Electoral College and Popular Vote

When discussing the 1800 election (a common pastime of reporters during Presidential elections) it is important to realize the "popular vote" is an illusion. The President is elected by the electors. The electors are themselves chosen by the states and the District of Columbia.

It is true today that the states choose to have a vote among the populace for their electors, but the populace is not really voting for the President and there has not always been a "popular vote" for President in all states. Moreover, there is no Constitutional requirement that states continue to hold a popular vote.

The truth is, voters today are voting for the electors and, in 17 states, the electors are not even required by state law to vote according to the party and the party’s candidate shown on the ballot. In fact, the electors can turn in a blank ballot and choose not to vote at all! The electors are an assembled political body with the single job of representing the states (not the people) in determining who the President shall be. Even in the cases where they might be punished for being “faithless electors”, the states’ legislative branches are limited in how much power they have in compelling the electors to vote in the way they say they might. Typically all they can do is fine them heavily after the “faithless” deed is done!

This assertion that the “popular vote” is little more than a myth can be proven simply enough by noting the title of the position - The President of the United States, not the President of (or for) the People of the United States. The President presides not over the people, but over the executive branch of the government that is formed by the will of the states to govern their interactions and execute the laws passed by the legislative branch.

A President elected by popular vote was a danger the founders sought to evade when noting that people are likely to elect themselves a king for short-term benefit even if it is to their ultimate destruction. It was also a danger because a popularly elected President could tip the checks and balances of the Federal Government and thus undercut it.

The 1800 election is important because it illustrates this principle. How? Because the popular vote did NOT decide the President. Congress decided, specifically the House of Representatives. This is even more important to note since Kentucky and Tennessee numbers are not included in claims of a "popular vote" for the 1800 election even though those states were strongly Jeffersonian. Here is a brief explanation of what happened in 1800...

"Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson defeated Federalist John Adams by a margin of seventy-three to sixty-five electoral votes in the presidential election of 1800. When presidential electors cast their votes, however, they failed to distinguish between the office of president and Vice President on their ballots. Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr each received seventy-three votes. With the votes tied, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives as required by Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. There, each state voted as a unit to decide the election.

"Still dominated by Federalists, the sitting Congress loathed to vote for Jefferson—their partisan nemesis. For six days starting on February 11, 1801, Jefferson and Burr essentially ran against each other in the House. Votes were tallied over thirty times, yet neither man captured the necessary majority of nine states. Eventually, Federalist James A. Bayard of Delaware, under intense pressure and fearing for the future of the Union, made known his intention to break the impasse. As Delaware’s lone representative, Bayard controlled the state’s entire vote. On the thirty-sixth ballot, Bayard and other Federalists from South Carolina, Maryland, and Vermont cast blank ballots, breaking the deadlock and giving Jefferson the support of ten states, enough to win the presidency." (Source: Today in History, February 17)

None of this has anything to do with the 2020 elections other than to point out “the popular vote” is a pleasant myth. Even the electoral college is not always the final say (nor should it be).

Sadly, it would seem many of the people who talk about history and the Constitution have read neither. Fewer still have read both. Even fewer than that have made a real attempt to understand both. However, everyone has an opinion and everyone thinks their opinion is paradoxically equally valid; which is precisely the reason why we have a representative form of government and the Presidential office was designed to be filled by the will of the states rather than the people.

Of course, the danger of a republic is that the mob may rise up demanding, in effect, direct democracy. Whether such a direct democracy comes from one side or another is immaterial because the result is always the same - violence, economic collapse, oppression, and more violence.

The bulwark against this possibility of a demand for direct democracy was always intended to be a populace willing to learn why things are the way they are through reading history and the founding government documents. This education should result in a free people that protect their freedoms, but ALSO a populace that upholds their responsibilities as members of society and as a functional part of that representative government.

Instead, we have a populace today that knows almost nothing except their own desires for unbounded freedom and a few nice phrases about “democracy” and vote counting, but next to nothing about their responsibilities to the community and the republic. While each end of the political spectrum would vehemently deny this, the proof can be seen in society itself and in the daily news reports.

If Americans wish the situation to improve, the answer is not more screaming and fighting, but more personal responsibility to learn and soberly participate in our civilization at all levels of government. It is certain that no amount of profanity-laced hatred will improve the state of the Republic. Yet that is what all seem to believe is the answer to our plight. The sad irony is that each American has the ability to directly improve the situation by becoming a better citizen through studying, attending to duty, and directly participating in government rather than screaming over the bad citizens they disagree with.

One of our founders suggested a republic cannot stand unless the people are educated and moral. In response, modern Americans scream obscenities about things which they know next to nothing about and, in their same profane cursing, decry the lack of morality and mental deficiency among others with whom they disagree. It is absolutely true that a house divided against itself cannot stand, but if that is true then how much more true is it if the house, the barn, the fields, the churches, the businesses, and the streets are filled with angry and drunk jackasses demanding their rights to a happy and healthy life while ignoring their own manure being spread everywhere?

Each of us in our republic balances upon a square table with four legs - morality, education, freedom, and civic responsibility. Weaken one leg and a man is in danger of falling. Weaken two and he begins to falter. Weaken three and he is done for. As go each of us, so goes our nation for it rides on our shoulders. We may lose one or even a few thousand who fail as citizens, but millions today are balancing on one or two table legs screaming at everyone else standing on one or two table legs. Such a weakened structure cannot stand.

Again, the solution is not to fix the tables upon which others stand. That way leads to totalitarian and dictatorial government. The solution is for each citizen to attend to his or her own table and thus the entire structure will become more sound.

A free people must be consumed, not with government nor with the failings of the other man, but with each citizen ensuring his own table is balanced between his own freedom, his own responsibility to actively participate in all levels of government, his own willingness to learn and study, and his own morality that evidences itself not in domination and purely selfish desire, but kindness and compassion toward his neighbor.

Perhaps this is too much to ask of any people. Perhaps this is why republics have failed before. Perhaps it is good if we each try anyway.