Surprise: The Electoral College: Good or Bad?

Craig HueyBureaucracy, Government7 Comments

I’ve received  a lot of letters from confused and frustrated readers.

  • What is the Electoral College?
  • Should we abolish it?

So let’s take a look.

For sure, Donald Trump will be our next President.


But critics are slamming the outcome, because Hillary Clinton has won more of the popular vote, or more individual votes from voters all across the country.





This whole process is spelled out in the United States Constitution.




The Framers designed the Electoral College for the following reasons:

  • To protect minority rights from mob rule.
  • To ensure not just majority wins, but moderate majorities.








7 Comments on “Surprise: The Electoral College: Good or Bad?”

  1. As an alternative if we change electoral college delegates allocation uniformly based on popular votes in each state will the outcome be different? This requires all states to pass laws allocating delegates based
    on popular votes.

  2. Craig,
    I understood the Electoral College system both before & after I read your article. I am firmly in favor of the electoral system as it was established in the Constitution. One of the main reasons that I DON’T want to have a popular vote system is that I do NOT think it is right for California to be able to elect a President as would have happened in 2016.

  3. Very good article. Seems this best embodies the Founding Father’s view that mankind is basically evil, and cannot be trusted without the restraint of law. I wonder if, for example, if California could be divided into separate “Electoral College” regions. This might give some conservative regions more influence on the outcome, and cause future candidates in 2020 to campaign in California.

      1. California truly is in that sense a microcosm of the whole country. I’d very much be in favor of finding a way to regional-ize things in this state, so what must be done to get some traction on that idea?

  4. Actually, the USA is a democratic republic, not simply a republic. It is the United States of America, not the State of America, a union of states, not simply a unified people. Our founders designed the House of Representatives to be the people’s branch of government, with short terms and expectation of high turnover. The Senate, on the other hand, was originally intended to represent the states, not the people. The states selected their US Senator by vote of their state legislature. We moved toward more democracy with direct election of our US senators by the people.
    I agree that popular vote for the president would likely result in campaigns limiting their coverage to highly populated areas. In this election, Florida provided the most voters. Early results required only six states to provide the votes to win the election. It might take more now that most of the outstanding votes have been counted and the difference between the two candidates is over 2 million votes. Do we want a presidential campaign that concentrates on less than a fifth of the states?

    1. The “swing states” change from election cycle to election cycle.

      The point about “democratic republican” has merit. Thanks for sharing.

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