Electoral College

Over the years I have heard a great amount of criticism for the Electoral College.  More recently there has been an even bigger outcry against it, as there usually is after an election.  People claim it's outdated.  It may have been needed when information was difficult to attain and people knew far less about politics (although the recent election proves the uneducated are alive and well; so many Obama supporters disagree with his policies (RushLimbaugh.com)).  Unfortunately the brilliance of the Founders is lost in modern America.  Too many people feel they are smarter than the Founding Fathers, especially since they view them as nothing but slave-owning, rich, white men who hated everyone (that is a discussion for another day).  They want to change an awesome, albeit imperfect, system that was meant to protect our rights. 

So what makes this system great?

To start with, it prevents a simple majority from imposing its will on everyone.  As Mark Levin often points out, the Founding Fathers feared that a temporary majority could make horrid, permanent changes that would insure their power even when their majority is lost.  Today this premise is mostly gone as the Democrats have put a massive bureaucracy in place that does their will (which makes the Founders' point).  That's also why some Constitutional events, like amendments, require around sixty percent to enact.  The Founders wished to create a stable government in place that did not change rapidly.

Another fact to remember, that has also been destroyed by the Left, is that the states were to remain more powerful than the federal government.  That was the agreement made between the states, hence the "United States" part in the "United States of America."  All states agreed to work together and were considered to have equal say what occurs in the country.  If the presidency was decided by popular vote, then a candidate would only have to concentrate on a few large states, like New York and California, and ignore the rest.  Instead, the electoral college ensures that all states would be counted, for no president can win with support from only a few large urban areas.  In theory, the electoral votes of each state should also be divided between state regions, and some states have adopted this stance.  Again, it enables the entire population of a state to be heard.

A third aspect is the idea of locality.  The Founders understood that a large country would have many different peoples and regions.  They hoped that people would be familiar with their local governments.  There used to be elections for Electoral College candidates.  The thinking was that if you have no clue who is running for the presidency, you at least know who your local representative is and can trust he will follow your interests.  In fact, the delegates for the Electoral College don't have to follow the vote of their states.  There is no constitutional requirement to do so (see the above paragraph).

The history of this country is sadly dying.  I remember American history in school, where a week was spent on the Founding, and the remainder on slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the presidencies of FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and JFK.  There is no discussion of the limits placed on the federal government.  We must not forget the true background of this great country, when men who held the power of kings in the palm of their hands decided on freedom.