Richard M. Dellinger '54
April 2001 The Megaphone Page 2
THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2001
DIALOGUE AND LETTERS
Keep Electoral College as the framers intended
I was distressed to learn that the League of Women Voters supports the current proposal for change in the presidential Electoral College now in the Indiana House of Representatives (Barbara Richards' Feb. 27 letter to the editor).
I was equally distressed to learn that the league favors direct election of the president and the abolition of the Electoral College. It appears the league is either ignorant of the historical reasons for the Electoral College or chooses to ignore history in pursuit of rewriting it.
The form of government in this country, is a federal republic. In a republic, the people elect representatives to make decisions for them. This is not a direct democracy in which the people participate as individuals in the decision-making process. It is federal because 13 independent states decided to forgo some powers while retaining others in order to create a union of states. In that union, the states retained "reserved" powers and "delegated" certain powers to the national government.
One of the powers retained was state participation in the election of the president by choosing the electors at the state level rather than having Congress choose the president. The method of selecting the electors was left to the respective state legislatures. The current proposal Is not in conflict with history or the original intent of the framers.
My concern is that the League of Women Voters sees this as a positive move to its ultimate goal of direct popular election of the president. For that reason, I oppose the change.
We have just been through the closest election for president in our history. While it is true that unofficial recounts go on, it now appears that the Electoral College results were accurate. If we had used direct popular election, would we have recounted the entirety of the popular votes? What would have been the margin of error in counting popular votes? Could there have been a difference of 500,000 popular votes nationwide?
We do not have a national election for president. There are separate state elections, and one in the District of Columbia, for presidential electors. Each election is conducted under different state laws, and recounts also are done under state laws. It is possible that we would still be conducting official recounts of popular votes today to determine who would be president. The longer It takes, the greater the chance of chicanery.
The League of Women Voters is wrong in championing a cause that is popularly supported but flies in the face of the history of the United States.
I suggest the league read the Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay for a better understanding of the reasons for the Electoral College. I urge the General Assembly to defeat House Bill 1251, for the republic's sake.