Elite College.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Electoral College - Brief Article

Back in 1924, when Robert La Follette, the founder of this magazine, unveiled the platform for his Presidential race, one of its planks was the "election of the President by direct vote of the people."

Here at The Progressive, we remain opposed to the Electoral College. It is anti-democratic at its core, as the 2000 election has made clear. It's a vestige of patrician politics, the old, elitist view that the great unwashed masses are not to be fully trusted. And it invites the kind of shenanigans that took place in Florida.

Supporters of the Electoral College say that if you close it down, politicians will ignore smaller states and concentrate on those with the biggest populations. I'm not sure that's valid. Since everyone's vote would count equally, the campaigns might be waged more on a national scale than they are now. And in any event, it's not as though local visits by Presidential candidates somehow bestow power on whatever hinterland state they touch down in. George W. Bush and Al Gore came to Wisconsin a total of twenty-one times, but for all the attention, I certainly don't feel that my localized interest as a Wisconsin citizen will be better served because of these visits. We just got to see the circus close up, which can be entertaining, but that's not a sufficient reason to deprive people of the right to direct elections.

The George Wills of the world also say that if you found the Florida mess maddening, just wait until you see the colossal crisis that would arise in a closely contested direct election for President. I don't buy that, either. The odds are minuscule that 100 million votes would be decided by a mere handful. The results this year show that direct elections, even in exceedingly close races, would be less in dispute. Gore beat Bush by about 338,000 popular votes. Only the grossest amount of Republican chicanery could have stolen it from Gore.

This...