Bad education, not ‘faithless electors,’ causes voter suppression

There’s a lot of talk about the Electoral College nowadays. As a college professor who teaches about the U.S. Constitution every semester, I think that’s a good thing, because it means more people are learning about how we actually elect the U.S. president and vice president.

{mosads}As one of the seven so-called “faithless electors” who, in the words of Prof. Robert Alexander, voted “contrary to expectations” (but in accordance with the founders’ original intent for the Electoral College), I also think it’s a good thing – because it offers a chance to correct the bad education that far too many people have received about that actual election process.

There are some otherwise pretty smart people who keep repeating the canard that our Electoral College system allows individual electors to “change the wishes of hundreds of thousands of voters” because it “runs counter to the expectations of the office of presidential elector.” This has led, they say, to the “disenfranchisement” of literally millions of voters. These people, many of them educators, are just plain wrong – but countless Americans believe them, because they’ve been miseducated on what the Constitution says and the system of government it gave us.

When American voters go to the polls on the first Tuesday in November, they don’t vote for president and vice president; they vote for electors, who get to cast the actual votes for president and vice president a month later. Those electors are, indeed, “expected” to take into account the results of that November “popular” vote when they make their decisions in December, as most of them have done since states began allowing voters to choose the electors in the 1800s.

However, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that electors are required to abide by those “straw poll” results. The intent of the founders was that each elector should vote for whomever he believed would be the best person, in the entire United States, to be president. If the electors decided that their particular political party’s nominee was the best choice – as most of them have done over the last couple of centuries – then that’s who they should (and usually do) vote for.

But if electors decide that someone else would be a better pick – as over eight score of them have done in our history – the Constitution is clear that they have the power to do so. Why? Because we are a republic, not a democracy; we have a federal system of government, not a unitary system; our president is chosen by the states, not by individuals.

There is no “disenfranchisement” of voters when electors vote, because there is no “right to vote” for president under our Constitution – only a right to vote for electors (under the 14th Amendment).

Along the same lines, the states have no constitutional power to “bind” the votes of electors to any candidate or political party; they only have the power, under Article II, to determine how those electors are chosen (and every state legislature has mandated that electors are chosen by popular vote – even if they obscure the fact that voters are voting for electors, not presidential candidates). “Binding” electors is the very definition of “disenfranchising voters,” because it takes away the free vote of the very people who get to vote for president and vice president.

Yes, I realize that most of us were taught that “America is a democracy” and “we the people elect our president.” But we were taught wrong. The writers of the Constitution were very clear in their intent regarding the form of government they bequeathed to us; they understood that democracies historically and inevitably “commit suicide,” as John Adams said, so they gave us a republic instead – “if you can keep it,” in the words of Benjamin Franklin. In a constitutional republic, we elect representatives who then vote their conscience – and the Electoral College was set up in the same way.

There are many excellent reasons why the Electoral College is the best means by which to choose a president in a republic like ours – too many for this essay. But to claim that electors who vote in faithful accordance with the Constitution and the founders’ intent are “faithless” and “disenfranchise” millions of voters is, at best, disingenuous, and at worst, deceptive.

William Greene is assistant professor of political science and assistant chair of the political science department at South Texas College. As one of 38 GOP electors from Texas in 2016, he cast his vote in the Electoral College for former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

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