At times like this, we're all American. And waiting for a vote at the Electors' College, we wonder why the fungus is so complicated.
I've seen any comments that contain justifications like "it was about strengthening state sovereignty." These justifications are done post factum, due to the fact that the authors themselves (The FramersThey weren't reasoning about it.
What were they thinking? To go home. As 1 of them put it (James Wilson), no substance how different they were from the way the executive authority was established.
They decided on the Elector College not due to the fact that it seemed to them the best solution just due to the fact that they didn't like all the others any more. She decided on the premise, which rapidly proved to be a complete mistake (as in a moment).
The first proposal considered by the Framers was what the majority of democracy present applies: Parliament's election of government. This was voted on on 6 August 1787 – and the task did not win the majority.
The Framers believed in the classical Montesque tri division of authorities. Most democracies (including American ones) left anyway due to the fact that they are impractical.
This was the main argument of the writers a fewer years ago, during their assassination on the courts – that there is no ‘tripartition’. Of course not, just like underwear doesn't should be white. The tripartition present is called something that in reality constitutes a strategy of “checks and balances” (destroyed in Poland by the Law and Justice Office).
In 1787 however, the Framers did not have many examples of working democracy, so he won the argument about the tripartition. They rejected this project, and then by August 24 they were able to reject all others, including (!) the electorate college.
The deliberations went on. And may I remind you that they were not held at the seat of parliament or at a convention center, but in a modest, tight one. pudding in Philadelphia.
Many delegates had mediocre accommodation conditions. erstwhile they arrived, they were not set for a multimonth sit-down.
On 31 August, the delegates transferred the problem to a peculiar committee that they had chosen among themselves. After 4 days, she returned to the electorate college.
His main advantage was to guarantee the unpartisan choice. How did he put it? Gouverneur Morris (This is, contrary to appearances, a name), “if the Electors vote at the same time in a large distance from each other, we will avoid the large Evil creation of cabals. It will besides be impossible to corrupt them."
Cabals is simply a pejorative word for political proto-party. The Framers had a painful awareness that they were divided and divided, but hoped that this was a temporary situation – in a mature republic these divisions would disappear.
So they imagined it as Alexander Hamilton in “Federalist #68” that it would be a group of experts, “men most capable of analyzing the qualities”. Hence, most likely their stupidest thought that whoever gets the most votes will become president and the second in a row – vice president.
This gave themselves a nightmare situation in which the president was from 1 cabal (e.g. Federalists), and the another from a competitive (e.g. Democratic Republicans). They rapidly withdrew from it, in 1804 switching to a strategy that was in force today. That the "cables" choose in the state of electors, obliged to appoint a circumstantial president and vice president.
Instead of the elite group of impartial experts Hamilton dreamed of, we have organization puppets. There are alleged ones. The faithful electorsBut it's rare.
Most Americans want this strategy changed. In 1989, specified an initiative gained crushing (83%!) support in the home of Representatives, but in the legislature it had a tiny majority (only 54, not the required 60). And she fell.
As a result, the voice of the Wyoming voter is 4 times more valuable than the voice of the California voter. That's bad.
James Wilson rhetorically asked: “For whom do we make the government? For humans or for imaginary creatures called “States”?
For U.S. citizens, it would be better for the candidate to take care of the voice of each of them, alternatively of focusing on random "swing states". The state boundaries are artificial as the borders of colonial states (because in fact the first states were colonies).
However, contrary to the intentions of the Framers, the legislature and the Elector College became institutions for strengthening state cabals. 1 won't decision the other, so the Americans got stuck with it in saecula saeculorum amen.
PS. Main source: Robert A. Dahl, "How Democratic Is the American Constitution?", Yale University Press 2003
