States Rights and the Electoral College

¶ … Electoral College

The reason for the Electoral College is so that larger states (in terms of population) are not given an unfair advantage over smaller states. For example if a large state with a large population votes for one president, that state still is only able to contribute a set number of electoral votes to that president; this is meant as a protection of other states, who may not have as many voters but still have a right to a voice in the election process. The thinking is that a state with a large population cannot sway the vote inordinately in the direction that it chooses. This is controversial among those who view the country as a whole and not as a union of individual states. The electoral college is more of a states' rights issue. Some people, however, view the process as outmoded and feel that elections should be won by popular vote and not by the electoral votes of individual states. Thus, if the majority of the people in, say, New York and California choose to vote for one president, their votes will have just as much impact as many several other states combined simply because of the number of people voting in those states. Popular vote plays to the regional advantage of these states as a result -- and smaller states are less represented in effect. The popular vote supporters assert that such should be the case anyway, since smaller states have a smaller number of people typically -- but states' rights advocates assert that the Constitution was established in order to protect states' rights against populism and central power.

As Underhill (2012) notes, "four presidents have been elected without winning a majority of the popular vote" -- a point which seems to condemn the process. However, the fact is that these presidents were elected on a state by state basis -- not on a popular vote basis, so pointing out that they did not receive the majority of the popular votes is irrelevant because that is not how the system was set up to work. It is only made an issue by persons who believe the system is unfair and needs to change. As Gregg (2011) points out, these individuals are "enemies" of the plan set up by the nation's founding fathers. The National Popular Vote Plan (NVP) is their solution to the "problem" of the Electoral College -- which is only a problem if one is a populist rather than a proponent of states' rights. The NVP calls for every state to "pledge its electoral votes" to the winner of the national popular vote in the election -- an act that would circumvent the Constitution and render the Electoral College essentially pointless. The Electoral College is set up so that each state is limited in the extent to which it can have an impact on an election -- that is the point, after all, of having individual states. The proponents of the NVP, however, would just as soon consider the U.S. as one big state with one central government -- which is completely out of line with the way the Constitution was established (which was in order, theoretically, to protect states' rights).