Why the Electoral College still Matters

The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers as a way to balance two important principles: giving Americans a voice in choosing the President while protecting the interests of every part of the country—not just the largest population centers.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

When the Constitution was written in 1787, the United States was a young nation spread across a vast territory. Communication was slow, political parties did not exist in their modern form, and many Americans had limited information about candidates from distant states. The Founders also worried about allowing a temporary majority to dominate the entire country.

The Electoral College provided a compromise. Instead of having Congress choose the President or having a simple nationwide popular vote, each state would receive a number of electoral votes based on its representation in Congress. Citizens would vote within their states, and those electoral votes would determine the presidency.

This structure reflected the Founders' belief that America is a union of states as well as a nation of individual citizens. Large states would have greater electoral influence because of their populations, while smaller states would retain a meaningful voice because every state receives electoral votes.

That principle remains important today. A nationwide popular vote would allow presidential campaigns to concentrate heavily on the largest population centers and potentially ignore voters in less-populated regions. The Electoral College encourages candidates to build broad geographic coalitions—earning support from different states, regions, communities, rural areas, suburbs, and cities.

The system therefore does more than determine who becomes President. It reinforces the federal structure established by the Constitution and ensures that presidential elections are contests for support across the United States as a whole, rather than simply contests for votes concentrated in a handful of population centers.

The Electoral College is not designed to make every individual vote mathematically equal in presidential elections. Instead, it is designed to balance population, state representation, federalism, and geographic diversity.

More than two centuries later, that underlying purpose remains: to elect a President through a system that requires consideration of Americans across the entire country, while preserving the role of the states in the nation's constitutional system.

(Click image to hear more from Lee Watts about how Governor Beshear wants to abolish the Electoral College)