As we enter the final days before a very critical election, I’m prompted to reflect on the role of the Electoral College in deciding the fate of our nation.

It is a curious institution. It was crafted as a compromise between two different parts of the budding nation, in which only landowning males would be allowed to vote. One was the South, which had fewer numbers of landowners, but with larger holdings. Part of the compromise granted them a three-fifths apportionment of representation in Congress for each slave. The other was the North, which was populated by a larger numbers of voters, owning smaller properties.

The three-fifths formula, together with the equal number of Senate seats for each state, allowed for a balance of representative power in the capital, but a popular vote for president would still favor one part of the country over the other. The Electoral College was designed to counter that advantage by mirroring the same form of power-sharing created for running the federal government .

One individual who would have preferred a popular vote, but felt the compromise was worth making, was James Madison. In Federalist Paper 68 he stated his reasons as being (in my paraphrasing):

1.The presidential selection process would be entrusted to men (note that the gender is specific here) who would be chosen specifically for that purpose and that purpose only. They would not be office holders and would not be owing any political favors to anyone for that reason.

2. These men would be singled out by their fellow citizens for the process of selecting a president on the basis of the qualities they would possess which would be conducive to a sound and reasoned judgment in their choice of a future leader.

3. The choosing of many, each one coming from a more local and familiar place, by the voters of each district would cause less upheaval than organizing a nationwide vote for a single person.

4. The process of convening a wise body of electors would ensure that a filter be in place to prevent: “cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

5. The process ensured that the future president would not be beholden to any particular body of supporters but had been chosen on the basis of his merits by an impartial panel of experts.

6. Finally, discernment on the part of the electors will ensure: “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.”

Reading these words begs the question where did all of these safeguards go? As late as 1820, in Massachusetts, the rule was that “the people shall vote by ballot, on which shall be designated who is voted for as an Elector for the district.” In other words, the name of a candidate for president was not on the ballot. Instead, citizens voted for their local elector.

But this was an exception and, by and large, as time passed, states began to see that the favorite partisan presidential candidate among the people in their state would have a much better chance if all of the electors selected by their state were sure to vote the same way — a “general ticket” of electors pledged to a party candidate. Once one state took that strategy, the others felt compelled to follow suit in order to compete for the strongest influence on the election.

What we have now is a broken system. One which has strayed far from the original designs of the Framers. What remains is effective only in reducing the power of some, and inflating the power of others, in deciding who should become our chosen leader. It is like a nationwide version of gerrymandering. It needs either reform or elimination.

It is ironic that today, someone who shows the most “talent for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity” might well become our president largely by skillfully exploiting the shortcomings of this broken system.

Philip Lussier lives in Ashfield.