The citizens cannot be fully trusted to elect the best possible candidate for President because human nature is inherently corrupt, and the majority of people cannot be trusted to be well educated, noble, or informed enough to decide who should carry the immense power and responsibility that inevitably comes with sitting in the Oval Office. An example of the current real-life version of Idiocracy in America is expressed in the following video; where the average folk, at least in California, doesn’t even know how many stars are on the United States flag! Unfortunately, these kind of ignorant people vote. Whether they ought to be allowed to or not is a topic for another lengthy article. However, only the people, regardless of how idiotic they are, can cast the votes. Therefore, what you do want is for the people to vote for their states’ electoral count, and not vote directly for their President. By doing so, only the electoral count would determine the result, not the actual voters themselves.Using today’s demographics as an unfortunately appropriate example, a pure democracy(meaning the absence of the electoral college) would disproportionately empower the most popular states like California, New York, and Illinois, three of the top six most populous states that also happen to consistently vote for the Democratic Party, to dominate,the politically correct way of saying OPPRESS, all the other smaller states.The electoral college reduces this risk of tyranny by the numerical majority by making the GEOGRAPHIC majority determine the presidential election outcome. The following link from the New York Times 2016 presidential electoral map serves as a demonstrative example where Donald Trump, despite losing the popular vote, a purely numeric measure, won the decisive geographic majority. See the image below for further reference:
Why is a geographic majority more benign than a purely numerical majority, one might reasonably ask? Well, it isn’t necessarily. Sometimes the geographic majority chooses the less qualified candidate(what less qualified means is a topic for another lengthy discussion). As such, Congress(nowadays both houses) functions as the body elected by the numerical majority(by state districts for the House of Representatives and by overall state majority for the Senate) to buffer the executive power of the president, elected by the geographic majority, in what is commonly known as the separation of powers. Therefore, if the president was elected by a numerical majority vote, the way Congress is, then there would be no buffer or separation of powers, making our government dangerously more predisposed to tyranny by the numerical majority. If that statement sounds ridiculous and makes any readers’ eyes roll, remember this; government is like a fire; a dangerous servant as well as a fearful master. The separation of powers is one feature in the design of the US government that makes the fire of government more like a dangerous servant and less like a fearful master. It’s also a massively underrated attribute that makes the USA the worlds greatest country(at least on the date of this article’s publication, who knows if it will be as the next centuries come to pass).Because of the inherent lack of trustworthiness of the people in deciding election outcomes, the electoral college must never be abolished. However, the great irony in the electoral college currently is that it uses human electors who can either dishonestly vote differently than their respective states or can be threatened to do so. As such, the author of this article proposes an end to human electors for the following reasons;1. Although electors have some level of commitment to vote as their respective states do, electors in some states, as the law currently stands, are allowed to vote differently. How many voters actually know what level of commitment their states’ electors have to honor their states’ vote? How many voters actually know the names of their state’s electors, even just one? The following article demonstrates the risk of HUMAN electors acting unfaithfully, as they’re supposed to avoid doing, mainly by concocting the utterly ridiculous conspiracy theory that Russia hacked and compromised the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, especially when it was revealed that the DNC, then led by disgraced congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, colluded to rob Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party nomination.2. How many readers of this article are aware of the punishments electors can face, if any, for voting differently than their respective states? The fact that most citizens probably don’t know is reason enough to do away with human electors. Furthermore, if the punishment is short of life in jail, then the punishment isn’t severe enough. Using the 2016 presidential election as an example, although Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes, only 304 voted for him. Although 304 electoral votes was enough to secure Trump’s landslide victory, why are the two unfaithful electors allowed to get away Scott-free? Shame on those two renegade electors, as well as those electors from Democratic States that didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, for making a disgrace of our electoral college! This is one major error the Founding Fathers made in designing the electoral college; not specifying punishments for renegade electors, the way punishments are laid out for Presidents, Congressmen, and Senators, all of whom can be impeached, and possibly imprisoned. For those who think that life imprisonment sounds too cruel of a punishment, well, that serves as yet another valid reason to do away with human electors. Without human electors to punish, any cruel punishment would be obviated.3. Why even tally the votes on Election Day if they aren’t officially announced and decided until the upcoming December? A solution would be to just count the number of electoral votes(like they do on big fancy screens on various media stations) granted to each state(determined by the proportionate population of each state), and whichever candidate wins the majority of electoral votes, wins the election. It doesn’t need to be more complicated. The simpler the laws and the electoral process, the less prone to corruption a society becomes and vice-versa. By just counting electoral votes awarded to each candidate, instead of waiting a month after Election Day for inherently untrustworthy human electors, the risk of electoral college corruption and dishonesty would be eliminated.Another major flaw in the electoral college is the difficulty in including more than two parties. As it stands in the U.S. today, only a small minority of citizens care about third parties, though after the recent election of the super controversial Donald Trump, maybe, and hopefully, Americans will shine more light on third and fourth parties. How can the electoral college be more inclusive of parties besides the Republican and Democrat duopoly?Again, once you obviate the need for human electors, any party or candidate on the ballot can earn the same number of electoral votes as any other candidate, similar to how a score in a game is recorded. As an example, in the 2016 presidential election, if Gary Johnson did win more votes in any state, let’s use Wisconsin as an example, than either Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, or any write-in, then Johnson would’ve been awarded the score of 10 electoral votes instead of Trump. For those who complain that the Electoral College isn’t democratic, well that’s the point! The lack of democracy is what makes the Electoral College sacrosanct for all the reasons mentioned above. Remember, the United States was neither founded as nor meant to be a democracy; it was meant to be a republic. Just recite the pledge of allegiance for some proof; “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic(NOT the democracy) for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL(the numerical majority as well as the geographic majority, empowered and protected by the sacrosanct Electoral College).