The Electoral College

Via Red                                      

  

"To be honest, it is very difficult to be entirely originalist about the Electoral College because it never really worked as intended. Contrary to the modern notion that it is just a way to state weigh the national popular vote, this was not the original intent. The original intent was to place a barrier between the election of the President and pure democracy. The Constitution does not even direct that those electors be popularly voted for. Theoretically each state would select however it decided hopefully wise and prudent electors who would then go to their state capitol and hash out who would be the state’s choice for President and Vice President. The Framers actually say nothing about parties and nothing about slates. The Framers feared parties. These state Electoral College votes would then be transmitted to DC where on the appointed day Congress would count them. 

 

That this very quickly didn’t worked as intended and the whole thing quickly devolved into a two party national election simply testifies to the fact that our Framers were imperfect and failed to see this potentiality. So, Massie may be technically right that the job of Congress is supposed to be to simply count a presumably previously unknown outcome, but this has little if anything to do with the modern system we actually have today which is leagues away from what the Framers intended. Today the outcome is “known” so the whole thing of “counting” the results potentially becomes just a formality. (Remember, theoretically we wouldn’t even know the outcome until the 6th if this was working as intended.) 

 

The Framers simply did not account for the possibility of mass election fraud. It wasn’t a national popular election. They did however account for an indecisive vote. So what is an originalist supposed to do in a situation where the original is for all intents and purposes a dead letter? My feeling is that allegations of fraud are most analogous to an indecisive vote, and should be adjudicated by Congress in the same way. There is historical precedent for this. Massie’s insistence that Reps and Senators can only “count” votes in the current context which resembles the original intent in very little way, I see as simply an unwarranted and imprudent imposition. Whether he is sincere in this belief or just excusing inaction I don’t know. I hope the former. But what we do know with absolute certainty is that nowhere in all this does the Constitution say a Rep or Senator cannot vote based on a good faith determination of who he thinks actually won the election in a particular state. 

 

That said, I would much prefer we get rid of national popular elections for President and return to the indirect democracy of a real functioning as originally intended Electoral College. I also agree with the Confederate Constitution that the President should be elected to one six year term. So if you aren’t down with me on that, please spare me your lectures about originalism."