Democrats Dangerously Close To Changing Laws So President Is Elected By Popular Vote

[Belsnickel]

(07-29-2022, 04:00 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't disagree with your point, other than it being the only reason for the EC.  Again, why invest so much autonomy in the states, largely because of a fear of an overly powerful federal government, and then not give said states any say in the election of the POTUS? 

Because they learned that too much autonomy was a bad thing, plus the executive wasn't considered to have much power. During the convention, the original idea for selecting the executive was that it would be chosen by the legislature. In fact, it was so much a done deal that there are very few notes on the debate because there wasn't much of one. There were a handful of vocal opponents, though, who wanted popular vote because the idea of the legislature choosing the executive was counter to the idea of the separation of powers and they anticipated corruption. The idea of the legislature choosing them was simple: they would be the ones who would know the candidates.

However, two other ideas were proposed. The first alternative was the idea that states, either through their legislature or by their governor, would select the executive. This idea received the least support of the options. So why did this idea receive the least support if the whole idea of the EC was for the states to have a say? Well, because that wasn't a reason. The convention knew that this power in the hands of the states was an even more corrupt idea than the federal legislature because they had just wrapped up a short-lived experiment under the Articles of Confederation.

The EC was a compromise solution between the idea of the federal legislature selecting the executive and the popular vote. It is entirely based on the idea of preserving the separation of powers while also acknowledging that the general public would not know who the candidates are for a federal office, so they would vote for a more local person who they would trust to vote in their best interests. That's it. Any other attempts to paint it in some other fashion is romanticizing it. The framers thought the general public would be too ignorant to vote on the executive and that the federal legislature would be too corrupt.