Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
The left wants you to believe that the Electoral College is irrelevant, out of date and undemocratic. The truth is they’d like to bypass this ingenious institution because it’ll be easier for them to implement their tried and failed socialist agenda across America.
After Colorado’s Legislature passed a bill to join 12 other states in an effort to abandon the Electoral College for a national popular vote movement, known as the “interstate compact,” former Attorney General Eric Holder chimed in on Twitter:
“Time to make Electoral College a vestige of the past. It’s undemocratic, forces candidates to ignore majority of the voters and campaign in a small number of states. The presidency is our one national office and should be decided – directly – by the voters.”
If you follow politics closely, you’ll quickly realize that using a popular vote system would be undemocratic and would force candidates to ignore a large portion of blue-collar voters in both “flyover” country and in less populated areas in states like California and New York. In other words, as is customary with Eric Holder, he lied.
In an article on the Daily Signal entitled “Effort to Abandon Electoral College Gains Steam. Here’s What It Would Ruin for America,” Jarrett Stepman points out that the Founding Fathers disagreed on many things, but the Electoral College received the most wide acceptance.
Here are several reasons why we should embrace, not abandon our Electoral College system:
1. The Electoral College helped end slavery in America: President Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president and the signer of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves, won the Electoral College. But he lost the popular vote because slave states in the South wouldn’t create ballots with his name on it. There’s no telling how long slavery would’ve existed in America were it not for the Electoral College.
2. The Electoral College embraces true state diversity: One of America’s greatest attributes is our recognition of the geographical, agricultural and cultural diversity that exist from state-to-state. If I travel to New York, I want to eat the best hot dogs and pizza America has to offer, attend a Yankee’s game, visit Times Square and mourn at the 911 Memorial right before taking in a Broadway play. But if I travel to Arizona, I want to experience its uniqueness, including its people. I’d want to hike the Grand Canyon, view Native American cliff dwellings, marvel at the engineering of the Hoover Dam, mine for gold and witness the desert creatures and animals unique to the landscape. The Electoral College ensures me that I can have a unique experience no matter what state I travel to within the Union.
3. The Electoral College preserves the power of the states, aka Federalism: At the annual CPAC gathering this past weekend, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Ut), said we need to rebalance the power between the 3 branches of government by “sending power back to where it belongs, which is with the people.” If too much power resides in the hands of too few people in Washington D.C. states will no longer remain the laboratories of freedom that our Forefathers intended. For instance, states that have flirted with socialism and have been fiscally irresponsible with their budgets, like California and New York, shouldn’t be bailed out by states who have not. Similarly, Vermont and Massachusetts experimented with socialized medicine. It failed in both cases. Why should all states be forced by the federal government to succumb to Medicare-for-All when we know it’s already failed? Let each state determine what’s best for their citizen’s.
4. More than California, New York and Texas should decide the presidency: If we get rid of the Electoral College in exchange for the popular vote, presidential candidates wouldn’t have to campaign in states with smaller populations. Fewer voices would be heard not more! Candidates wouldn’t waste their time getting to know the unique interests of voters in smaller states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost in states that typically vote democratic because she courted her far left-wing base in large states while ignoring the issues of blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. If all that was required to win the presidency was the popular vote, these states would never be visited by presidential candidates again.
5. The popular vote is un-American: Proponents of the popular vote movement support it because they know it would silence the voices of anyone who disagrees with socialism. That is anti-diversity. It is anti-democratic because it emboldens the majority of voters at the expense of the minority. That’s mob rule. That’s un-American.
6. The Electoral College protects against election fraud: as Jarrett Stepman of the Daily Signal also pointed out in his column, “the diffused federal nature of the Electoral College is a vital tool to counteract election fraud and contentious recounts that could undo the public will.” Just imagine if there was a recount required in the Bush v. Gore race of 2000 after a popular vote system had been implemented. Every vote in every state would had to have been recounted, not just Florida. That would’ve been a total disaster.
Some democrats want to upend the Electoral College because they despise America’s founding and they want to fundamentally transform America. Others simply believe the system is antiquated. Both are wrong. America is the greatest country in the world, despite being amongst the youngest, partly due to our Electoral College. We deserve what we get, if we get rid of it.
Photo credit: justgrimes (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved
Carl Jackson is a radio talk show host – his web site is www.carljacksonshow.com.
The views expressed in opinion articles are solely those of the author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by Black Community News.
In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range – in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
There are several scenarios in which a candidate could win the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It could reduce turnout more, as more voters realize their votes do not matter.
Most Americans don’t ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 36 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9), and New Mexico (5).
I’d say that only 20% support the Electoral College simply because they don’t understand it, and need to read Carl’s article!
Small states that want a national popular vote haven’t figured out that it would mean losing their voice, because the coastal elites and the big cities (whose voters are mostly leftist Democrats) would determine every presidential election. And that would push the Democrats even farther left – and even crazier – than they are already.
My own state, Connecticut, has come up with an even more foolish idea: giving CT’s electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, even if a majority of CT voters voted against that candidate! How would that make each citizen’s vote count?
Personally, I would favor a proportional system where the electoral vote representing each Congressional district would be awarded to the candidate who won that district. The candidate who won the overall state vote would receive the two electoral votes representing the two Senators. That, I believe, would nicely balance the rights of the states with the rights of the individual voters. The Democrats, of course, would never agree to it, because they know there are a lot more “red” districts than “blue” ones – which, to me, is a very good reason to keep the system we have.
Before I read Carl Jackson’s article, I loved the Electoral College. Now, I really love it. Most Americans don’t understand & don’t care. If we lose the Electoral College, most Americans will wonder where their freedom went…., but it will be too late.