Friends, we have an opportunity to change America, and one of the most powerful ways to do that is by voting. However, as long as the Electoral College persists, that way will be throttled for many Americans. The EC was originally created to appease Southern slave holders. Today it stands as a way for whites to suppress POC. If we hope to move our country toward greater equality and freedom, we need to dispense with this relic of the 18th century which perpetuates institutional racism.
I recently engaged in a FB discussion with someone who defended the EC by posting a video from Prager "University." Below is my response to that video (Prager's content is in quotes.)
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PRAGER: "Why do we need the electoral college? the answer is critical to not only understanding the electoral college, but also America."
BETH:Yep. You can't understand America apart from slavery and racism, which were the reasons why the founders instituted the EC.
PRAGER: "The founders had no intention of creating a pure, majority rule democracy."
BETH: Correct.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.
In light of this more complete (if less flattering) account of the electoral college in the late 18th and early 19th century, Americans should ask themselves whether we want to maintain this odd—dare I say peculiar?—institution in the 21st century.>https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
PRAGER: "They knew from careful study of history that pure democracies never worked."
BETH: Yeah, they must not have known about the Swiss
Landsgemeinde, http://www.athene.antenna.nl/MEDIATHEEK/KOBACH-1.html
Good thing they didn't, or we would have wound up imploded like the way Switzerland is today! 🤪
PRAGER: "In a pure democracy, bare majorities can easily tyrannize the rest of the country." Oh dear. We wouldn't want that! It's far better that minorities tyrannize the rest of the country!
BETH: The EC is NOT why we have three branches of government. The reason we have (or had, until 2016) separation of powers is because the founders read Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, who had a dim view of political anthropology, and so championed the idea.
PRAGER: "The system encourages coalition-building."
BETH: Really? Then you'd expect that the country would be less divided, rather than more divided given that the last two elections where the EC ignored the popular vote. And if the founders were so interested in coaliton building, why didn't they institute a parliamentary democracy, which would have allowed more parties, and more potential for coalitions?
PRAGER: "In order to win, a candidate must have the support of many different types of voters, from all different parts of the country."
BETH: Oh, so His Stable Genius won the EC because the west coast, New England, MN, IL, NM, CO and VA aren't "different enough," You can win 270 EC votes as long as you don't count those parts of the country.
PRAGER: "If winning were only about getting the most votes, a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts in the biggest cities, or the biggest states...no political party can ignore any state for too long without suffering the consequences."
BETH: Oh right. That's why candidates always spend as much time in AK, DE,WY, MT, SD and ND as in CA, TX, NY, FL, IL and PA! 🤪
(The six states with the most electors are California (55), Texas (38), New York (29), Florida (29), Illinois (20), and Pennsylvania (20). The District of Columbia and the seven least populous states — Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming — have three electors each.) https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
PRAGER: "every voter in every state is important."
BETH: Really? If that were true, then why is Prager U so afraid to trust the voters, and have a popular democracy?
PRAGER: "Without the EC, any vote stolen in any precinct in the country could affect the national outcome!"
BETH: Thank goodness we can thank the EC for delivering us from the Russians meddling in the 2016 election! 🤪🤪🤪🤪
And isn't it remarkable how other parliamentary democracies seem to function without an EC?
PRAGER: "It discourages voter fraud."
BETH: Conservatives like to press the fear button about "voter fraud," but in actuality, it is a way of preserving the votes of whites and making it more difficult or impossible for POC to vote. .https://www.brennancenter.org/.../vote.../myth-voter-fraud
Sorry, Prager U. Racism is systemic, and the Electoral College is simply perpetuating a racist institution.
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