The Electoral College: protecting the rich from democracy since 1787

Some people are hailing the recent Supreme Court ruling on so-called “faithless electors” as a victory for democracy. However, we should be acutely aware that the Electoral College is actually a firewall against democracy. The case came from Washington state in 2016 when four electors were fined $1,000 each for refusing to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton who had won the state’s popular vote. The four electors cast their votes for Colin Powell rather than Hillary Clinton in a last ditch attempt to get Republican electors to break from voting for Donald Trump. Washington State then fined them $1,000 under a new state law that requires electors to abide by the popular vote. The intended goal of the suit was not to escape the $1,000 fine. The scope was larger. The plaintiffs were hoping to settle a 230 year old question: Are electors independent, or can a state force them to follow the popular vote of their state? Their desired outcome was for the court to rule that electors could vote their conscience, bringing into question the entire validity of the Electoral College. Another stated outcome they desired was that the conversation created around such a ruling would lead to “a popular uprising to change the Constitution, ditch the Electoral College and embrace the national popular vote.” (Seattle Times) The history of the Electoral College begins with the history of the United States, or the “American experiment.” In the bourgeois revolution that shook off the yoke of British rule, the colonial settlers set out to form a new type of state without a monarch. Originally they envisioned a ‘league of friendship” between the 13 colonies and thus formed the Articles of Confederation that created a weak central government. However, class antagonisms would soon arise from the agrarian population against the state governments dominated by the merchant classes in the north. One stark example was the debt crisis that occurred in Massachusetts which would lead to an open rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion revealed some of the flaws of the Articles of Confederation. The new U.S. bourgeoisie sought to remedy these flaws and to take advantage of what they saw as the “blank slate” of the North American continent. The landed, capitalist and slave-owner elite convened in 1787 to debate a new form of government; one that would protect their ruling class interests. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/the-electoral-college-protecting-the-rich-from-democracy-since-1787/