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Recently, Sen. Angus King, announcing his opposition to the Electoral College, described it as, “a gun pointed at the head of democracy.” Said the senator, “That goes against what we learned in kindergarten: The most votes wins.”
This may be a starting point for our kindergarten students as budding citizens but by the time they have completed a civics course they should be capable of a deeper, more nuanced analysis. Our founders did not establish a democracy in our constitution but, rather, a democratic republic. Not a mere semantic quibble, the distinction was purposeful and reflected a wisdom we would do well to appreciate.
The founders understood that there were important rights that should be beyond the reach of the federal government, even if backed by a majority of the citizens. Thus the Bill of Rights and other inalienable rights reserved to the individual. A simple majority is not sufficient to abridge these rights. Nor should we assume that, in all cases, the best arbiter of an issue is simple majority rule. Rather, the founders wisely attempted a balance of interests between popular participation and representative government. One needs only look at the abuses of the referendum process — often driven by demagoguery and outside money — to understand that pure democracy has its drawbacks.
It’s not that the Electoral College is the only way to manage the competing interests but it deserves to be considered for what it was, and is, a way of balancing popular participation in governance with the idea that states, while not sovereign, have some reasonable expectation to be able to assert their unique identity and perspective. It is a mistake to default to the assertion that direct democracy is always the superior alternative.
Democracy is a noble ideal, but raw unchecked popular rule has the potential of instability and, yes, tyranny.
William Master
Thomaston
