Electoral College for Dummies

Perhaps the Dummies line of books should publish a guide to politics and to the electoral college in particular. If so, I heartily recommend that they use Dean’s World: The Amazing Electoral College as a starting point for understanding the electoral college.

Many citizens of the US do not understand the history of the electoral college and why it is a good thing.

Let us suppose that we no longer have the electoral college. All of the “populists” would cheer and in the next election, we could get the following (far-fetched) scenario:

Candidate Pete Pander sees a way to get the vote of a majority of the US and thereby the presidency. He announces, that if elected, he will rig federal regulations such that people in the states of Texas, California, New York, etc. would get a 100% rebate on their federal taxes. This is wildly popular with people in these states. So much so that Pete is elected president of the popular vote. The remaining states are taxed now at a higher rate in order to make up for the growing federal deficit.

Of course, this won’t happen, but it does illustrate why the electoral college is a good thing. There is no way that Pete would get elected with this campaign platform in an electoral college. He might get the votes of the larger states, but would get soundly trounced in the remaining states.

So if someone doesn’t quite understand whys and wherefores of the electoral college, they should go read the Dean’s World article above.