Letter: Electoral College failed in its prime objective
In response to John Faulkner’s recent letter that was at best a disjointed civic lesson. Mr. Faulkner falsely justified a republic versus a democracy, in his second-to-last sentence, by equating “majority rule” with “mob rule.” No, we are a republic simply because 230 years ago when the Constitution was written, it took weeks (not seconds) for news to travel throughout the country, thus a democracy would have been too cumbersome.
He further tries to justify the existence of the Electoral College, with his final sentence: “Law prohibits the majority from restricting the rights of the minority.” When the truth of the matter is recorded in Federalist 68, “... that the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
230 years ago the vast majority of the population was all but illiterate, to be swayed by popularity of an unqualified candidate was unthinkable. Today we have an educated population and access to news in real time, and as the few days of this administration has shown us, the Electoral College failed in its prime objective, and is therefore obsolete.
Michael Lavering, Richland
This story was originally published February 8, 2017 at 4:20 AM with the headline "Letter: Electoral College failed in its prime objective."