Resolution: The Electoral College should be abolished
VIII My arguments/rebuttals I – III: in R1.
IX My arguments/rebuttals/defenses IV – VII: in R2.
IX.a To summarize at this point, Pro suggested in R1 that his BoP was to demonstrate “…evidence that abolishing the Electoral College would be good for America and to argue against the evidence to the contry provided by CON.”
IX.a.1 Pro then gave three argument points:
1. Faithless electors,
2. Misrepresentation,
3. Benefit to the Republican party.
IX.a.2 My rebuttals to all three Pro arguments were contained in my R1 and R2, as noted above in VIII & IX. Pro has not responded since with either defense of these three Pro arguments, nor rebuttal of my R1 and R2 arguments. They stand as argued and dropped by Pro.
IX.b Pro has now forfeited R3. Having rebutted Pro’s arguments of R1 in my R1 and R2, and with the following two rounds forfeited by Pro without new argument, nor defense, nor rebuttal from Pro, I will proceed to my R3, and last, round of argument:
X R3 Argument: The Constitutional purpose of the Electoral College
X.a I have a personal imposition of not offering argument in the last round, and I never allow it as Instigator of a debate, regardless of my being Pro or Con. Although as Instigator, Pro has not prohibited last-round argument, in my position as Contender, it seems to me disingenuous to offer new argument in the last round to which my opponent cannot respond. Therefore, this will be my last round of argument, and I will desist in R4, leaving that round for rebuttal and defense, only, if needed. Pro may do as pleased in R4 since I will have the last rebuttal opportunity.
X.b I entered argument in R1 that the Electoral College is established by constitutional decree, and that, as such, it cannot be abolished but by amendment to the Constitution. Ordinary congressional legislation will not suffice. Therefore, as this restriction is constitutionally sound without defense nor rebuttal from Pro, the Resolution is defeated to date.
X.b.1 In R2, I argued that by the E.C., there is a greater distribution of States’ votes to elect the President than by national, popular vote, thus demonstrating that the E.C. method is the more fully representative voting method. Pro has yet to successfully provide the evidence to support his BoP as quoted above in IX.a, therefore, the Resolution to abolish the E.C. in favor of initiating a national, popular vote is defeated.
X.c My first argument for R3 is this: The original constitutional debate over the appropriate method to elect the President and Vice President was settled by ratification in 1788. The described purpose of the Electoral College was offered by Pro by his source [5], the National Archives,
[1]. but he did not use that source for the purpose I’ve described here by argument title. That source said:
X.c.1“
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.”“Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system.”[2]
X.c.1.A Thus, by this statement by the National Archives, Pro’s own source supports my first two arguments; those of R1 and R2. Therefore, my BoP, with more certainty than it supports my opponent’s BoP, prevails.
X.c.1.B We must recall that at the time of the Constitution’s composition and ratification in 1788, the Constitution established by Article I that although the House membership was elected directly by the people,
[3] the Senate was populated by people elected by their respective State Legislators, 2 Senators per State, and not by the qualified populace at large.
[4]
X.c.2 The election of George Washington in 1788-1789 [the election was in late December, extending over 27 days continuing into 1789] was fully determined by E.C. vote. There were then 15 States [ME, NH,
VT, MA,
RI, CT,
NY, PA, NJ, DE, MD, VA,
NC, SC, GA], but 3 States [VT, RI, NC, bolded for emphasis] had not yet ratified the Constitution [ratified in September of 1788 by a sufficient number of States to initiate its official use], and were, therefore, ineligible to vote. Further, NY [underlined for emphasis] failed to seat their electors in time to vote. There were then in total, 79 electors from 11 States; 57 representing House members, and 22 representing Senate members. Of the 79 total electors, 39 were required to carry the election. George Washington collected 69 votes, thus winning the first Presidential election.
[5]
X.d It must be noted that of the 11 voting states, four of them [CT, GA, NJ, SC], making 36% of the electing States, did not register popular votes, and, in fact, did not conduct popular voting.
[6]
X.e It should also be noted that the election of Senators was altered from State legislature vote [per Article I, section 3, US Constitution] to each State by popular vote by ratification of the 17thAmendment in 1913.
[7]
X.f Therefore, having completed the first Presidential election of George Washington “by the book,” the second, re-electing Washington, was conducted exactly like unto it in 1792, as was the third quadrennial election in 1796, electing John Adams, and the fourth in 1800, electing Thomas Jefferson. Not in all four first presidential elections was the popular vote a deciding factor even though by then, State-by-State popular voting was counted in all States. With the 12th Amendment ratified in time [1803] to conduct E.C. voting by its altered precepts, Jefferson was re-elected in 1804.
[8]
X.f.1 One major change by the 17A provided for a “contingent election” by vote of the House of Representative should no presidential candidate win a majority of E.C. votes.
[9] All quadrennial presidential elections since, through 2020, have been conducted without consequence with the exceptions of the elections of 1824 and 1838, when the “contingent election” clause of the 12thAmendment was employed. In spite of the confusion of the 2020 presidential election, all features of Article I, sections 2 and 3, and the 12thAmendment followed respective procedures, including the handling of objections to the E.C. vote, raised by some members of Congress. Therefore, the election process by the Electoral College was maintained without exception in 2020.
XI R3 Argument: The repeated attempts to abolish the E.C.
XI.a Some may feel the attempt to abolish the E.C. is a recent phenomenon; perhaps with the loss of the presidential election by Hillary Clinton in 2016, or perhaps further back with the loss of the presidential election by Al Gore in 2000. No, the effort to abolish the E.C. is much older than that.
XI.b There have been roughly 700 historic attempts to abolish the Electoral College.
[10] Some have sought to do so by the appropriate process of constitutional amendment, but these, and all other attempts have failed. A win/loss of 0-700 [approx..] does not speak well to the valid justification to abolish the E.C. No doubt, it is a controversial subject. However, it is controversy only for the Pro-side of abolishment. Those opposed to abolishment bathe peacefully in the constitutional sunshine.
XII R3 Argument: The term ‘Electoral College’ is not in the Constitution
XII.a My argument opposes this claim, not because the claim is not true; I acknowledge that it is. The term does not exist in the 12thAmendment, either. However, in both documents, the latter being understood as entirely inclusive in the U.S. Constitution, the term “electors,” which does have constitutional presence, is clearly defined as a select body of citizens of the United States which exist as a temporary collection of people for the express purpose of electing the President and Vice President on a quadrennial basis. That body possesses no other purpose.
XII.b The OED defines “college” as “1. An organized society of persons performing certain common functions and possessing special rights and privileges; a body of colleagues, a guild, fellowship, association:” This happens to be the word’s first definition, saying nothing of its specific purpose as an educational institution of higher learning, the definition with which we are definitively more familiar, and which occurs further down the list of definitions of the word in the OED.
XVIII.b.1 So, taken by the first definition, “An organized society of persons,” that adequately describes the organization of “electors,” does it not? Further, the E.C. meets the following qualifier, “performing certain common functions,” i.e. all electors are commonly assembled, by State, to elect a President and Vice President. That function concluded, the “college” is then disassembled, and will reassemble, by constitutional edict, in the following quadrennial election, as elected by the people.
XII.c If Pro’s argument [to date not brought to bear] is that because the term “Electoral College” is not mentioned in the Constitution, then it should not be called such, let us ask why, when the term “separation of church and state” is not specific constitutional language of the First Amendment, yet we interpret it by Supreme Court precedent by
Everson v. Board of Education [1947][11] as if it does? Should we abolish the consequences of this SCOTUS precedent?
XII.d Further, when the term “right to privacy” became Supreme Court precedent by virtue of
Roe v. Wade [1973],[12] do we note that this term, as well, finds no entry in constitutional language; not in any of the five Amendments on which the Court based their decision [nor anywhere else in the Constitution, including all Amendments]? Should we abolish the consequences of this precedent?
XII.e Finally, when the term “congressional investigation” is the first thought of proper action when U.S. Government appears to have mislaid its proper purposes, and in fact, has been engaged since 1792 against George Washington, and innumerable times since, sometimes with near-disastrous results, I challenge anyone to find the term enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. Should we abolish congressional investigations?
XII.f We do so at our peril. If we depended on constitutional language to define every jot and tittle of Government action, and citizen response, our dependence will grow weary, along with our patience. We need merely read the Preamble of the Constitution
[13] to understand which organization is in charge, truly, and which is subservient. It begins, “We the People,” not “I the Government.” That says, effectively, that if We the People want to amend the Constitution, more of us have a representative voice in our States than in our Federal Government, purely because we, collectively, have more States’ legislators than we will ever have of congressional House and Senate members. We are a representative democratic republic of unified States. I choose the choice of States to ratify a constitutional amendment, not Congress, alone, particularly to pass new law by Amendment. Readers and voters: you decide which BoP has the greater offer of representation of all of us.
XIII Rebuttal: Pro’s R1 “Misrepresentation”
XIII.a Pro argued in R1 that the E.C. misrepresented State-by-State vote due to “The mismatch between population and the number of electoral votes is harmful to American democracy.” He cited two sources in support of the argument, which I rebutted in R1, I.c, II.a, II.b. Pro’s source [7] was a fictional TV series. I submit that Hollowood [spelling intentional] fiction is not the most reliable, scholastic source, and my reasons were adequately presented in R1, I.c. Pro’s source [R1, 8] offered a review of congressional district apportionment based on district population according to Census, but his baseline for disparity was a comparison to the 1910 Census; a mere 111 years ago. The populations of congressional districts have, indeed, grown since then, along with appropriate congressional representation.
XIII.a.1 Since the Constitution defined apportionment in Article I, section 2, clause 3, it established a representation district of one House Representative for every 30,000 citizens [then, male, only] in each State, and that process endured until passage and ratification of the XIV Amendment in 1868, which applied no numbered count of district population representation by Census.
[14]
XIII.b Congress capped the number of House Representatives at 435, regardless of district population, by the Apportionment Act of 1911,
[15] one year
following the Census, which now stands at an average of 710,000 citizens [including women as of the 19thAmendment of 1919]. Therefore, every citizen in every State [and D.C.] in the U.S. is apportioned House representation, thus maintaining a
fair and equal representation by E.C. standard.
XIII.b.2 Who decides in which State a given citizen will live? Or, what the State population ought to be? There is no absolutely singular, correct answer to either question for each State. Thus, the apparent disparity of apportionment as Pro conceives it, if there is one, is not by government mandate, but by individual choice. However, do we, then, ignore that State populations vary, and not just because of geographic size of any given State? After all, the smallest State, by size, RI, has a population approximately double that of the smallest State by population, WY. By ratio, the size of RI to WY is 0.01:1.0.
[16] At the other end of the size/population scale, CA is by no means the largest State, yet it has the largest population. By ratio, size of RI to CA is 1:149. By population, RI to CA is approx. 1:39. What better way to render an equitable condition of variable State populations1[not to mention the added complexities of registered voter populations2, let alone actual voter populations3] such that no State has populations1, 2, 3 advantage?
XIII.c Therefore, Pro’s “misrepresentation” argument fails to support the Resolution.
XIV Rebuttal: ?
XIV.a As there are no new arguments from Pro, there is nothing further to rebut. I close my R3 and pass R4 of the debate to Pro, hoping a different conclusion of Pro’s final round will result.
[3]U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 1
[4]U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 1
Re" your #4, I'll take that under advisement because I really am passionate about the subject [can't you tell?] and would appreciate a robust debate from a contrary opponent. I get your hesitation, because it is, almost, a truism, but, there is certainly plenty of argument in favor of the abolishment, and, after all, it's not like an amendment to change the convention is impossible to make happen. So far, the efforts have been clumsy. Besides, the potential of an amendment takes it out of a truistic sense, I believe.
Thanks for voting. Good to see you back on board.
Thanks for voting, guys.
Thanks for voting
This wasn't my debate as initiator, although, I did challenge something like it a few months ago. It died without acceptance. But, being a constitutional matter, I was easily hooked. I disagree about the weird. And I may just try proposing it, after giving this one a rest. And, who knows, maybe my opponent will rise to the occasion for the last round...
I would've stopped after round 2. I think you should retry this debate against someone else. Not me. I find both sides very weird/hard to argue.
I fear for my opponent's abolished interest in this debate... any interest in somehow usurping it?
Ragnar, thoughts?
Just kidding to both of you. Just getting a little lonely out here. I'll plod on. One round to go.
I did not realize until responding to your friend request that you are British. I recognize and revere the foundation of our Constitution on the great legal tradition of Great Britain. My own ancestry, though deeply American [my first ancestor to arrive in America was in 1625, to Boston, from Scotland] is rooted there, and then France before the 12th century.
Anyway, I look forward to our debate.
if no one else takes this I may be interested.