The Electoral College is undemocratic? Of course. That's why it works

Some Democratic presidential hopefuls want to eliminate the Electoral College. But that could destroy what makes our country work.

We've listened to two years of complaints about how President Donald Trump is destroying the norms of democracy. But as the endless parade of Democrats announce their candidacy for the White House, they want to destroy several norms of their own.

Of course, there are the policy moonshots such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Several candidates, however, recommend packing the Supreme Court with new judges. Instead of the nine justices we’ve had for a century and a half, Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg would expand the high court to 15.

A radical idea gaining even more traction is abolishing the Electoral College.

Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, along with O'Rourke and Buttigieg, have signed on to this effort, despite it requiring fundamental changes to the Constitution.

Every vote matters, right? Not exactly

"Every vote matters," Warren said to a crowd in Jackson, Mississippi, "and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College."

In 2000 and 2016, the winner of the popular vote didn't claim the presidency. The fact that these aberrations favored Republicans isn't lost on Warren, et al.

The Massachusetts senator argued that presidential nominees focus only on swing states instead of one-party states like California and Massachusetts. She wants candidates "to ask every American in every part of the country for their vote, not just those in battleground states."

It's a popular applause line, at least on the left. A recent poll showed that 60% of registered Democratic voters want to jettison the Electoral College, compared with just 20% who want to keep it.

While this might help one party's near-term prospects, there's a very good reason why America doesn't choose its chief executive by popular vote. That's because democracy, at least in its pure form, doesn't work.

'One man, one vote' can turn to mob rule

Sure, it might be a helpful tool for a group of friends deciding where to eat lunch, or a dozen board members choosing a new executive, but it's no way to run a country.

The Founders knew this well, having read their classical history.

The world's first democracy was ancient Athens, which allowed about 30,000 free adult male citizens to choose their leaders. They made up less than 15% of the population, but it was the most egalitarian political innovation to date.

It didn't take long for the system to implode amid rampant corruption, an economic downturn, immigration headaches and unpopular foreign wars. (Sound familiar?) The plan of "one man, one vote" devolved into a kind of mob rule, the populace veering with wild swings of opinion. Voters overthrew leaders, exiled the unpopular, and executed generals and politicians — even Socrates himself.

As the saying goes, democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. The Founders looked to Athens less as a political model than an object lesson in what not to do.

James Madison said democracies are "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

That's why we have checks and balances

Therefore, America was set up as a republic, filled with countless checks and balances to avoid one group gaining power and using it to punish or exclude everyone they didn't like.

Most people have a limited view of checks and balances, focusing on the president, Congress and courts. But the Founders created a system in which all sorts of groups strive against each other. Long-serving senators vs. representatives, the states vs. Washington, urban voters vs. rural voters — you name it.

Each of these checks incentivizes Americans to strive for their own interests while ensuring that no group is left out in the cold — at least not for long.

By distributing our presidential choice among 51 individual elections, nominees must appeal to a wide variety of voters with a wide variety of interests. Farmers in Wisconsin are important, as are retirees in Florida, factory workers in Pennsylvania and shopkeepers in Arizona. White evangelicals need to be courted in Charlotte, North Carolina, as do Latino Catholics in Mesa, Arizona.

A national popular vote would destroy that

If the Electoral College were abandoned, party front-runners would camp out exclusively in urban areas. The pancake breakfasts in Des Moines, Iowa, and Denver, Colorado, would be replaced with mammoth rallies in Los Angeles and New York City.

A candidate might visit Phoenix, but would they ever hit the tarmac in Tucson?

Moving to a national popular vote would destroy one of our foundational checks and balances: The interests of rural and small-town Americans would be abandoned for those of urban elites.

And can anyone fathom the tumult of a close election requiring a nationwide recount? Florida in 2000 created enough problems.

The Democrats' most accurate argument against the Electoral College is that it's undemocratic. But that's the entire point.