What do you know? Yesterday’s posts included a discussion of Elizabeth Warren, and an urging that we be rid of the Electoral College once for all — and last night Warren called for an end of the Electoral College.
“Every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College,” Ms. Warren said, drawing one of her longest ovations of the night.
It is a fact: A vote in a small state carries more weight for selection of the president than a vote in a populous state.
The Constitutional Convention published no proceedings, but James Madison’s notes survived, and of course there is the post-Convention Federalist Papers. The Electoral College had two purposes: First, to assure that the large states did not overwhelm the smaller. The second was to assure that “men of affairs” could intervene if a cheap demagogue seized the popular imagination.
On that second purpose, the College conspicuously failed, and that failure has imperiled the country by putting a corrupt madman in the White House. Worse, Trump wannabes are already aping his schtick. It won’t happen before 2020, but the Electoral College must be eliminated.