In Defense of
the Electoral College, Part 2: Protecting Minority Rights
by Steve Farrell
Read Part 1
Entrusting political
power to imperfect human beings is rarely a safe idea. Such power
tends to swell the head, corrupt the manner, afflict the soul and
eventually make war on the neighbor of everyone who tastes of it.
This is just
as true whether those who possess such power consist of the one,
the few, or the many. It’s human nature. And human nature
has never changed.
Because America’s
Founders understood this flaw in man, they were just as wary of
democracy as they were of oligarchy and monarchy.
In Part 1, brought
to the stand were American Founders Edmund Randolf, Eldridge Gerry
and James Madison to testify that the natural byproduct of pure
democracy is socialism. This they knew to be true because any form
of absolute power will as the maxim declares, "tend to corrupt
absolutely." Democracy is absolute power in the hands of the
majority - a majority who will eventually, especially in times of
moral decline, vote to themselves advantages over minorities.
By minority,
the Founders meant almost anything. It could refer to the rich,
the merchant, the small state, the immigrant, the unpopular religious
sect or viewpoint, or a thousand other things.
But the Founders
had a cure, a mixed republic, which ingeniously created various
centers of powers, divisions of powers and modes of representation
with two objects in mind: Number one, to reach out and represent
as many groups as possible (generally in broad sweeps); and number
two, to make it extremely difficult for any one group to ever become
a majority over all the others.
This is the
genius of republicanism: to prevent the people from producing "a
mandate" for government, but rather keep the government so
locked up in gridlock that competing power centers will only come
together on policies which are universally acceptable to all. (See
Federalist 51) The electoral college was part of this plan, and
it was a brilliant idea.
Discovering
a Mixed Representative Formula
The Founders
considered at least 10 different plans to elect the president, only
one of which was by the direct election of the people. But as we
know, the one which stuck was the indirect election of the president
by electors chosen by the states.
The formula
mirrors the representative plan for each state in the U.S. Congress.
Therefore:
• each
state is guaranteed two electoral votes (as per their two votes
in the U.S. Senate);
• additionally, each state has electoral votes apportioned
according to the size of the state’s population as determined
in the Census (as per their assigned numbers in the U.S. House);
• thus, if your state’s congressional delegation consists
of three U.S. House members and two U.S. Senators as does mine
in Nevada, then the electoral vote in your state is five.
This feature was incorporated consistent with the "Great Compromise"
in the Constitutional Convention over congressional representation.
That is, each state’s two votes in the Senate protect the
sovereignty of the smaller states (an equality of states rule),
while each state’s proportional representation in the House
favor fairness for the larger states (an inequality of states rule).
This is a republican
governmental feature which forces at least one of the candidates,
usually both, to seek broad support rather than local or regional
support, which in turns tends to favor the protection of state sovereignty,
the cultural and religious values of rural America and ethnic minority
rights.
Let’s
look at this.
Rights
of Small States
As just stated,
if one half of the electoral formula is proportionate to population,
while the other half - the two votes per state - is not, the former
quality favors the interests of the larger states and thus strict
majority rule, while the latter equality gives smaller states a
disproportionate advantage, and thus a check on this advantage,
in favor of the little guy.
Individually,
this two vote small state check on larger states is helpful; collectively,
the small state check can be powerful. William C. Kimberling, deputy
director of the Federal Election Commission, Office of Election
Administration gives us an example:
"In 1988
... the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven
least populous jurisdiction of Alaska, Delaware, the District of
Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried
the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 electoral
votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida.
Each Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one third the
weight of a potential vote in the other States listed."
This Electoral
College feature protects small states, lending a hand to equality
in their regard. We ought to leave it alone.
Rural
Cultural and Religious Values
As the above
example illustrate, candidates for the presidency are forced to
find a message that appeals to smaller but collectively valuable
population centers, a vital check on large states. But this is more
than just a protection clause for the interests of the smaller states,
it is also a protection clause for the religious and cultural values
which sustain the liberties of a nation.
This meant a
great deal to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed that it was on
the farm, on the ranch, and in small-towns where America would find
the moral values which temper and preserve liberty - while it was
in industrial society and in big cities where these values would
be derided and true liberty would most easily be destroyed by a
love of luxury, indolence, amusement and pleasure.
Jefferson wrote
to Madison: "I think our governments will remain virtuous for
many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural ... When
they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they
will become corrupt as in Europe."
We only have
to observe the elitist lifestyles, the rampant crime, the moral
decay, the welfare enrollment percentages and the lower public school
performance levels which prevail in big cities today, to understand
that Jefferson was right. These big city forces raise a hue and
cry for more and more government invasion into private and public
life.
And it does
work. Consider how the big city, liberal, gun control advocates,
were in election 2000, by their own admission, forced to back down
because the rural campaign trail unveiled a different perspective,
that is the prospect of hundreds and hundreds of small towns where
people use guns responsibly for hunting, target practicing and self
defense, the latter especially being the intent of the second amendment.
Similarly, how the Republican candidate was persuaded to take a
public stand against abortion, because his electoral base was projected
to be strongest in rural America.
For a free people
to long survive, the bedrock values of virtue, religion and education
- more prevalent in rural communities - must sufficiently offset
their opposites. Inasmuch as the electoral college permits rural
states to band together and wield an influence disproportionate
to their numbers, this Jeffersonian wish is accomplished through
the electoral college. His fellow founders had it right. We ought
to leave it alone
Minority
Rights
At the National
Democratic Convention, in April of 1860, Yancy gave one of the world’s
most famous orations. In it he stated: "Constitutions are made
solely for the protection of the minorities in government, and for
the guidance of majorities."
An example of
how the Electoral College helps is found in the September 30th -
October 6th 2000 edition of "The Economist." In the piece
titled "Yo Te Quiro Mucho," we read:
"Latinos
cluster in some of the most populous, and, therefore electorally
desirable, states. California, Florida, New York, Illinois and Texas,
the five states with the largest Latino populations, account between
them for 166 electoral college votes, 61% of the total needed for
victory. In a close race ... any identifiable bloc gets attention,
and Latinos are both numerous and well-placed."
Think about
this. Latinos make up 11.7 percent of the population, but are a
strong voting block that must be addressed in 61 percent of the
electoral votes. This does not mean that they will be the only group
addressed in those cities, and thus capable of forcing policy on
the majority, but it does mean that their concerns, like everyone
else’s had better be addressed by the candidates. And so they
are.
This Electoral
College feature helps protect minority rights. We ought to leave
it alone.
The Founders
in their wisdom devised a representative plan, which although imperfect,
does a better job than any other political machinery in the world
to address and protect the across-the-board interests of a nation.
Or in other words, it does this in a manner, said Madison, "[which
comprehends] in ... society so many separate descriptions of citizens
as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole
very improbable, if not impracticable."
This is republican
government at its best. The idea is to protect liberty for all,
not just for the majority, to preserve liberty for a millennium,
not just for a decade. Let’s be smart, and leave the Electoral
College alone.
Keep an
eye out for "In Defense of the Electoral College, Part 3: When
a Majority Doesn’t Work," here at Meridian Magazine.
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© 2002 Meridian
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