Don’t blame Electoral College

David Teich stated the Electoral College was created to benefit slave owners, but this was only part of the story. As previously stated by George Watterson, another reason that’s still valid was to prevent a few large population centers from dictating the outcome of all presidential elections.

When the Constitution was being drafted slave owners wanted all their slaves to count so their state would get more representation in the Congress. This is also the same number each state would get in the Electoral College. Counting all the slaves would benefit the slave owners as they would get more votes in Congress than they deserved, as about the only people eligible to cast a vote back then was white men. The compromise was to count only three-fifths of slaves, which reduced the power of the southern states.

It is interesting that the workings of the Electoral College led to the end of slavery. That’s because Abraham Lincoln earned only 39 percent of the popular vote in the election of 1860, but won an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College.

Our system for electing presidents may be broken, but the Electoral College is not the cause of the problem.

Ivan Urnovitz

Millwood