Why Are There Still Electors?

Surely, there’s an app for that.

V.P. Biden presiding over electoral college vote. Public Domain

The Electoral College was created to kill two birds with one stone. First, the allocation of electors ensured that presidential elections would not be decided by the national popular vote. Politics is economics continued by other means. Agriculture requires less population density than manufacturing. The economic (i.e., political) interests of these essential industries frequently compete. Just as it would be unfair for four lions and three lambs to vote on the dinner menu, it would be unfair for the popular vote to control national elections. When the electoral college vote comes out differently from the popular vote, the losers get all huffy about how the Electoral College thwarts the “will of the people.” Of course it does. That’s its job.

But what about the second “bird”? The Founders did not believe that the people had enough information to select their senators or to allocate their states’ presidential heft to particular candidates. It was 1789, and communication and transportation technologies were not what they are today. To help the people choose competent leaders, the Founders provided, first, that the state legislature should pick the state’s senators, and second, that another layer of representation would be placed between the people and the presidency. Instead of the people voting for individual…