If you are asking yourself why does the electoral college exist, here’s a short history lesson.
Some of the “Founders” were worried about over-representation in some states and under-representation in others.
At the center of the controversy were geographical differences in politics and the right to vote in and of itself. Northern colonies were more densely populated than the Southern colonies in so far as who could vote, and therefore who could wield power and decide policy. Thus, there was a fear of political domination over the South by the North. On one hand, the need to restrict voting to a small minority became apparent. On the other, the need to create some equilibrium between the more populous North and the less populous South was necessary. A twofold compromise was struck.
First, only the landowning aristocracy would be empowered with suffrage – not poor people, not middle class folks, not women, and not Black, Brown, or Native peoples. At the time of our first presidential election, when George Washington was elected in 1789, only 6% of the population had any electoral power whatsoever. If this seems more like oligarchy to you than representative democracy, that’s because it was meant to be. It wasn’t until 1856 that all states removed property requirements for lower class white men to vote. Everybody else was still screwed well past 1900.
Second, the “Founder’s” erected the electoral college with the 3/5ths clause to establish a balance of power between North and South. The 3/5th clause allowed the South to gain greater stake in the electoral college by counting enslaved Black people in their census, and therefore giving the small voting minority in the South power enough to deflect any Northern political agenda. Placed in the context of its time then, the creation of the electoral college was meant to act as a firewall to future efforts to abolish slavery.
In short, the electoral collage can be understood most accurately as a negotiation between powerful white men in the North and powerful white men in the South to preserve the institution of slavery. That’s it. The end.
