I'm Thankful We Have Our Electoral College!!!

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army judge

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It seems that as more and more time goes by, my appreciation for the ingeniousness of our Founding Fathers elevates.

I write this before knowing the outcome of the election. I sit behind a "veil of ignorance," with no advance knowledge of who will win the popular vote and who will win in the Electoral College.

We have a growing movement to replace the Electoral College with a winner-take-all National Popular Vote. This is advocated by some influential voices on both sides of the political spectrum.

But there are so many reasons why the unique system of voting for president is so vitally important to our republic. And we are, thankfully, a republic — not a majority/mob-rule "democracy."

So here's a quick civics lesson on the wisdom of the Electoral College.

First and foremost: We are a confederacy of states. The power of the federal government is derived from the states and the people. Washington is not the center of the universe.

Power is disbursed across the land in America. New York and Washington don't rule over our country — even though they think they do.

The Electoral College assigns power to every state — and safeguards the primacy of the states. It is critical to our system of federalism. America is unique in the world in our system of checks and balances, decentralized government power, and protection of the rights of the minority.

Without the Electoral College, eight to 10 large states would determine the election. California has a larger population than nine small states combined. But California, for all its virtues, is far from representative of our diverse country.

Would any candidate care about voters in Nebraska or New Hampshire or Nevada or Maine or Alaska or Iowa given that California has more voters than all of them combined? They wouldn't even bother to ever go to those states and would be instead chasing down every last vote to be had in Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and the Bronx.

Second, the Electoral College dramatically curtails voter fraud. The incentive to engage in massive illegal voting schemes in major cities (red and blue) would be massive and impossible to police. The graveyards would be full of voters on Election Day.

Under the current election rules, the payoff from stuffing the ballot boxes in deep-red and deep-blue areas is curtailed. But under a National Popular Vote, even a few hundred thousand illegal ballots in major cities would have the effect of entirely disenfranchising every voter in North and South Dakota.

Stolen elections could become the rule, not the exception.

Some complain that because we've had elections where the candidate who wins the popular vote doesn't win the election, the system is antidemocratic. I would argue these occasional outcomes only make the Electoral College all the more indispensable in keeping our country intact.

The system isn't perfect, and something needs to be done about the risks of "unfaithful electors" who could change the election outcome.

But just as in tennis, where the player who wins the most points doesn't always win the match, the current voting rules help protect our democracy, not undermine it.


 
The argument that the electoral college is necessary to contain voter fraud is vastly undercut by the fact that every other election held in this country uses the rule of every vote counting the same and the candidate who gets the majority of the votes is the winner and yet that hasn't led to wide spread election fraud in those elections.

The electoral college was simply a compromise between large and small states. It was a political choice, not a choice based on any virtue. If the system was so important to our values we'd be using some system like the electoral college for all elections, not just the presidency. A lot of what went into the Constitution were compromises to secure support for a new government. That in no way detracts from the remarkable results they were able to achieve through compromise.

It's a shame that today both parties seem to view compromise as something dirty that ought to be avoided like the plague. Yet much of our history is the result of compromises. Without compromise this country likely would not have held together nearly as long as it has.

Most political issues are not so sacred that they all have to be a hill to die upon. I'd staunchly defend our First Amendment rights but I wouldn't go to the mat over the government budget for the next year. Wise people pick their battles carefully and don't fight over every little thing. We seem to lack a lot of wise people in the Congress.
 
E pluribus unum

In 1782, the U.S. Congress formally adopted it as the nation's motto. The phrase symbolizes the idea that the United States was formed by the union of the original 13 colonies. It also represents the many cultures that make up the United States coming together to form one nation.

It's too bad that so many have forgotten that or were never taught it.
 
welkin said:
E pluribus unum

In 1782, the U.S. Congress formally adopted it as the nation's motto. The phrase symbolizes the idea that the United States was formed by the union of the original 13 colonies. It also represents the many cultures that make up the United States coming together to form one nation.

It's too bad that so many have forgotten that or were never taught it.
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The U.S. Continental Congress first proposed the motto E Pluribus Unum in 1782, for use on the Great Seal of the United States.

Gentlemen's Magazine, an important men's magazine published in England beginning in the early 18th century, is thought to be the immediate inspiration for the term. The magazine was extremely influential among the intellectual elite; every year, it would publish a special issue comprised of the best of the year's articles. E Pluribus Unum appeared on the magazine's title page to explain that the publication became "one issue from many previous issues."

Pierre Eugene du Simitiere originally suggested E Pluribus Unum as a motto in 1776.

Historically, several significant authors used the phrase or a variant of it.

The motto's early sources are thought to be a poem attributed to Virgil, Confessions by St Augustine, Cicero in his De Officiis, and several other pieces of writing. Given its rich history, it's appropriate that the U.S. founding fathers chose this to be our motto.

FUN FACTS
  • Just as the U.S. has thirteen original colonies, E Pluribus Unum has thirteen letters.

  • The phrase ex pluribus unum goes back to ancient times, and Saint Augustine used it in his c. 397-398 Confessions (Book IV.)

  • It has been used by the Scoutspataljon, a professional infantry battalion of the Estonian Defence Forces, since 1918.

  • E Pluribus Unum still appears on U.S. coins even though it is no longer the official national motto! The United States Congress gave that honor to In God We Trust in 1956 by an Act of Congress (36 U.S.C. § 302).

  • In the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz, the Wizard gives the Scarecrow a Diploma from The Society of E Pluribus Unum.

  • E Pluribus Unum was first used on the 1795 Liberty Cap-Heraldic Eagle gold $5 piece.

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What Does 'E Pluribus Unum' Mean?

You may have noticed the phrase 'E Pluribus Unum' on United States coins and currency. Learn about the phrase's meaning, significance, and history.
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