Electoral College helps ensure fairness

It seems that many people need to study history and numbers more. The Electoral College was a compromise between people who wanted the president and vice president elected by Congress and those who wanted election by popular vote. Yes, southern states skewed things in their favor with the “three fifths” compromise, but that was not the reason for the Electoral College.

So far, there have been 61 presidential elections in U.S. history. The Electoral College has voted opposite to the popular vote in only four elections. That is about 6.6%. In about 93.4% of elections, the Electoral College and popular votes have agreed. How much difference would it really make to abolish the Electoral College?

The number of electors a state gets is equal to the number of congressmen and senators that state has. All Electoral College votes have equal weight. But a single congressman, senator, or elector, represents far more people in a state with large population than in a state with small population. For that reason, a single popular vote in a state with small population has about four times as much effect as a single popular vote in states with the largest populations.

Abolishing the Electoral College would make all popular votes equal in effect, which would reduce the power of small population states and increase the power of large population states. It would guarantee that the president and vice president would be elected by the few most populated states. The Electoral College increases power to the less populated states and provides more balance between states.

Even though the Democrats lost this presidential race, Joe Biden said that the Electoral College works. Is that just another facet of his confusion?

Rich Lorimer

Streamwood