Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc3.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxj!houxm!whuxlm!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcc3!87064023 From: 87064023@sdcc3.UUCP ({|lit) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: Electoral college Message-ID: <2582@sdcc3.UUCP> Date: Thu, 20-Dec-84 21:58:28 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2582 Posted: Thu Dec 20 21:58:28 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 03:07:05 EST References: <301@bonnie.UUCP> <6782@watdaisy.UUCP> <196@harvard.ARPA> Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center Lines: 21 > > I understand (as well as it's possible to understand, I guess!) how the > electoral college system works. But can anyone explain why this system > was created? A quick reading of the political correspondence of the time reveals that the authors of the constitution were faced with a dillemma: how to place the electoral process in the hands of the populace while avoiding the "inevitable" effects of "the tyrrany of numbers". Their solutions was to let the populous elect those who would elect the president. An interesting side note is that the authors of the constitution did not think anyone would *EVER* get a majority of the Electoral College votes, and expected that most elections would fall to the House of Representatives. In this way, they would again be protected from "the folly of popular whim" by having only congressmen cast ballots for the president. This would also have served to make the president more beholden to Congress (since the house would have to re-elect him). Only the birth of national political parties foiled this plan. (Wallace came close to forcing the election to the House in the 1960's, however).