The Electoral College:
Do We Still Need It?
11
3
3
4
7
4
10
3
11
3
18
7
5
4
10
23
54
5
22
12
21
8
5
6
11
8
4
48
3
3
3
13
12
15
33
11
14
8
8
5
6
8
7
9
13
32
9
3
25
4
2000 Presidential Election
Electoral Votes Popular Votes
√ Bush 271 50,456,062
Gore 266 50,996,582
In the aftermath of the contentious 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential elec- tion, many people called for an end to the Electoral College method of
electing a President. Al Gore had barely
won a majority of the popular vote, but
George W. Bush had the edge in the
Electoral College. Those supporting Al
Gore claimed that the Electoral College
voting system was “antiquated” and
didn’t reflect the will of the people. They
proposed that whoever won the national
popular vote should always be declared
the winner. They wanted “democracy.”
However, the Founding Fathers took
the time to create the Electoral College
for some very important reasons: ( 1)
they wanted to create a republic, not a
democracy; ( 2) they believed that the
Electoral College was necessary for a dis-
tribution of power called federalism; ( 3)
they wanted protection for small states
against large state dominance, and ( 4) it
The Founding Fathers
took the time to
create the Electoral
College for some very
important reasons . . . .
was a safeguard against those who may
want to tamper with the process. Is the
Electoral College as described in Article
2: 1 and Amendment 12 of the Constitution still needed today? I say yes.
Our Founding Fathers were against
pure democracy. They studied history,
and they had fought against the oppres-
sive King of England. They knew that a
pure democracy would eventually allow
a few scheming men to seize power and
tyrannize the people. As a result of these
fears, our Founders crafted a republic and
built our Constitutional government on
federalism. Federalism is a system that
distributes power vertically for two dis-
tinct purposes; “. . . the first purpose was
to distribute power from the top down
and the second purpose was to filter wis-
dom from the bottom up.”
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