On July 6, 2020, the Electoral College suffered a potentially lethal blow. It is not dead yet, but it’s on its knees, gasping for air. In a damning opinion, the Supreme Court went rogue, yet again, taking a swipe at our Constitution by telling states they can force their electors, under threat of punishment, to side with their people’s popular vote. As will be clear by the end of this article, this move neuters and nullifies the Electoral College and is a blatant usurpation of authority by the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Court gave their opinion that states have the authority to punish what is referred to as “faithless electors.” That is, according to the Court, states may punish and fine electors who cast their vote for someone other than the winner of the popular vote in their state. CNN gave a surprisingly accurate rendition of what the Supreme Court’s opinion did. They explained:
“In an effort to avoid [election chaos], the Supreme Court set out to determine whether presidential electors — a slate of individuals in each state, whose number is determined by Congressional representation, designated to cast their state’s electoral votes for president and vice president — are free agents or not. On Monday, justices unanimously decided in Chiafalo v. Washington that states have the power to bind electors — meaning we could see the end of so-called “faithless electors,” or electors who choose to vote for someone other than their party’s nominees.”
That’s where CNN’s objectivity ended, however. The article went on to advocate even more restrictive measures to formally bind electors to the popular vote and thus scrap the constitutionally-appointed method of electing the president:
“With this decision, states should move quickly to adopt the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act to categorically end the prospect of faithless electors.
“I have long argued that we should eliminate elector discretion. . . .
“In delivering the opinion Monday, Justice Elena Kagan indicated that the Constitution is “bare bones about electors.” While true, when the architects of various amendments dealing with the Electoral College had a chance, they never chose to eliminate the discretion of electors. . . .
“. . . We can expect that states may put additional conditions on the appointment of electors to try to exert greater control. For instance, a state could require an elector to only vote for a candidate who has visited their state in the past 60 days or only for a candidate who has released their tax returns.”
It is actually not true that the Constitution gives states authority to bind electors, as Justice Kagan claims (we’ll get to that a little later). This was unthinkable to the Founders who created the system precisely to give electors the maximum discretion and free agency. As a line just quoted states, the “architects” of the Constitution “never chose to eliminate discretion of electors” – a fact which invalidates Justice Kagan’s and the Supreme Court’s entire argument.
At first glance, it may appear that the Supreme Court’s opinion is a win for “states’ rights” and the American People. After all, didn’t they decide that states could control their electors and punish “rogue” ones? Isn’t this a clear win for the Tenth Amendment? No, it’s not. It’s a win for whoever is able to swing the majority of the population. It’s a win for those who favor pure democracy – a system our Founding Fathers despised and which our Constitution explicitly rejects by guaranteeing to the states a “Republican Form of Government” (Article 4, Section 4) and only trusting the People with the direct election of members of the House of Representatives.
What exactly does the Constitution say about the Electoral College? The most relevant portion regarding the Electoral College, Article 2, Section1, Clause 2, mandates:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”
Justice Kagan and her comrades on the Court interpreted “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof my direct” as carte blanche state control over electors – including over the candidate electors vote for. Said differently, they interpret this wording as implying state control over electors’ votes. As we see, the “implied powers” strike again.
The notion of “implied powers” has haunted this nation for generations. Power-hungry bureaucrats love to read between the lines and imply authority that is not explicitly contained in the Constitution. In our present case, for example, the Constitution does not say that states have carte blanche over electors’ votes. Nowhere does it say that they may force electors to vote for a specific candidate, punish them if they vote their conscience, or otherwise limit their free will in the matter. It simply says that state legislatures may determine how electors are appointed.
A federal government website gives readers a basic understanding of the Electoral College that the members of the Supreme Court seem to not have. It explains the process and obligations simply:
“Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all. . . .
“Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state.
“After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system.
“A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors—to win the presidential election.
“In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states.
“The Constitution doesn’t require electors to follow their state’s popular vote, but it’s rare for one not to.”
Finally, a graphic accompanying the text reads: “When people cast their vote, they are actually voting for a group of people called electors.”
This information is simple and straightforward. We learn that the People do not vote for the president directly, but for the electors who select the president. And there’s no confusion about whether the Constitution requires these electors to choose their winner of their state’s popular vote. Yet, the Supreme Court apparently thinks states have authority to penalize electors for voting their conscience even though there is no constitutional requirement for them to do so!
Some claim that the Founding Fathers themselves were divided on the issue and therefore varying interpretations of how the system should work are valid. I fail to see how anyone conversant with the literature of the times can draw this conclusion. Far from being divided on the issue of an Electoral College, the Founders were united in approving the system. During the Constitutional Convention, they debated numerous other modes of electing the president. They discarded them all and finally agreed upon the Electoral College as the best possible way of electing the highest officer in the land. In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton noted:
“The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.”
Contrary to what political commentators today say, the Founders heartily approved the Electoral College – and none more so than Alexander Hamilton. He went out of his way to say that the Electoral College is “the only part” of the novel governmental plan that had “escaped without severe censure” by critics. Pay careful attention to some of Hamilton’s reasons for supporting the Electoral College so vociferously:
“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.”
Interesting, is it not, that the Founding Fathers sought to prevent chaos by empowering the Electoral College, whereas the Supreme Court Monday decided to prevent chaos by neutering the Electoral College. Who was right – the Founding Fathers or today’s Supreme Court? Who understood the system better, Alexander Hamilton who helped create it or Elena Kagan who has helped dismantle it through her activism? Anyone with a shred of honesty and common sense knows the answer to those two questions.
According to Hamilton, the Electoral College system would prevent secret “combinations” of corruption, negate the influence of foreign powers in our national elections, and thwart attempts to steal elections through bribery or conspiracy. As much as the Democrats falsely allege that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump, you’d think that they would be the biggest supporters of the Electoral College. Instead, they’re the greatest enemies of the system, for reasons we will discuss later.
Founding Father John Jay, who was also present at the Constitutional Convention, gave his support to the Electoral College and explained how it could prevent the People from being duped by charlatans promising “hope and change.” He said:
“The convention . . . have directed the President to be chosen by select bodies of electors, to be deputed by the people for that express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of senators to the State legislatures. This mode has, in such cases, vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective capacity, where the activity of party zeal, taking the advantage of the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary and interested, often places men in office by the votes of a small proportion of the electors.
“As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the State legislatures who appoint the senators, will in general be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence. The Constitution manifests very particular attention to this object. By excluding men under thirty-five from the first office [i.e. the presidency], and those under thirty from the second [i.e. the Senate], it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle. If the observation be well founded, that wise kings will always be served by able ministers, it is fair to argue, that as an assembly of select electors possess, in a greater degree than kings, the means of extensive and accurate information relative to men and characters, so will their appointments bear at least equal marks of discretion and discernment. The inference which naturally results from these considerations is this, that the President and senators so chosen will always be of the number of those who best understand our national interests, whether considered in relation to the several States or to foreign nations, who are best able to promote those interests, and whose reputation for integrity inspires and merits confidence.”
Jay believed that electors would epitomize the wisdom of the People – that they would be the cream of the crop. They would convene once every four years, pool their wisdom, and, with the trust of the People, select the president. Generally, of course, the electors would choose the person the People wanted. But more importantly, they were left free as to their “discretion and discernment” to select the person who would “best understand our national interests.”
During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason similarly argued against a popular vote to elect the president in these colorful terms:
“[I]t would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer the trial of colours to a blind man. The extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the representative pretentions of the Candidates” (Electing the President, Committee of the Judiciary, Ninety-First Congress, 456).
Like Mason, Elbridge Gerry argued that the People should not be given the opportunity to directly select the president because of their chance of being deceived. During the Founders’ debates, he said:
“A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment” (W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, 524).
Electors were to be brought in for one purpose – to ratify the People’s selection if they had shown good judgment and to rebuff them by selecting an alternative candidate if they had shown poor judgment. If the People had allowed themselves to be deceived, the electors, who would usually be people routinely involved in politics and presumably more knowledgeable than the average person, would override the popular vote.
James Madison liked this system in part because “as the electors would be chosen for the occasion, would meet at once, & proceed immediately to an appointment, there would be very little opportunity for cabal, or corruption” (Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 4, 62). It’s easy to hoodwink large groups with emotional speeches and promises, especially in our day of mass media manipulation, but it’s theoretically more difficult to fool a small group of dedicated individuals whose sole purpose is to put the best person into the White House. Hence the creation of the Electoral College.
Some have made the argument that the Electoral College perhaps served a valuable function in a time when people did not have widespread access to information or education, but that today when nearly all people receive formal schooling and have access to a vast array of information, the system is archaic and unfair. This is easily refuted when we realize how poorly educated the average person is today compared to his ancestors in early America!
In early America, the average person might not have had much formal schooling, but he thoroughly understood the Constitution, actively participated in self-government, belonged to a militia, was involved in his community, participated on juries, knew his representatives in person, and so forth. Today, the average American probably doesn’t even know who the vice-president is, let alone who his local community representatives are. Then, Americans learned multiple languages in grade school and had a rigorous curriculum that baffles most people in our generation. Today, we stumble through remedial English and have horrendous school curricula that focus on feelings rather than facts. Simply, we are intellectually inferior in nearly every way to our ancestors – especially in the divine science of government.
Apart from preventing a conspiratorial takeover of our nation and guarding against mass ignorance, the Founding Fathers had other benefits in mind when they crafted the Electoral College system. In an excellent article written in the aftermath of the 2016 election, the reader is given a long list of benefits accrued from the Electoral College, including the following:
“The system forces candidates to address people across the country. If polling were nationwide a candidate could theoretically sweep regions with large populations and win the nation-wide vote. This would basically leave rural America at risk of being ignored.
“The marginal balance shifts to smaller states. In a national wide system a candidate could win heavily in a few heavily populated states and in the process ignore voters in less populated states. . . .
“The College Provides A Safety Valve. There are 21 states at the moment where Electors can break from the popular will. Almost never do Electors vote as anything other than a proxy for the results of the electorate. But maybe, there will be a day when we will thank ourselves that possibility of Electors overriding the electorate exists.”
The article then opined about the third benefit on our list – the fact that the Electoral College serves as a safety valve to save the Republic if the People become deceived by a charlatan:
“Make no mistake here the possibility of national elections being hijacked is just as real if not more in the 21st century as it was in the 18th century. We live in an age where sound bytes matter far more than serious reflection. We live in an age where masses of people can be swayed by an increasingly powerful media able to propagate ideas and spin them virally in a few clicks.
“The crowd has a life of its own and the crowd is far more connected to each other than ever before. One day the crowd will turn into a stampede. When this happens, it will be really comforting to know there exists the possibility for one last bastion of sanity, a few souls, a few Electors in a few states who are brave enough and courageous enough to put forward their conscience and change the balance before it is too late.”
The Founding Fathers were legitimately worried that the American People could be deceived and a smooth-talking tyrant could come to power. The Electoral College was the ultimate check on the passions of the crowd. If it functioned as designed, the Electoral College would nullify the public’s vote if the public selected a wolf in sheep’s clothing to lead them. In other words, the Electoral College would figuratively slap the poisoned chalice out of the king’s hand before he could drink it.
A couple examples might be helpful. If the Electoral College had functioned as designed, the nation would have been spared the dreadful presidencies of socialists FDR and Woodrow Wilson. Instead of allowing FDR to take the reins and foist his horrid New Deal socialism on the nation, the Electoral College could have selected someone with fiscally sound policies who could have pulled our nation out of the Great Depression. Instead, the Electoral College overwhelmingly supported FDR, leading to four terms of de facto communism, the New Deal, Japanese Internment Camps, the theft of the nation’s gold, America’s unnecessary entrance into World War II, and the rescue of the Soviet Union from the jaws of defeat.
Similarly, if the Electoral College had done their job, they would have prevented Woodrow Wilson from ascending to the presidency. This would have saved America from entering World War I and, perhaps even more importantly, would have derailed, or at least delayed, the Federal Reserve scheme. Without Wilson in the Oval Office, a different president may have vetoed the egregious Federal Reserve Act, saving our People from bondage to a largely foreign-controlled private banking cartel, preventing the decline of the U.S. economy, and staving off the Great Depression that later brought FDR to power.
Unfortunately, the Electoral College has not worked exactly as designed. Yet, it has remained largely intact and has facilitated the peaceful transfer of power from one group to the next for over two centuries. It’s very existence, however, is now being challenged. A coordinated effort – not unlike those it was designed to thwart – is underway to eliminate the Electoral College completely.
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday’s opinion, Jesse Wegman said that “the Supreme Court clearly got it right,” but complained: “The justices did not address the much bigger problem, which is the existence of the Electoral College itself.” Wegman called the electoral system “bizarre” and “anti-democratic.” He alleged that the people in the “battleground” states have their voices heard while people elsewhere do not. He advocated, without using this term, for the total abolition of the Electoral College.
Wegman was absolutely correct – the Electoral College is “anti-democratic” by design. Whether you like it or not, it is part of our republican Constitution. In his Farewell Address, George Washington said:
“Respect for [government’s] authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”
Until the Constitution is formally changed by the People, via the amendment process, it is “sacredly obligatory” upon us. This means that until we amend the Constitution to change or get rid of the Electoral College, it is our system and we must sustain it. Yet, in what can only be considered a usurpation of authority, the Supreme court took it upon themselves to grant states power to punish electors who do the job appointed to them by the Constitution! By issuing their bogus opinion and putting the matter in to the states’ hands instead of upholding the Constitution’s plain commitment to elector free agency, the Supreme Court opened the door to rendering the Electoral college totally irrelevant.
What the Court’s opinion really does is make the Electoral College a rubber stamp for the popular vote. In other words, it converts the Electoral College into a rubber stamp for pure democracy – that very thing our Founding Fathers feared. This allows the Elite social engineers who manipulate public opinion through the mass media to almost ensure that their preferred candidates come to power each election. If this system had been in place in 2016, Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote, would very likely have become president because it’s doubtful that electors would have risked official punishment to vote their conscience.
The agenda behind this is obvious. By dismantling the Constitution’s elaborate system of checks and balances and placing things directly in the hands of the People, whom they manipulate through indoctrination, the Establishment is setting itself up to bypass the hated Constitution and claim total power. The system our Founding Fathers set in place allowed Donald Trump to become president, against the wishes of the Establishment. They never want that to happen again, so they must once and for all destroy the Electoral College and put the ball in the People’s court – a move which historically leads to civil war and the rise of totalitarian regimes.
In his article “Destruction of the Electoral College Remains a Leftist Goal,” Charles Phipps explained a little about the fiendish agenda to sideswipe the Electoral College:
“It is either ignorance of or contempt for the Constitution that fuels the anti-Electoral College movement. Whether it is ignorance or contempt depends on which leftist we’re talking about. I’ve never met a Democrat yet who didn’t believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. Not surprising since two of the last five presidential elections had the Republican losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College, making Democrats absolutely apoplectic. If the roles were reversed and it was the Democrat who won the Electoral College, you can be sure that they would be staunch defenders of it. But, they hate it. . . .
“The contempt that leftists have for the Electoral College is elevated by their losses when winning the popular vote, but the core of their disdain lies in their love of a huge, powerful, central government. That states have rights is irrelevant to them. The Electoral College was designed to rest the power to elect the president in the States, not the people. Under federalism, states have a sovereign role in our political system and it is that role that leftists seek to eliminate.”
A 2016 article featured on the Tenth Amendment Center’s website also warned of the impending danger to the Electoral College:
“A campaign to eliminate the Electoral College and “let the people elect the president,” is gaining steam. A group called “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” started in 2006, has won commitments from eleven states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. . . .
“As usual, it’s easy to get people to join this cause – yet another sound bite based on emotion rather than knowledge or logic. “Let the people decide.” “It’s the American way.” “It’s Democracy at work.” Yep, that’s why America was never set up as a democracy. Here’s another sound bite for you – “Democracy is a lynch mob.” Here’s another one – “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.” Majority rule violates the rights of minorities. It’s not a good thing. Get the picture?
“Our Founding Fathers went to a lot of trouble to give us a government that was fair, representing all the people in every state – to protect a minority of one against the will of a mob which isn’t too concerned about the rights of someone standing in their way. Hence the Electoral College.
“The abolishment of the Electoral College would, in fact, establish an election tyranny giving control of the government to the massive population centers of the nation’s Northeastern sector, along with the area around Los Angeles. If these sections of the nation were to control the election of our nation’s leaders, the voice of the ranchers and farmers of the Mid and Far West would be lost, along with the values and virtues of the South. It would also mean the end of the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty.”
Did you know that doing away with the Electoral College would not only cancel out part of the Constitution, as explained earlier, but would silence the voices of the majority of Americans in the majority of states? This is not fear-mongering – it’s reality. Let’s give a stark example of how the Electoral College actually preserves the voice of the People and makes elections more fair.
In the 2016 election between rabid socialist Hillary Clinton and blundering Donald Trump, Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.8 million votes, but Trump became president because the Electoral College favored him 304 to 227. To someone with a kindergartner’s IQ in constitutionalism, this may seem like a grave injustice. How can the candidate with 48.18% of the national vote lose to the contender with 46.09% of the vote, they moan? To put these raw numbers into perspective, consider a few other facts.
There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Though Hillary Clinton did in fact win the popular vote, Donald Trump won 2,654 counties! In case you thought that was a typo, let’s clarify: Donald Trump won 2,654 of 3,141 counties – 84.5% of all counties in the nation. Hillary Clinton won a measly 487. That’s no small margin of victory for the man who allegedly “stole” the election!
One study showed that far from barely winning in these 2,654 counties, Donald Trump often won by a large percentage. In addition to winning 85% of counties, Donald Trump won 30 states whereas Hillary Clinton only won 20. The voice of the overwhelming majority of American communities, therefore, wanted Donald Trump as their president. Yet the Democrats complain about how “unfair” the Electoral College system is!
In truth, a system that elected the president based on the popular vote alone would be unmistakably unfair because it would allow a clear minority – only 15% of counties and only 20 of 50 states – to select the president while disenfranchising the overwhelming majority of communities in America. Yet, the Democrats want the 85% to bow to them. Because they control several large population centers – Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and a few others – they can almost force the rest of us in non-Democrat occupied America under their yoke. They will accomplish their ghastly goal if we allow the Electoral College to be destroyed. A national popular vote would drown out the voices of those of us in the smaller states – the states where some sanity still resides.
If you look at a red and blue county map of the 2016 presidential election, you find most of the red concentrated in five basic areas – southern California and a strip along the Californian coast, New Mexico, southern Texas, Seattle, and New York. Of course there are a handful of others, but these are the largest concentrations. Do we want these few areas speaking for the rest of the nation and determining our leaders for the foreseeable future? Do those of us in heartland America want to be controlled by a few elitist cities on the coasts? This is exactly what will have if we allow the Electoral College to be terminated.
World Net Daily has reported:
“The Electoral College was set up to assure that a handful of population centers across the country cannot in perpetuity control the presidency. That’s well illustrated by the 2016 results, where Trump won vast swaths of America, but still came up short in the popular vote because of the results, essentially, in one state, California. . . .
“The 2016 results really reveal that America has become two different nations: far left metropolitan and urban areas and much more conservative regions of small cities, towns and rural areas.”
Two Americas indeed! We are a nation divided between two ideologies – Americanism and communism. The Electoral College helps preserve Americanism whereas the popular vote will inevitably drag us toward communism.
The title of an article in The Hill tells us the whole story: “The 10 counties that will decide the 2020 election.” Though the piece perpetuates the lie that the last presidential election was decided by a slim 77,000 votes, and though it’s clearly wrong in which ten counties it thinks will determine the outcome of the election, it nevertheless shows the imbalance that would exist if we nullified the Electoral College and allowed the popular vote to determine national elections. We cannot allow it to happen.
In his sound article “No, Don’t Abolish the Electoral College,” Zachary Yost explained how doing away with the system would actually disenfranchise large swaths of the public rather than empowering them as anti-Electoral College elements claim:
“While our states aren’t as natural as the family, they serve a similar purpose in defending their citizens from abuse and protecting their interests. This was the logic behind the establishment of our decentralized federalist system of government, where seats of power are balanced against each other in an attempt to limit potential abuses of power.
“If states are important (as a “mediating institution” of sorts) for protecting their citizens from abuse by the central government, then the Electoral College is vital to ensure that every state maintains some relevance and the ability to influence the federal government. When necessary, the Electoral College might even serve as a useful tool the states could use to rein in the federal government by directly appointing electors to ensure the president is answerable to them and doesn’t ignore their interests. If presidential candidates were forced to kowtow to state governments, rather than trying to bribe the shortsighted masses, we’d see a very different incentive structure driving the national debate in which decentralization would be sure to follow.
“It’s understandable why some people think eliminating institutions like the Electoral College will result in more freedom and direct control for the average person. But further centralizing our political system by eliminating federalist institutions like the Electoral College will inevitably lead to a more powerful federal government and leave individuals with fewer options if that power is abused.”
Another writer painted a bleak scenario of what it would be like to live in middle America without the Electoral College:
“Without either [the Senate or the Electoral College], or with a Senate converted into a proportional representation body, as some have suggested, rural states are effectively political serfs for the larger urban centers.
“The Electoral College and the Senate allow rural states to have a voice in how the country is run, rather than being totally ruled over by people in urban centers who don’t own guns, can’t grow food, and have never met their neighbors.
“It’s not a coincidence that Electoral College abolition is a particular ax ground by the left. The abolition of the Electoral College would allow for sweeping changes in American public policy championed by those currently on the leftward edge of the political spectrum. Do you want to live in a country where, for example, the voters of smaller states like Nevada, New Hampshire and Montana are drowned out by a handful of cities on the coasts? What of medium-sized states with a number of post-industrial cities with their own concerns, just as valid as those of rural America, but entirely separate from the centers of financial, cultural and academic power?”
In a similar, though more foreboding vein, a third writer presented this thought:
“[A]bsent the electoral college system, presidential elections would be almost entirely determined by a handful of cities including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And while the left would prefer to ignore the opinions of those in the “fly-over” states, we would suggest that their representation in the electoral college is a vital underpinning of American democracy . . . without such representation we’re not sure why the fly-over states would choose to remain a part of a union where they had no say.”
Despite warnings from well-informed patriots like these, a withering barrage has been initiated against the Constitution – a barrage which was aided by the Supreme Court’s democracy-promoting false opinion this past Monday. When you realize who has been advocating for the destruction of the Electoral College, the issue comes into brighter focus. For generations, radical socialists of all stripes have advocated to abolish this ingenious instrument – an instrument, as we’ve seen, that the Founders put in place to prevent the type of corruption and conspiracy that characterizes socialism. We now showcase a few of the notable figures who are actively fighting to kill the Electoral College.
Elizabeth Warren, the fake Indian lunatic, is on record calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. Before she was forced to bow out of the presidential race, she had vowed to be the last person elected by the Electoral College. By 2024, she claimed, it would be a relic of history. Among other comments, Chief Warren said:
“I want to get rid of [the Electoral College]. So here’s my goal: my goal is to get elected and then to be the last American president elected by the Electoral College. I want the second term to be that I got elected by direct vote. I just think this is how a democracy should work. Call me old-fashioned, but I think the person who gets the most votes should win.”
If we were a democracy, she’s be right. But we’re not a democracy. For 233 years, the United States has rejected the democratic system and voted in the unique republican format described earlier. Of course, Warren, who doesn’t even know her own lineage, thinks she knows more than the Founding Fathers and the combined experience of the American People.
Taking a leaf from Warren’s “we’re a democracy” book, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley opined on CNN that the Electoral College “diminishes the legitimacy of our president.” He suggested that we “embrace the notion that whoever wins an election with the most support or the most citizens, should be the person who takes the office. That’s the fundamental nature of democracy.” While it’s certainly true that in a democracy 51% of the people can dominate and utterly control the 49%, that’s never been the case in the United States. Our republican Constitution provides as system that allows the most number of people, in the greatest number of locations throughout the Union, to have their voices heard by selecting the upstanding men who select the president on their behalf.
Democrat Stacey Abrams, who claims she lost her election in Georgia due to “racism” rather than because of her own idiocy and unsound principles, has unsurprisingly screeched: “The Electoral College is racist and classist . . . Both of those things should be flung to the far reaches of history and the Electoral College needs to go.”
The failed, homosexual Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, has also advocated for the abolition of the Electoral College: “We can’t say it’s much of a democracy when twice in my lifetime the Electoral College has overruled the American people. Why should our vote in Indiana only count once or twice in a century? Or your vote in Wyoming or New York?” No, we can’t say it’s a democracy since it’s not. To say that we are a democracy is the height of ignorance.
I’m also unsure how Indiana’s vote supposedly only counted “once or twice” in a century, but I do know that smaller states would have dramatically less of a voice if the Electoral College was eliminated and larger states were allowed to dominate the voting process. Yet, Buttigieg says: “The electoral college needs to go because it’s made our society less and less democratic.” Either he’s totally ignorant or totally malicious. Either way, he’s a danger to the Republic.
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who, similar to Warren’s Indian schizophrenia, can’t decide whether he’s white or Latino, said flatly: “Let’s abolish the Electoral college.” Why should we abolish this system that has worked for more than two centuries? Racism and democracy, of course:
“This is one of those bad compromises we made at day one in this country. There are many others we can think of and they are all connected, including the value of some people based on the color of their skin. . . .
“In this conversation about how we repair the damage, how we make things right, and how we keep from committing the same injustice going forward is squarely connected to the reason that we are all convened here today and that is fixing our democracy. So yes, if we get rid of the Electoral College, we get a little bit closer to one person, one vote in the United States of America.”
Echoing many of the same flawed arguments, Eric Holder, Obama’s scandal-ridden attorney general, complained:
“We’ve got to do away with the Electoral College. We’ve got a system now that was—it’s a defect in our democracy. We have had in the last five elections two presidents who were not—win the popular vote.”
He has also Tweeted:
“Time to make Electoral College a vestige of the past. It’s undemocratic, forces candidates to ignore majority of the voters and campaign in a small number of states. The presidency is our one national office and should be decided – directly – by the voters.”
Surely Holder and the others aren’t so intellectually stunted that they can’t see how getting rid of the Electoral College would do precisely what they claim to decry; namely, having a small number of states dominate all the others. Anyone who takes five minutes to honestly understand the Electoral College understands that it gives a larger number of people in a larger number of areas a voice whereas a popular vote would allow large states like California to totally control the election process – the small states be damned.
One Democrat who does appear to be intellectually stunted, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has absurdly claimed:
“The Electoral College has a racial injustice breakdown. Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the electoral college effectively weighs white voters over voters of color.”
Tom Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee is also either ignorant of the Constitution or a pathological liar. He has actually said: “The Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution.” Because he doesn’t believe that the Electoral College isn’t in the Constitution, even though it plainly sits right there in Article 2, Section 1, he doesn’t believe Donald Trump won the 2016 election, but that Hillary Clinton rightfully should be president. It goes without saying that Hillary Clinton also detests the Electoral College and has alternatively blamed it as well as Russia, Trump, sexism, and a long list of other things, for her pathetic defeat.
Other leftists including Michael Moore, Jay Inslee, Cory Booker and Steve Cohen also hate the Electoral College and have called for its abolition. The Democratic Party in general supports doing away with the system. An Associated Press article aptly titled “2020 Democrats’ new litmus test: Abolish Electoral College” noted:
“It’s the latest push by White House hopefuls to embrace a procedural tactic to rally the Democratic base, following similar calls to scrap the filibuster and increase the size of the Supreme Court. The 2020 candidates are tapping into Democratic anger after Donald Trump became the second Republican in five presidential elections to win the presidency through the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. . . .
“Several Democratic-controlled states are pushing for a national popular vote. But rather than pass a constitutional amendment, these legislatures are joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a group of states that pledge to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
“The compact only goes into effect when it includes states representing 270 electoral votes, the majority needed to win the White House.”
Yes, Democrats are pushing hard to ditch the Electoral College. But let’s not forget about other radicals such as those in the Communist Party USA. What would a list of anti-Constitution agitators be without them? In an article from just two months ago, the Communist Party railed:
“Take a look at how we “elect” the president of the United States. The people don’t elect the president. Rather, the Electoral College selects the president—using the total number of representatives and senators from each state and at times the perverted legal logic of the U.S. Supreme Court. Clinton received 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, but Trump is “elected” under a system designed to give slaveholders more power when the Constitution was ratified in 1789.”
There’s no need to point out how closely the earlier Democrats echoed their Red brothers in the Communist Party USA. In a second piece from, the CPUSA stated more candidly why they want to tear down the Electoral College:
“Here in the United States, our two-party electoral system is dominated by two corporate parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and the presidential results are often unfairly determined by the Electoral College. In other words, the candidate with the most votes is not necessarily the winner. No matter how flawed this system is, it is the system we must work within if we are to dismantle it, expand democracy, and lay the foundations for socialism.”
By derailing the Electoral College and promoting democracy (i.e. mobocracy), the communists know socialism can be easily established. Establishing democracy is essential to the communist plan to dupe societies and overthrow free nations. It was Karl Marx, after all, who wrote in The Communist Manifesto that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” In other words, in order for communism to dominate, democracy must exist; and in the United States, democracy can only truly exist when the Electoral College is destroyed.
In the end, you have to make a choice which side you will stand on and with whom you will side. Will you support the system that has sustained our election process for over two centuries or will you throw it under the bus and allow America to become like other democratic nations with all their turbulence and factional strife? Will you side with the Founding Fathers who crafted the Constitution which gave birth to the United States or with the communists, socialists, and traitors in the Democratic Party who want to overthrow the Constitution? Will you stand with George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and other Founders or with the inglorious cast of detractors that includes Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Eric Holder, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O’Rourke?
For me, the Constitution – in full and in total – is a clear line in the sand that must not be crossed. I will fight to defend that Heaven-sent document if need be. It is the glue that binds our People together as one. With the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is our national standard. It must be upheld.
The Electoral College is part of the Constitution. It helps preserve our republican institutions. It gives middle America a voice. It maintains a balance of power so that the nation cannot be dominated by socialist California and New York. God help We the People to see the error of our ways and reject the seductive voices calling for more democracy! Lord help us, while we still can, to compel our state and national representatives to overturn the venomous Supreme Court opinion which essentially binds our electors to the popular vote and erases the fail-safe put in place by our wise Founding Fathers to prevent corruption and civil war! And may the Constitution stand now and forever!
Zack Strong,
July 11, 2020
The American Citadel 