Last week one of our local up-and-coming wingnuts had a piece in praise of the electoral college published on the editorial page of the Minneapolis daily. I have a dim view of the electoral college and so undertook a reply in the form of a letter to the editor, which it seems is not going to be published. So I will publish it here.
October 8, 2008
To the editor:
Andy Brehm's "Electoral College serves us well" (October 8) betrays the strain involved in defending our crazy method of electing a president.
"The Electoral College," says Brehm, "requires candidates to seek the support of a broad cross-section of the national electorate." Does he think a candidate aiming at winning the national popular vote could forgo this effort? Well, no, but thanks to the Electoral College, candidates cannot "turn a deaf ear to the rural electorate." Where does this "rural electorate" live? Alabama? Idaho? Illinois? Kansas? Mississippi? Texas? Utah? Wyoming? I don't think the citizens of any of these states are basking in the attention of this year's aspirants.
Neither are the citizens of California or New York. Why is a system that makes "battlegrounds" of Nevada, New Mexico, and New Hampshire to be preferred to one where the candidates might seek votes in Houston, Silicon Valley, and Brooklyn?
Brehm continues, "The Electoral College also brings definitiveness to a close presidential race." Yes, and up is down.
Toward the conclusion Brehm complains that abolishing the Electoral College, which "operates so magnificently," would cause "harm to political minorities." Oh, yes, the African-Americans of Alabama would lose their voice! It apparently has not occurred to Brehm that the Electoral College has the practical effect of disenfranchising something like forty percent of the voting public. Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas understand that it is impossible for their vote to count. On election day they can stay home, or for exercise walk to their polling place--it makes no difference as to who becomes president.
There is one local advantage to the Electoral College: it can truly be said that Republicans here in Minnesota had nothing to do with putting Bush in office and, therefore, bear no personal responsibility for the disaster.--Eric Jorgenson
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