Read the Constitution

If nothing else, this election has shown one thing about the American public; that they know next to nothing about our Constitution and electoral system. Every newspaper has published letters from armchair political experts calling for the abolishment of the Electoral College. The framers had good reason to implement this system. For one, they did not entirely trust the voters to make the correct decision, hence the reason why the electors did not have to vote “the true will of the people.”

The second reason was to avoid the complete domination and control of the highly populated states. The electoral system is set up so each state gets a certain number of votes correlating with the population. Maine, a state with a little more than 1 million citizens, gets four votes. If we abolished the Electoral College, Maine’s votes would not carry nearly as much weight as they do now. The candidates wouldn’t visit Maine, not because they don’t like us, but because our measly 600,000 votes wouldn’t be worth the paper they are printed on.

A straight popular vote could be easily settled in the 10 most populated states. What was true 200 years ago still holds true today, even more so. If people in the sparsely populated states want to render their voice worthless that is their own choice. If you want to fire off letters to the editor and to your congressmen, about changing the Constitution, try reading it first. James J Mooney III Hampden