Electoral College

“ In addition, the vagaries of the Electoral College will increasingly magnify the risk that candidates who do not secure the popular vote will nonetheless win the presidency and with it the opportunity to appoint Justices to the Court. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that the choice of a President, when made by the electoral college, may be less popular in its character than when made by Congress — which cannot elect without a concurrence of a federal population of upwards of nine and a half millions. But to compensate this great preponderance of the majority based on population, over that based on the States, regarded in their corporate character, in an election by the college of electors, the provision giving to the House of Representatives, voting by States, the eventual choice, in case the college fail to elect, was adopted. ”

“ PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’m going to let the President answer the second part of that question. But, as you know, the whole concept of that came up perhaps a little bit before, but it came out as a reason why the Democrats lost an election — which, frankly, they should have been able to win, because the Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats, as you know, than it is to Republicans. ”

“ The result has been — as it ever must be in such cases — the ascendency of the stronger element over the weaker. The incipient measure to effect this was adopted at an early period. The first step was, to diminish the number of candidates, from which the selection should be made, from the five, to the three highest on the list; and — in order to lessen the chances of a failure to choose by the electoral college — to provide that the electors, instead of voting for two, without discriminating the offices, should designate which was for the President, and which for the Vice-President. ”

“ The new situation will enable those States, when relationships are resumed, to claim twenty-eight Representatives beside their just proportion. Twenty-eight votes to be cast here and in the Electoral College for those held not fit to sit as jurors, not fit to testify in court, not fit to be plaintiff in a suit, not fit to approach the ballot-box! Twenty-eight votes to be more or less controlled by those who once betrayed the Government, and for those so destitute, we are assured, of intelligent instinct as not to be fit for free agency! ”

“ Hamilton expressed the philosophy behind the electoral college in The Federalist No. 68. 'This process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of president, will seldom fall to the lot of any man, who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state ”

“ Quite naturally, for the work of electing a candidate presupposes a state of mind very different from that of serene deliberation. In 1800 the electors acted simply as automata recording the victory of their party, and so it has been ever since. In our own time presidents and vice-presidents are nominated, not without elaborate intrigue, by special conventions quite unknown to the Constitution; the people cast their votes for the two or three pairs of candidates thus presented, and the electoral college simply registers the results. ”

“ But, independently of other reasons that will be discussed in a moment, any such distinction finds persuasive refutation in the Federal Electoral College whereby the President of the United States is chosen on principles wholly opposed to those now held constitutionally required in the electoral process for statewide office. ”

“ The electorate having won an apparently democratic victory in the destruction of the notables, finds itself reduced to the role of mere ratification or selection between two or three candidates, in whose choice they have only a nominal share. The electoral college which stood between even the propertied electorate and the executive with the prerogatives of a king, gave place to a body which was just as genuinely a bar to democratic expression, and far less responsible for its acts. ”

“ The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have become contradictory in itself.
Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self-determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. ”

“ Article II creates the electoral college, where each State appoints electors. Laws of all 50 States and D.C. require electors to vote for the winner of the State’s popular election. Each State provides for the orderly conduct of elections, including lawful challenges, recounts, and the like.
The 12th Amendment is what brings us to today. It says the electors meet in their States. That happened December 14.
The amendment says the electors shall cast their votes, sign and certify them, and transmit them to us, sealed. ”

“ If the electoral college was not really to select the President, it must become a mere machine for registering the results of a popular vote throughout the nation, and the candidates for the presidency must be designated beforehand in some way. ”

“ B The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college. ”

“ With Americans the word "unconstitutional" never in popular practice has the comprehensive and indefinite British meaning. As Americans have no term in common use to denote the unwritten part of their Constitution, so they have none at all with which to refer to an infraction of it. The {106} expression has yet to be coined for the American public to employ should the Electoral College act as it did in Washington's day, viz. each elector exercise his individual discretion in voting for a president, or should a president be elected for a third term, whether or not consecutive. ”

“ At one time the Convention decided to have the president elected by Congress, but there was a grave objection to this; it would be likely to destroy his independence, and make him the tool of Congress. Finally the device of an electoral college was adopted. Each state is entitled to a number of electors equal to the number of its representatives in Congress, plus two, the number of its senators. Thus to-day Delaware, with 1 representative, has 3 electors; Missouri, with 14 representatives, has 16 electors; New York, with 34 representatives, has 36 electors. ”

“ They always voted at their Party's call And never thought of thinking for themselves at all.
As an institution the Electoral College suffered atrophy almost indistinguishable from rigor mortis.
However, in 1948, Alabama's Democratic Party Electors refused to vote for the nominee of the Democratic National Convention. To put an end to such party unreliability the party organization, exercising state-delegated authority, closed the official primary to any candidate for elector unless he would pledge himself, under oath, to support any candidate named by the Democratic National Convention. ”

“ The Electoral Colleges do not elect, but merely report the result of an election. This, on the surface, is a change in the direction of a more complete democracy. What was devised as a check on the popular impulse of the moment has broken down, and the people have taken into their own hands the mission they were expected to entrust to a small representative body. ”

“ However awkward or difficult it may be for Congress to resolve difficult electoral disputes, Congress, being a political body, expresses the people's will far more accurately than does an unelected Court. And the people's will is what elections are about.
Moreover, Congress was fully aware of the danger that would arise should it ask judges, unarmed with appropriate legal standards, to resolve a hotly contested Presidential election contest. Just after the 1876 Presidential election, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana each sent two slates of electors to Washington. ”

“ Now, I remain committed to ensuring the voters receive an electoral system they deserve and where equal application of law is guaranteed. If our election integrity is compromised, we have failed the very voters who have sent us here to defend the Constitution. ”

“ There were then thirty-eight states in the Union, casting 369 electoral votes. This made 185 necessary for a choice; and when the returns were all in, it appeared that, if the Republicans could secure the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, they would have exactly 185. In these states, however, a dispute was raging as to which set of electors, Republican or Democratic, was elected. Each claimed to be; and, as the result depended on them, each set met and voted. It was then for Congress to decide which should be counted. ”