Offsite Post: ‘The Crisis of the Electoral College’

A decisive moment is coming for the peoples of the States, especially for those who consider themselves conservatives yet belong to the cult of Lincoln:  Will the Electoral College system for selecting the federal president continue on, or will it be scrapped for a purely national vote? 

At the State and federal level, attempts to change it are ongoing:

Calls to abolish the Electoral College are gaining more traction among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming the latest high-profile backer of the electoral reform.

During a CNN town hall in Jackson, Miss., on Monday night, the Massachusetts Democrat threw her support behind eliminating the Electoral College when discussing how to expand voting rights.

“Come a general election, presidential candidates don’t come to places like Mississippi, they also don’t come to places like California or Massachusetts, because we’re not the battleground states,” Warren said at the town hall.

“My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College,” she said to a standing ovation.

The debate over the Electoral College has gained prominence in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, despite the former secretary of state winning the popular vote by nearly three million votes.

There’s a state-level effort burgeoning that seeks to dilute the power of the Electoral College. Colorado is the latest state to join a compact with 11 other states and the District of Columbia in which they pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

—Lisa Hagen

And yet, what hangs in the balance is more than just a method of election.  It is an understanding of where the locus of authority rests:  at the State level or at the federal level.  To be consistent in supporting the Electoral College, its defenders must acknowledge the principle of State sovereignty that underlies it.  If, however, they insist on loyalty to Pres Lincoln’s view of the union, that the united States are ‘one nation indivisible’ rather than 50 unique, individual nations that can voluntarily leave a union they voluntarily joined, then the Electoral College MUST be replaced with a national voting system.  The States in the latter view are superfluous at best and hindrances at worst to the proper expression of the divine ‘national will’ in Washington City.

The Electoral College will therefore stand or fall mainly on the grounds of State sovereignty.  . . .

The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-crisis-of-the-electoral-college/ .

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!