Though the 1968 election is now remembered chiefly for the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, this would be a good time to recall the Constitutional crisis it almost provoked.
Not only Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were on that ballot; George Wallace was, too. Wallace knew he couldn’t win the presidency, but had a crude, entirely legal strategy for arresting the progress of the civil rights movement. If he could win enough electoral votes he could prevent either Nixon or Humphrey from winning the presidency outright. Then, he reasoned, he would throw his electoral votes to whichever candidate would ally with him to put the weight of the federal government in opposition to those uppity dark folk.
Luckily for us, Wallace garnered too few votes and the plan never came to fruition.
James Michener received an unexpected phone call that fall of 1968. Would he be interested, the Chairman of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party wanted to know, in serving as a presidential elector? He was, and the subsequent experience made him a no-nonsense opponent of the electoral college system; being Michener, he wrote a book all about it — Presidential Lottery. Like everything else Michener ever wrote, it is thoughtful and thoroughly researched, and well worth reading.
James Madison’s notes of the Constitutional Convention make clear that the convention had two goals when they established the electoral college. The first was to make certain that the interests of the large states didn’t overwhelm the small states and render them insignificant, and the second was to backstop popular enthusiasm for a demagogue. The first was uppermost in the delegates’ minds, contrary to Alexander Hamilton’s emphasis on the second when he contributed to The Federalist. (Recall how bad communications were then, and consider the likelihood of the average citizen ever hearing a candidate speak.)
We now have the peculiar and unanticipated circumstance that, thanks exclusively to the vagaries of vote distribution, an egregious buffoon who lost the popular vote by almost 3-million ballots may soon be inaugurated as president.
The electoral college has grievously imperiled the country, and now we must hope with crossed-fingers for that same committee of unknowns to do the almost unthinkable and upend the election.
It’s too late to save us this time around, but the Constitution must be amended and the electoral college eliminated. If a candidate fails to win a popular majority in the general election, there should be a runoff election or the choice should go to the Congress (House and Senate). I favor the second for the simple reason that elected officials aren’t likely to be gulled by a cheap demagogue so easily as Ma and Pa Kettle, and the inevitable wheeling-and-dealing should be adequate to protect the individual states.
What must never happen again is that an amoral cynic tap into the subterranean malice of a minority and put the survival of the country itself in danger.