nation, not simply in a single or two states. And, with elevated fraud and elevated litigation, demonstrations and protests aimed on the federal authority accountable for any new nationwide election equipment would, sadly, turn into routine. Think Latin American-style politics. 

Our founders understood that in a pure democracy, may typically conquers proper, and politics can shortly devolve into mob violence. No election system is ideal. But, because the occasions of final week clarify, eliminating the Electoral College can be a harmful gambit.