Much of this column has been seen on these pages before, but I just feel that, considering the information we gained in 2022 as a result of the Jan. 6 Committee, it all needs to be said again — with additions.
I wonder if it isn’t high time to do away with the Electoral College method of selecting our president.
Let me change that to, “I’m firmly convinced that it’s time to do away with a system that has been archaic for over a century, ever since mass communication expanded to virtually all parts of our nation.”
Why was this system selected to deal with elections in our nation? To begin with, if you’ve ever read of the many written collections of communications between the fathers of our country, you can’t escape the fact that they — each one of them — seemed to feel that they were the only persons capable of correctly running our country.
Grade school and high school history books don’t emphasize the egotism, made obvious, in the letters of our founding fathers to one another. They considered themselves to be the only ones capable of casting an intelligent and well-informed vote — resulting in their solution to the method of casting a vote for a president we now “enjoy.”
At the beginning of our nation, the majority of our population lived outside of cities and, therefore, outside the range that newspapers were likely to reach. Absence or scarcity of schools, outside of cities, was another contributing factor to the policy that “too many folks don’t have the intelligence to vote as wisely as I do.”
Therefore, every man (but no woman, remember) could cast a vote but — there’s a hitch — that vote was only for another man they considered more qualified to vote intelligently than the average citizen. Does that give a hint to the founders’ elitist thoughts on the subject?
And their solution to “ignorant voting” was named the Electoral College? Perhaps “college” had a different meaning back then, just as “militia” still does today.
It didn’t take long for even legislators to realize that this system was becoming unmanageable, that a hundred men were gathering together, each with his own choice of president.
Then, political parties became strong enough to sway opinions and gather those multiple individual votes. All this becomes the preamble to the point that electoral laws, born at a time when communications even between states was difficult, may no longer be applicable today and should be changed.
Is there any other nation in the world where perspectives on issues within individual sections (or states) are as diverse — and strongly held — as they are between individual states here in our own country? Let’s face the facts: We’re one single country now, supposedly no longer a conglomeration of individual, parochial feelings and actions.
The Civil War has been over for 150 years, folks.
But, back to the beginning of our nation. Eventually, another electoral method was proposed. Each state would have the same number of votes — three — in choosing the president.
That satisfied the smaller states and, also, the southern states wanting to escape the dominance of the larger northern, non-slave states.
That worked, but it’s no longer fair.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
