Why we have an electoral college

The point of the Electoral College is simple: to restrict the power of the majority. There’s a tendency to forget that majority rule is only half of a free country — the other half is the protection of the rights of the minority, of the dissenters. This is why our federal government has two legislative houses instead of one. The House of Representatives is filled on the majority-rule principle, with greater power given to larger states; the Senate, on the minority-protection principle, with equal power given to each state no matter its size.

The same balance underlies the Electoral College. Every state gets one electoral vote for each of its congressional representatives. This means that the larger states have more say in electing a president, but no state has no say — each, no matter how sparsely populated, gets at least three votes, one for the minimum congressman-at-large and one for each senator.

Remember: The constitution intends that most laws be made on a scale much smaller than the federal government, where the individual voter has, proportionally, a much greater say, and where local problems can be dealt with without affecting unconcerned strangers. The federal government is the federation of one level of distinct law-making units — the states — and a direct presidential election would mean that problems unique to sparsely populated parts of the country would be irrelevant to the president.

That’s what the Founding Fathers decided, anyway.