The Electoral College has voted, so we can put that modest bit of suspense behind us. On January 20, Donald Trump will become president of the United States. What may not be behind us is the debate over the Electoral College itself.

We’re not likely to get rid of it any time soon; that would require an amendment to the Constitution, meaning that it would need approval by two-thirds of the members of the House and the Senate and ratification by legislators in three-fourths of the states. And in this divided, Republican-dominated country, there seems little chance we would pull that off.

Still, for those of us worried about this year’s election result, it’s worth weighing the positives and negatives of the Electoral College as we watch that result start having an impact on the country.

The big negative is obvious: This year, as in 2000, the Electoral College has given the presidency to someone most voters didn’t want.

Several issues shaped the creation of the Electoral College as the founders drafted the Constitution. One, of course, was slavery. The representatives from the South were afraid that the preferences of voters in the southern states constituents would be outweighed by those of people from the North. A lot of people lived in the South, but many of them were slaves, who couldn’t vote (and, of course, white southerners weren’t interested in letting them vote).

Another issue: some of the founders didn’t trust the common people. A select group like an Electoral College, they figured, would be better informed, better suited to pick the person best qualified to lead the nation. The Electoral College would be a protection against the election of somebody who, for instance, might be a dangerous but charismatic person who could whip up the masses and get their votes.

Many of us, of course, believe that this year we’ve witnessed the opposite, that the popular vote went to the best-qualified person, and the Electoral College has just elected exactly the kind of person it was designed to block.

Well, then, don’t the electors have a responsibility to choose the person who is the best qualified? After all, no federal law requires electors to vote for the candidate who won their state. The Constitution doesn’t require it, either.

More than half the states do have laws requiring it; the others don’t. And even in those that do, electors who act otherwise don’t face much of a penalty, if any.

Historically, though, most electors have followed the will of the voters in their state. And even when some haven’t, it hasn’t made a difference in the election outcome.

An election like this year’s, then, presents a dilemma. Where do the electors’ owe their allegiance? To the voters who trusted them to reflect their wishes? Or – if those particular voters’ wishes will put an unqualified person in the White House – to the greater good of the nation?

It’s tempting to say that the latter is the easy choice. But as Columbia Law School Professor David Pozen noted recently in a New York Times article, think of what would happen if the Electoral College had given the presidency to Hillary Clinton this week. Even if Donald Trump gracefully accepted that outcome, huge numbers of his supporters would not. The divisiveness and the anger we’ve seen this year would pale in comparison.

In the end, which is the greater danger to the nation? Over the next four or more years, we’ll find out.
Donald Trump won the required number of Electoral College votes. Hillary Clinton did not. In this country, that’s how we elect a president. I don’t like this year’s outcome. But I accept it.

Then should we focus our efforts on trying to get rid of the Electoral College? I don’t know. What happens during the Trump presidency will help me make up my mind, I guess.

This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2016.

Mary Anna Towler is a transplant from the Southern Appalachians and is editor, co-publisher, and co-founder of City. She is happy to have converted a shy but opinionated childhood into an adult job. She...

18 replies on “Now should we get rid of the Electoral College?”

  1. “Then should we focus our efforts on trying to get rid of the Electoral College? I dont know. What happens during the Trump presidency will help me make up my mind, I guess.” Mary Anna says.

    How about focusing our efforts letting Trump do his job and giving him the opportunity to accomplish what he said he was going to do?
    He said he’d keep and create more jobs in this country, secure our borders, enforce immigration laws, fix or abolish the Affordable Care Act, take better care of our veterans, make better deals abroad for our country, make inner cities safer, clamp down on violence in the streets. This sounds, to me, like a good thing for America.

    His tasks seem hard enough to accomplish, without the naysayers adding the burden of negativism.

    Consider, if Trump does not accomplish his goals, he can say that the naysayers, including the media were instrumental in obstructing his work and that may rile up his voting base to assure him a second term.
    If you don’t want a 2nd term with Trump, I think the naysayers and the media should shut up, sit down, accept the results of the election and not undermine his efforts.
    Trump should sink or swim on his own. Let’s wish him well, for the sake of our country.

  2. I’m getting tired of all of this. Donald Trump won and it was not even close.
    2004 is remembered as a close election. If Kerry had won either Florida or Ohio he would have become President and the fact that Bush won the popular vote by 3 million would never have been mentioned let alone suggestions made to sabotage the election results.
    For the people who read the NY Times, Washington Post , and listen to CNN without an understanding that they have extreme bias Trump appears to be a devil that must be stopped at any cost , even including our Democratic process. If I only relied on them for my information I might think similarly .
    In 2020 there will be another free election (despite the best efforts of some) and if Trump is not doing a good job he can be replaced.
    Can we at least give the man a chance?

  3. The man is vulgar, short tempered, thinks he knows everything, and has openly admitted to assaulting women by grabbing their breasts and pussies…and this is what we admire in a President these days? He can not stay off Twitter with his insults…OMG the EC had a chance to do what it was designed to do..protect the Republic. And he did not win by majority vote he won by Electoral College votes…he is not the will of the people here.

  4. I’ve thought long and hard about whether we should “wish Trump well.” My verdict; absolutely not.

    The reasons I don’t wish Trump well, and will never name him as our president without a qualifier (“illegitimate” comes to mind) go like this:

    1) He won the presidency with dedicated support from America’s enemies, who badly want us to fail.

    2) He ran a disgusting, negative, baldly racist campaign that openly embraced torture and many other tactics of tinpot dictators.

    3) He has obvious conflicts of interests and never released his tax returns, so we have no idea just how deep his corruption runs.

    4) His biography is rife with lies, failures, abuse and blatantly immoral behavior.

    5) He openly admitted to sexually assaulting women and has a long record of treating women like meat.

    6) His policy ideas are flimsy, contradictory and based on distortions and magical thinking.

    7) His election has inspired a spasm of racist hate crimes unlike anything we’ve seen in recent memory.

    8) He’s stuffed his cabinet with unqualified oligarchs who know very little about government and have a clear agenda to dismantle it.

    …I could keep going.

    …I don’t care if you read Breitbart, NY Times or whatever…I don’t care who you voted for or what your politics are…these are facts. My personal feeling is Trump is so inept, corrupt and narcissistic that he’ll fall on his face without any help. But in the name of patriotism and basic human decency, I feel obligated to oppose any and every statement and action he makes that hurts this country. And there are many, many millions of people who feel the same way. So to anyone who says “shut up and give him a chance,” my simple response is: Nope. The decisions he made during his campaign have made that virtually impossible. And I encourage you do express your opinion and debate, but you will never shut down the opposition to his presidency. Go ahead and fight it, but you shouldn’t expect to make much progress.

  5. Some Guy, you are confusing your opinions with facts. We are not going to agree on this and that’s fine.
    The thing that bothers me is the effort to have the Electors not honor the choice of the voters in their states. In a campaign where 2 Billion dollars is spent it should be obvious where this would lead us.
    There would likely be a bidding war for each vote.
    It’s not going to happen and with the Senate, House , and the Supreme Court in Republican control he will have every opportunity to succeed or fail on his own.

  6. Wouldn’t it be wise to wait and see before judging? Probably not for some of you folks. He could be a better Prez than GW and you’d still be crybabies. I am hopeful of 16 years of Trump-Pence uplifting America. Better find a comfortable safe space

  7. Bottom line – the person elected is nothing more than an Internet Troll who should be sleeping in his mommies basement.

    Think about this – his main method of disseminating information is via TWITTER! He is a TROLL – nothing more, nothing less.

    God help us all…….

  8. There is a metaphysical component to the Electoral College debate. Are we a nation of flesh and blood human beings or a collection of politically arbitrary entities called states? After all, the Preamble to the Constitution begins with the words, “We the people of the United States.” The word “people” is clearly the priority here. And did not our Supreme Court decide that “one person, one vote” is the law of the land. My vote counts less than my fellow citizen in New Mexico as a proportion of the electoral vote. The way our Senators are chosen, two to each state no matter how large, would seem to be adequate protection for the less populated states. The way it works now is no less than the tyranny of the minority.
    Rev. Richard S. Gilbert

  9. FGF, please tell me how these aren’t facts:

    1) Russian meddled in the election.

    2) Trump questioned a judge’s ability to make decisions based on where his grandparents were born.

    3) Trump owns businesses all over the world and never released his tax returns.

    4) Trump went bankrupt again and again, boasted about cheating on his wives and refused to pay many of the companies and people that worked for him.

    5) The infamous Billy Bush tape where he talked about grabbing women by the vagina.

    6) You can’t cut taxes, blow up spending and not increase deficits.

    7) Hundreds of hate crimes have been reported since the election.

    8) Ben Carson is a surgeon and knows very little about Housing and Urban development. Betsy Devos contributed millions to Trump’s campaign and advocates for private, not public education.

    If you can tell me how these aren’t facts, based on credible information (not wingnut garbage like Breitbart), I will be all ears.

  11. Yes, FGH, i pulled out a series of simple, easily accessible facts I know off the top of my head that substantiate my perspective. If you can disprove those facts, please do! I will listen.

    My point to you and anyone else who wants to make excuses for the morally crippled clown about to run the country: if you belong to the middle or working classes, watch your bank account. Watch your job prospects. Watch the unemployment rate. Watch the cost of your healthcare. See how Trump’s policies help you.

    Then watch what happens to millionaires and billionaires. Check out wall street. See how they’re doing. My bet is that for every dollar the little people get, the 1% will get 10. And it’s already apparent in his proposals.

    Mark my words: you got played.

  13. Some Guy
    Trump currently owns 536 separate entities that pay hundreds of thousands of bills per year. He has owned thousands of separate entities over his lifetime. None of what you mentioned is at all unusual for a business of this size.
    Your comments lack context and comparisons i.e., is Ben Carson, a Neuro Surgeon , really less qualified than other Cabinet appointments made in the past? Somehow I doubt this .
    We disagree and time will tell who was right. I am not worried.

  14. FGF, you must be really rich then. It’s an honor to meet a member of the 1% hanging out at City Paper. Enjoy your tax cuts. I’m sure as a die-hard patriot you’ll pump all your extra cash back into the US economy, rather than another month-long trip to the Italian villa.

    I hope you and your fellow deluded horde sleep well for the next few weeks. Because massive, terrible destruction is coming to this country and this planet, and you are personally responsible for it. When Trump’s trade wars hit, when his shooting wars hit, you can only blame yourself. I will, as always, be fighting the destruction and insanity with all I’ve got. Time, demographics, justice and basic human morality are on my side, so I don’t worry about how things will end up. But my heart breaks for the price we’ll all pay for the foolishness of people like you as we slog along the slow path toward progress. And I feel sorry for you to have to live with your horrific mistake, which we both know will come to haunt you. Peace.

  15. Some Guy
    That’s a long way from your first comment “go ahead and express your opinion and debate”
    I’m done on this
    Peace to you

  16. In a discussion with Hillary supporters before the election, I brought up the idea of getting rid of the Electoral College. The Hillary supporters and local Dems I spoke with were strongly against dumping the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. Everyone has their own spin on why the Electoral College makes sense and why it’s good for their candidate, not realizing they are personally endorsing a system they think is rigged more in their favor.

    I also remember how Hillary benefited from the Democratic primary rules…you know the ones where Sanders won the popular vote in some states, but Hillary took home more delegates.

    It is a rigged system from start to finish. The primaries gave us Hillary and then the Electoral College was supposed to give us President Hillary. Despite her loss, I’ll bet the Democrats still want to keep the Electoral College because I am sure they see a way of rigging the system in the favor in the future. Better luck next time.

  17. A few Christmas thoughts about Towler’s latest rants.

    1- I have no doubt that Russia hacked some or all of those servers that were compromised in order to sow some disarray. But undermining the election? How can releasing factual information be bad for democracy? Isn’t learning that the DNc was undermining the Sanders candidacy while lying about it important? Or finding that one of Bill Clinton’s buddies at the foundation was helping to put millions in the Clintons’ personal pockets? It seems that the ones that were doing their best to undermine a democratic election were those Clinton supporters that were trying to persuade and bully electors into overturning the results of a free election.

    2- so the electoral college is not perfect? No, it isn’t, but it does help to protect the rights of minorities (small states, rural citizens, etc). And how democratic was the primary process that Clinton benefitted from. Super delegates, who weren’t voted on by voters at all, thresholds in order to receive any delegates, caucuses? Perhaps Towler should agitate to reform the primary process first.

    3- and we now have a president that most voters did not want. True enough. It would have been the same if Clinto had squeezed out enough votes to win those last three states, as a majority also voted against her. We have also had other presidents in recent history that did not win a majority of the popular vote.

    Towler needs to quit being a sore loser and focus on what her party of choice can do to earn the support of voters for governing at both the federal and state levels.

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