At the next U.S. Federal Election on November the 3rd, Americans will not actually choose the President. The Electoral College will choose him. Yes, you read that correctly – when Americans cast their votes, they won’t actually vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden, they will vote for their representatives on the Electoral College, and then that representative passes their vote on to the appropriate candidate.
So what is this phantom called the Electoral College? Well despite the name, it’s not an educational institution, it is a faceless body of electors. It was set up by the Founding fathers to prevent the President from getting too powerful. They didn’t want a repeat of the kind of demagoguery that they were trying to break away from when they revolted against the British Monarchy.
It sounds a bit elitist doesn’t it – you can’t trust the public to make the right decision, so you need a group of learned men to make sure the right decision is made. Then again, in light of recent events, is it better to let cool heads prevail in a climate of populist/nationalist hysteria?
THE DONALD
Which brings us neatly to the Trump phenomenon. Iranian-American religious scholar, Reza Aslan, caught sight of the fact that in the 2016 Presidential elections, over 81% of white evangelicals (a record) voted for the blatantly irreligious Donald Trump. This is way more than voted for George W. Bush, and he was a white evangelical.
Furthermore, in just 4 short years, evangelicals have gone from being the voting group most likely to care about a president’s character, to the group least likely to care about a president’s character.
On face value, this defies all logic. However, when you examine the last few decades in U.S. politics, you recognise that the power hungry evangelical movement has gradually taken over the Republican party and pragmatically transformed it into a flagrant, Trump worshipping religious cult.
From the start of his campaign, Trump has promised to give evangelicals exactly what they want – A conservative christian majority on the U.S. Supreme court, in order to overturn legislation they don’t like.
In return for all this secular power, they will support the Donald, come what may. Only time will tell if this deal turns out to be a faustian pact for Religious Republicans.
STATE BASED SYSTEM
The USA was established as a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. In a federal system, power is delegated to the states, not the national populace.
There was an initial push to have the Congress choose the President, like the way the Council of Cardinals chooses the Pope, but founding fathers like James Madison worried that allowing the legislature to decide the head of the executive was a clear violation of the separation of powers.
The advantage of an Electoral College is that the electors come from the community and are not tainted by the usual bad influences and nefarious agendas that politicians are. Although, they are selected by the parties themselves, and they are privy to information the general public doesn’t have access to.
The number of electors is equal to the number of members each state has in the Federal Congress. There are 538 Electoral College votes in total – which equals 435 from the House of Representatives (A population based chamber) and 100 from the Senate (A state based chamber – 2 each for all 50 states). There are also an additional 3 from Washington DC.
In order to win the Presidency you need an absolute majority of 270 Electoral College votes. The candidate who gets the most citizen votes in a particular state will then receive ALL of that state’s Electoral College votes. The successful candidate doesn’t need to win a majority of national citizen votes, but they usually have to win a majority of states.
We saw this recently in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote – 66 million to 63 million, however Donald Trump won the most states – 30 to 20, thus giving Trump the most Electoral College votes – 304 to 227 (7 didn’t play along) and therefore, the Presidency.
This method of calculation means that smaller states have proportionally more power than the large states. For example, the largest state in the union, California, with 40 million people has 55 Electoral College votes, whilst the smallest state, Wyoming with a population of only 550,000 has 3 electoral college votes. This means that the electors in California represent around 4 times as many people as an elector from Wyoming.
FOR AND AGAINST
Supporters of the Electoral College claim that under the existing system, every state matters. None of the candidates can simply ignore the smaller states and choose only to focus on the most populous ones.
It’s a noble idea, but the reality is that a candidate could already operate like that with the current Electoral College system. All they need is the 11 most populous states to vote for them and they could theoretically ignore the remaining 39 and still win.
The reason that hasn’t happened is because historically, those 11 states don’t even come close to voting the same way. They are doggedly split between the 2 major parties.
The College of Electors pledge their vote to their parties candidate before the election, so that the public is in no doubt where they stand, even though technically they could change their vote to the opposition candidate. It’s never actually happened, but it is possible.
An Electoral College member who doesn’t end up supporting the candidate they promised to support, (Like the uncooperative 7 in 2016) is referred to as a faithless elector.
Interestingly enough, at least 33 states currently have laws against faithless electing. Yet there are many Constitutional scholars who suggest that such laws could be legitimately challenged in the courts, if they ever became an issue.
However, at this point in time, the United States Supreme Court has made it very clear that it has no objection to laws that prohibit faithless electing.
To the casual observer, today’s Electoral College seems like nothing more than a rubber stamp, a mere ceremonial apparatus which doesn’t really interfere with the democratic process. A bit like the Royal Families of nations like England, Sweden and Denmark.
But that really isn’t the case. Whilst the aforementioned Royal Families can be a great source of national pride, a symbol of the nation, and have a positive influence on social justice, the Electoral College members are just a collection of nondescript party hacks who meet once every four years and contribute practically nothing to the country.
THE 21ST CENTURY
After flying under the radar for ages, the Electoral College was thrust back into the spotlight in November 2000, when Democrat Al Gore, lost the election to Republican George W. Bush, despite winning the popular vote. Just like the previously mentioned result of Hillary (D) vs Donald (R). This would explain why the Democrats want the Electoral College abolished, whilst the Republicans are keen to retain it.
Democratic Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched a very passionate tirade against the Electoral College on social media, after watching the Republican cheerleaders on the Fox News channel defending it with a zeal and fanaticism worthy of the most egregious religious fundamentalist.
Her argument was basically the following: if the Republicans really do represent the silent majority as they so often claim, then they have absolutely no reason to fear the popular vote. Secondly, similar to what we mentioned earlier, the fear that a handful of states will control everything is a bit weird because in many ways, at least economically, they already do.
The idea that a popular vote would disadvantage rural states and favour the coastal states is another fallacy. Every state has rural areas, California and New York have plenty. And finally, there is no electoral “affirmative action” towards any other group in the USA, so why should the people in the small states receive it?
Another flaw in the current system is that it consolidates the tired old 2 party system by almost completely excluding third parties. In addition, it totally excludes America’s overseas territories (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam etc.) from having a say in their own future.
THE AMERICAN PRIME MINISTER?
Perhaps it’s also an opportune time to examine the powerful role of the United States President. In American democracy, unlike many other forms of western democracy, the President has 2 jobs: Head of State (Chief of the Nation) and Head of Government (Chief of the Executive).
Most countries split these roles, with a Monarch or President as Head of State, and a Prime Minister or Chancellor as Head of Government. This ensures that the person running the country answers, not just to the legislative assembly, but also to an office that’s even higher than theirs.
The main difference with the US system is that the American President is not part of the Legislature, as the Prime Minister is, in places like the British or Australian Parliament. The idea formulated by the founding fathers is that Congress acts as a full time restraint mechanism upon the powers of the President.
But the checks and balances of liberal democracies only work if someone actually checks and balances. As we saw under the Trump Administration, if your own sycophantic political allies control the Legislature (and the Judiciary), then the checks and balances on the President’s actions are about as effective as a cat flap in an elephant house.
Given that the US President is also ‘Commander in Chief’ of the world’s most powerful military, perhaps splitting his powers up amongst two positions might be an idea for the future.
#El Dorado #Environmental History #Gandhi #US Military Armenia Azerbaijan Brexit British Empire Bushfires Caribbean Caucasus China Civil War Climate Change Coal Industry Communism Constitution Democracy Denialism Electoral College Ethnicity European Union Georgia Government Independence India Irish Johnson Montenegro Muslim Oil Pakistan Plantation Politics President Republic Republican Russia Separatist Serbia South Sudan Sudan USA USSR War
