Incorrect Claims About the Reason for the Electoral College

The electoral college is a controversial system for electing the United States President. Whether it's good or not is not this article's reason for existing; instead, I wish to correct what seems to be a major error as to claims about why it was created in the first place.

You've probably seen this claim over and over, which is that the reason the president is elected by the electoral college rather than the popular vote was to prevent the more populated states from running things, or in order to try to give better representation to the less popular rural areas. Basically, the claim is that those who made the Constitution came up with the electoral college to try to give less populated areas of the country more equal power to the populated areas, or something similar to that.

One thing you may notice is that no one ever gives any citation for such a thing, or at least I have never seen anyone give any citation. Surely, if this was their reasoning, there must be a quote or writing of one of them. But no one ever provides such a thing.

So let's look at actual statements made on the issue. First, consider this statement by James Madison, considered to perhaps be the most influential person when it came to writing the Constitution. This quote was given in his notes about the Constitutional Convention and is found here. He stated:

If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance even with an eligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted. He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections. 

Now, this and the other quotes he includes are from James Madison's notes so they can be more properly considered a transcription of general thoughts rather than a literal word-for-word rendering of what was stated. However, James Madison could be trusted, I think, to get his own ideas right. Here we see nothing of population, but rather that states with a lot of slaves would object to a popular vote because their slaves can't vote and thus they would not have as much power in a national election. While this one does at least relate to the issue of population, it does so in a very different manner than those who claim it's a matter of high populations vs low populations suggest.

It should be noted, of course, that with the abolishment of slavery, this consideration is negated.

There is another quote that can be found, from The Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers were pseudonymously written by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton under the name of "Publius." Their purpose was to try to explain why everything in the Constitution was the way it was in an effort to convince people it was a great idea. Given that these men played a major role in drafting the Constitution to begin with, their testimony is particularly valuable. While a little caution must be exercised because these documents were propagandistic in nature, nevertheless they are one of the best guides we have as to why. The discussion on the electoral college is found in Federalist #68. 

Most of it is not concerned with the question of why you use electors rather than a popular vote, and is rather an argument as to why electors are preferable to other non-popular-vote options such as having the House of Representatives do it. I will analyze it. Note that while there are strong speculations based on the writing style of each part of the Federalist as to who wrote what, we do not know for sure. #68 is believed to have been written by Alexander Hamilton who is the one I will credit, but it is possible that it was Jay or Madison.

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.

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.

Although little time is actually devoted to explaining why this is preferable to a popular vote, we do see the idea that the decision "should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation." Thus, "A small number of persons, elected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations." Not a word is stated about issues of population.

I should also note, of course, that the electoral college has been an utter failure in accomplishing this goal. No one is selected as an elector with the purpose of it being someone who will analyze who should become president; people are chosen specifically because they will not perform any such analysis and will rather vote for a particular predetermined candidate. The electors for Trump were chosen because they were people guaranteed to vote for Trump, and the electors for Biden were chosen because they were people guaranteed to vote for Biden. While there have been a few faithless electors in the past, these were done more as a protest than any actual goal of changing the election result (to my knowledge, no faithless elector in US history has ever voted for the other primary candidate; rather, they vote for someone else entirely). This is how it has been for a very, very long time. The idea of people analyzing who would be the best president after being chosen for electors is a pipe dream.

The next several paragraphs of the Federalist Paper are unimportant for our purposes so I'll skip them, as it is an explanation for the specifics of the electoral college, such as why they meet in their own states rather than all in one location, or why elected officials like Senators or Representatives are not allowed to be electors. But the final paragraph on the election of the President should nevertheless be noted:

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best," yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.

If anyone can look at the people who have been elected Presidents of the United States, and say the office of President has never fallen "to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications" then I would have to say they have an extremely low standard for requisite qualifications.

But the bottom line here is that in the most detailed explanation of the reason for the electoral college, the constantly spouted claim of it being related to better representing less populated areas is not found or even hinted at. If someone wants to claim that's a valid reason for the existence of the electoral college now, fine, but it wasn't at all what was in mind for the people who actually set it up.

It may be noted that Madison's statement from the Constitutional Convention regarding slaves is not mentioned here; most likely, this was omitted because New York (where these pamphlets were distributed) had a very small slave population. I suppose someone could try to say that they would omit any mention of giving more representation to smaller states because New York was one of the more populated states (behind Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts at the time), but the point remains that still no explanation was given for it being an issue of state population.

So here we have two sources as to the why of the electoral college, but neither says anything about the much-touted claim that the reason for the electoral college was to prevent the high population states from controlling the presidential election. Rather, they give totally different reasons. Until such time as someone is able to provide any proof that the electoral college was made to prevent large states from controlling the popular vote, I see no reason to accept this often made claim.

If someone wants to claim that the electoral college accomplishes the goal of giving smaller states better representation... well, I'm not so sure about that, but they can at least try the argument. But don't claim that was the reasoning of the people who made the electoral college without providing any proof for it, particularly when the proof one can find demonstrates the opposite.