LETTER: Rebuttal to Dr. Moses on electoral college

Dr. Larry Moses writes that he believes the electoral process to be an antiquated election system and that the American people do not vote for the president (No One Asked Me But…The Progress, June 12, 2024). Both opinions are faulty and fail to consider why the electoral process was selected by our founding fathers.

The term Electoral College does not exist within the U.S. Constitution. Instead, our electoral system is a process in accordance with Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment, and only refers to electors.

The electoral process addressed a debate about popular sovereignty and federalism during the Constitutional Convention. Its design gave each state a voice in the election of a president, which ensured a balance of powers between state governments and the federal government.

The founding fathers were for the most part landowners who had a very real fear of the tyranny of the masses. Remember the country had just fought a war against a tyrannical monarch, and they did not want to trade one form of tyranny for another. As Dr. Moses notes in his opinion, communications were limited at that time, and knowledge of the candidates was perhaps even more limited.

Thus, the founding fathers were afraid of a direct election for the presidency. They feared someone could manipulate public opinion and take power. Looking at today’s media bias, the corruption within both the Department of Justice and the intelligence agencies, combined with big tech’s censoring efforts; I’d say this remains a problem today.

The founding fathers debated for many months. Some argued that Congress should elect the president (a parliamentarian system). Others insisted on a democratic popular vote.

The smaller states would be at a great disadvantage with a popular vote. Much like rural areas are currently pitted against large metropolitan areas – especially in Nevada and similar states with just one metro area – a popular vote would sway the bulk of power to those states with the larger populations.

The compromise allowing for the 13 colonies to form one nation is known as the electoral process. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.

It created our nation as a representative and Constitutional Republic, whereby the people vote indirectly through their electors vs. a pure democracy, which history shows always turns into anarchy, followed by authoritarianism.

Many proposals to change the Presidential election process have been offered over the years, but none were passed by Congress, nor sent to the states for ratification as a Constitutional amendment.

Does Dr. Moses really believe that the bottom 22 states in population will sign away their influence in presidential elections to California, Texas, New York and Florida? None of the bottom 22 states have even 4 million residents, and it takes 38 states to ratify an amendment. Can you imagine Wyoming or Nevada ranchers willingly giving California or New York the authority to pass laws on how they can use their lands? I can’t!

Over the last 200 years, more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the electoral process. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the electoral process than on any other subject.

There were no political parties yet in 1787 (our founding fathers believed they were divisive, imagine that!). The drafters of the Constitution assumed electors would vote according to their individual discretion, not the dictates of a state or national party. Today, most electors are bound to vote for their party’s candidate, thus answering Dr. Moses concern of rogue electors.

Of more importance, the Constitution says nothing about how states should allot their electoral votes. Over time, all but two states (Maine and Nebraska) passed laws to give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote count. Thus Dr. Moses’ argument that people don’t vote for the president is false.

My ‘opinion’ is that if a change in the electoral process is needed, it is in how states allocate their electoral votes. Since we are voting for our nation’s president, then we should have a common method of allocating electoral votes. Let states decide how they run their internal elections, but not for the presidency, we need a federal one system for all process.

I personally prefer Maine and Nebraska’s method, which grants one electoral vote for each House district, while the electoral votes alloted for the two senate seats go only to the winner of the state’s popular vote. In Nevada, this would guarantee that the Las Vegas metropolitan area does not garner ‘all’ of the state’s electoral votes. This, at least, would leave the rurals some representation in the presidential election.

It would still mean that the bulk of the electoral votes, most likely five in Nevada’s case, would go to a more liberal candidate, with one electoral vote most likely going to a more conservative candidate.
Dr. Moses argues for a purely popular vote that would disenfranchise about 3/4’s of the states, giving the power to the remaining 1/4.

That is not democracy. Candidates would have little incentive to campaign in the smaller states, leaving the populace even further away from equality amongst the states.

But in the end, there is little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment, requiring a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states, would be required.

Sorry Dr. Moses, but there is little chance of this. That is why there is a Democratic Party effort to hijack the voters by signing states up for a mandatory allocation of electoral votes in accordance with the national popular vote. Talk about disenfranchising voters and taking away their votes for the presidency!

Rob Biller
Mesquite