JO OUR ELECTOR:  A CIVICS LESSON

After the 2016 election, in which the popular vote went to one candidate but the Electoral College went to the other, there was much talk of finally abolishing the college, and it has roused again with the 2020 problems.  Of course there’s a lot to be said for such an action, however unlikely the long process of constitutional amendment might take, and how such an amendment might be constructed.  But – perhaps because I live in a state whose majority can be predicted with certainty and therefore whose Electoral College vote is never in doubt, where national candidates and their ads rarely appear – I began thinking of a different system, or rather a revamping of the present one.   

Suppose, rather than being merely ceremonial and bound to the winner by popular vote of each state, the Electoral College was itself elected, on a district-by-district basis, as the framers seem to have assumed they would be (though each state was allowed to select them “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct”).  Electors thus elected would actually vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates each believed to be the best.  Of course the framers set up the system specifically to be less democratic, out of a fear that the people didn’t know enough or were too blinded by self-interest or prejudice to judge fairly.  It was decidedly elitist.  But that needn’t be how it would work in practice now. 

 

If all states adopted a system of popularly-elected Electors, candidates for Elector would have to run in the congressional districts where they live and work, and where they will be known to their voters – known in a more intimate way than the major-party, media-shopped, advisor-curated, continent-hopping presidential candidates are now. Electors could pledge to vote for a particular candidate but they wouldn’t in the end be bound to that candidate. They would have to convince voters not of the virtues of the candidate they may favor, but of their own perspicacity, virtue, and wisdom. Those running for Elector would be any sort of person, and since “no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector,” Electors might be politicians, teachers, judges, lawyers, mechanics, farmers, business people, busybodies, do-gooders.  

It’s been shown that people like and trust their own Congressional representatives even if they don’t trust the Congress.  It’s because we know them, or at least we know them better.  They’ve been around, we see them on local news shows answering questions, they show up at fairs and schools and weigh in on issues important to us.  Electors would be similar.  Elected every four years for one duty, they’d be well known, and even if they weren’t doing public business the rest of the time, we’d follow their fortunes.  They’d be people of interest.  We might know their kids, or patronize their businesses, or have gone to school with them.  We’d have knowledge on which to judge them as persons, and on that basis vote for them or not.  I think that they would be often re-elected (unless such re-election was voted down). 

It might well be that this change would require that the major political parties, the One and the Other – only two, plus some tiny outliers – would have to be strictly limited by law, or broken into parts.  All that would  remain of the party system would be the primaries, which would produce candidates for President and Vice-president, and might nominate more than one of each.   To become President, a candidate would have to  win an absolute majority of the Electors’ votes, but even as now the candidates running aren’t limited to two; Electors would have to consider candidates who had reached some defined limit and gained sufficient primary or provisional votes to be considered. 

The aspiring Electors would also compete in primaries.  Candidates standing for Elector could not receive money or direct support for their campaigns from parties, nor declare a membership in any. In time, the fact that aspiring Electors have only their own resources to spend on a campaign would draw in people who could see that money or power was of less account than familiarity with the people and problems of their district, and the personal probity and appeal they demonstrated.  The only fact that would seem to limit the number of persons competing in those primaries (one for every Congressional district) would be that winning a primary would bring nothing but the right and duty to vote for President and Vice-president.  No Elector would be allowed to accept a position in the incoming administration for whom he or she voted.  

Above all, the final meetings and voting of the Electoral College would be deliberative. Despite the limits on parties and their propaganda there would certainly be factions; even if binding commitments were forbidden, Electors could be personally pledged to candidates for reasons ranging from the good the candidate is perceived to be for the Elector’s state or district, to the blinding glamor (or aggressive rabble-rousing) he or she projects.  But no matter what, any Elector’s vote could change during the likely protracted debate; multiple votes over many days might be needed in some election years. We the people could witness the entire debate, which could be protracted; but strict rules would protect Electors from outside influence during it.        

Of course there would be the possibility that Electors could be bribed or influenced or blackmailed into voting for a particular candidate.  An Elector could turn out to be just as stupid or evil-minded or confused as any candidate for President, and have won the post through lies or by exciting prejudices.  But presidential candidates or parties looking to bribe Electors would have to bribe or bully a lot of them to be sure of getting a majority on their side. Any Electors who went into the meetings of the College and suddenly changed the way they’d talked about the election all year would be bound to be noticed, especially if they seem later to have profited personally by their choice. 

Electoral College meetings might resemble parliamentary debates, with small parties allied to larger ones to make majorities; or might resemble party conventions in the long-ago days when such conventions actually chose candidates. (A permanent home for the Electoral College would have to be designated, either built new or given one of the grand properties of the nation.) Seeing our elected representatives debating and dealing in this way would be a lesson in politics, and most likely in life.  The results wouldn’t always be perfect and might once in a while be disastrous (what system would be proof against that?) but I think it would be effectually more democratic, and therefore better.