The names of presidential candidates shouldn’t even appear on our ballots.
First, consider all the problems that are a direct result of me, you, and all of us giving so much time and energy to this single office:
- As the only national-level election, it is a focal point to sow national division. Want to start an argument with a random stranger? Ask them who they support for president. There’s a really good chance you’ll be rhetorically ripping each other to shreds in no time flat.
- The presidential election distracts us from the state and local elections, which tend to have a more direct impact on our lives, and which we have more power to influence.
- Since we consider the president a “publicly elected official”, we have become complacent about presidential power. This attitude has carried over to congress, and contributed to the concentration of power in the executive branch.
- Finally, we need to acknowledge that most people don’t actually understand the constitutional role of the president. He’s not your representative; he’s an administrator. He shouldn’t be a vehicle for partisan interests trying to assert dominance on the country.
Second, the intent of the founders was that the electors would be the ones with the agency to decide. They did not intend for electors to be captured by partisan interests, chosen for their loyalty to a particular candidate, and compelled to vote a certain way.
This is incredibly clear to see in Alexander Hamilton’s description of the electors, in Federalist No. 68:
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes;
Third, the Constitution makes no implication that the people are even to directly vote for the electors, let alone the president. Here is all the Constitution has to say about who selects electors:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress
The US Supreme Court put this very succinctly in Bush v. Gore:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college.
Furthermore, some states did not put the question of choosing electors to a popular vote for several decades after adopting the Constitution.
My proposal is to double down on the electoral college, and abandon the appearance of a popular vote. Involve state legislatures more in the process, and give electors the authority to make decisions the way the Founders intended: