A recent Newsday editorial (“Getting Congress Together on Closing the Polls,” Oct. 18) advocated a solution for the very real problem that occurs when television networks announce the winners of presidential elections long before the polls have closed in the western part of the country. The proposed solution would require that the polls close simultaneously in the 48 contiguous states.
While this seems the most popular approach to the problem, having reached the point of consideration by Congress, it suffers from serious defects, particularly that it would reduce the number of evening hours in which people on the West Coast are allowed to vote, and it would exclude Alaska and Hawaii.
Americans have grown accustomed to the notion that there is no higher authority than the will of the people. But what really happens on Election Day is the appointment of an obscure governmental council, older than the presidency itself, that through long usage has come to be known as the Electoral College. It is unlikely that more than a handful of voters would be able to name any of the 538 individuals who actually elect our president. Yet every fourth year, at noon on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, that collection of anonymous electors “meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for president and vice president, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state as themselves,” as mandated by the 12th Amendment.
There is nothing in the Constitution to require that the winner of the nationwide popular vote be chosen to occupy the Oval Office. In fact, on three occasions in our history the Electoral College has elected the loser of the popular election to serve as president, and political experts predict that it is almost inevitable that this will one day happen again.
An even more unpalatable scenario would occur if no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, a majority of the total. In that case, the House of Representatives chooses from the top three candidates, 26 states necessary, with the delegation of each state having one vote. This means that every state, no matter how large or small, an equal voice. The obvious strategy of most “third party” candidates is to bring such a situation about, in order to gain bargaining power with the new administration. The implications for the independence of the executive branch are disturbing
It is difficult for most of us to imagine that the Constitution allows a defeated candidate to assume office. However, having risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in pursuit of the cause of liberty, the founding fathers were not about to entrust their stake in the new nation to the wisdom of a populace they considered to be little better than rabble. The favorite maxim of John Jay, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, rather bluntly maintained that “the people who own the country ought to run it.”
The body politic two centuries ago bore little resemblance to the electorate of a modern democracy. Women, slaves and Indians could not vote. Adult white men could vote, but true to the spirit of John Jay, most states required that voters own a certain amount of property. There was nothing approaching uniformity in the voting qualifications of the states, so the first problem standing in the way of a popular election for president was the lack of a uniform voting populace.
Today it is difficult to find any rationale, other than tradition, for perpetuating the Electoral College. With the expansion of voting rights to every citizen over 18, we can truly claim to have a responsible and uniform electorate.
Modern technology provides an additional argument for abolishing the Electoral College. Because electoral votes rather than popular votes, elect the president, the eastern states provide the winning 270 vote margin long before the polls close in the west. This fact is immediately communicated to the rest of the nation through marvels of technology never imagined by the founding fathers. Critics charge that the race between the networks to instantly transmit information about an election still in progress, is an irresponsible abuse that may affect the outcome of local elections; while the networks defend this practice as a responsible exercise of their journalistic mandate.
Rather than threaten freedom of the press for radio and television networks, abolition of the Electoral College offers a more satisfactory solution. By eliminating the outcome in any single state, the rush to offer instant results would be diminished, through the simple expedient of being rendered meaningless information.
