The Federalist Papers - Article II - The Electoral College

The Federalist Papers - Article II - The Electoral CollegeWhile there is no real reason to call the electoral college illegitimate, the election of the president through a House and Senate election system is deeply flawed. Some conservatives argue that the electoral college is a problem because it prevents the popular vote winner from becoming the legitimate president.The argument from this is that the electoral college is not a de jure system; the popular vote winner becomes the president if he wins. The fact that this is not the case does not justify the implementation of a change in the Electoral College. There are two systems in place. A constitutional system where we elect the president by a vote in Congress and then the Senate appoints the vice president and the other offices on a rotation, as well as appointing the national officials and the Supreme Court Justices.The system is put into place to ensure that each house of Congress would not be able to control the government and prevent it from running smoothly. This is why it is called a 'de jure' system. If one house of Congress controls the process of the election of the president, then it will never work as well as the others. The House is given the power to select the president, but it cannot control the process because it is not allowed to make the decision.If you do not have a Republican controlled House, the Senate would be able to control the process. It could abolish the electoral college or appoint the presidential candidate according to its whim. However, this is impossible in our current system. The state legislatures cannot usurp the power that is reserved to the people of the United States.The issue of the electoral college is basically a debate about how to elect the president. Some think it is wrong to make the election based on the electoral vote while others say that the electoral college is not really illegitimate because the winner of the popular vote is the president. There is no righ t or wrong answer here.Some people say that it is best to elect the president by the way senators vote than the way they are elected. For example, those who live in New York and Washington would vote for the New York senator in a Senate election. So, if the winner of the electoral vote is not a New York senator, the New York Senate would have no power to choose a president. This is a valid point and there would not be any need for a Constitutional amendment to remove the electoral college from the United States.Some people argue that the federalists wanted to remove the electoral college from the United States because it does not belong there, however, this is a false argument because the original framers of the Constitution wanted the electoral college. In fact, they even said that the 'electoral college is part of the government which derives its powers from the consent of the states.' The federalists wanted to make the election free and fair; they wanted to have more votes in fav or of the popular vote winner and less votes for state governments. They did not want a king or queen.Therefore, while it is true that some Republicans may feel like the electoral college is flawed, it is not right for the Republicans to call the system undemocratic. They just want a new system that works well for the United States and this is a fair demand. The real issue is the way the election was done in the first place. If we would have had an actual democracy, the results would be much different.