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by Neil Perlin
Vermont Democrat Senator Peter Welch, along with Democrat Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, recently proposed a constitutional amendment to eliminate the “undemocratic” electoral college. They call for replacing it with presidential election by popular vote.
This idea pops up periodically, typically when Democrat presidential candidates lose elections. But supporters of the idea never say what the electoral college is or why we have it, just that it’s a bad idea… one that probably threatens “our democracy.”
Note the distinction between a “democracy” and a “constitutional republic,” which is what we are. In a democracy, the government’s job is to do what the majority of voters demand.
But in a constitutional republic, the government must also protect the rights of individual citizens and minorities. It does that through a set of checks and balances, one of which is the electoral college. The job of the electoral college is to prevent large states from running roughshod over the rights and interests of small states, like Vermont.
More specifically, the electoral college was created to give small states a voice in the election of the president and vice-president. Without it, those states would have little political influence on the election. Why?
The electoral college was created at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to solve the question of how to elect presidents. Some delegates wanted Congress to do it, but others resisted the idea because they feared that members of congress could be corrupted.
Other delegates wanted election by popular vote. (This is what today’s electoral college opponents want.) But delegates from small states resisted the idea because their votes would be swamped by votes from large states. This manifests itself in two ways today.
First, candidates would put their effort toward large, urbanized states because that’s where the most, and most conveniently located, votes are. (Lamoille county has a population of 26,000 spread over 464 square miles. Brooklyn, New York has a population of about 2.7 million, spread over 71 square miles. If you ran a presidential campaign, where would you put your effort?)
Second, many highly partisan states are considered locked up in the electoral college so candidates don’t need to devote much effort to them. (But it can be risky for a campaign to take that for granted – witness the collapse of Hillary Clinton’s “blue wall” in 2016.) But the electoral votes of those “locked up” states may not be enough for a candidate to reach the 270 votes needed to win so they have to moderate their positions to appeal to, and win electoral votes from the swing, or “purple” states. Without that need for moderation, candidates could be as polarizing as their “locked up” states allowed.
The electoral college was the compromise solution to this situation.
The electoral college gives each state a group of electors equal to the number of its representatives in Congress plus its two senators. So Vermont has three electors. In contrast, California has 54. (These numbers change as states’ populations change.)
But aren’t Vermont’s three electors just as small as its number of voters compared to those of larger states? Yes. But in a close election, those three electors might make the difference between winning or losing a presidential campaign. That’s why presidential candidates spend time in Vermont. Not as much as they spend in California or New York but it is still time.
In other words, those three electors give Vermont political clout that its population would not.
That’s why calls to end the electoral college in favor of a direct popular vote would actually hurt Vermont voters. So when Peter Welch, or anyone, calls for abolishing the electoral college, ask them how this would help Vermont.
Interestingly, another attempt to run around the electoral college is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or NPVIC. The NPVIC is an agreement among seventeen states, including Vermont, and the District of Columbia (oddly, all of which tend to vote Democrat) to award all their electoral votes to the presidential ticket what wins the most popular votes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The problem with this model is that it presumes that the Democrat ticket will always win the popular vote. But if you enjoy irony, think about what the reaction among Vermont Democrats would be if the NPVIC were in effect today. Donald Trump won the national popular vote, which means he’d get Vermont’s three electoral votes.
The author is an Elmore resident.
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Categories: Commentary
The author does a decent job of outlining the pros/cons of the electoral college. However, he ignored the fact that the original thirteen colonies, which became states, were like thirteen different small countries. They feared an all-powerful central government with a chief executive who could assume dictatorial powers. (Welcome to our world.) They also feared rule by the masses. That is the reason they created the Senate whose members would be elected by state legislatures, not by popular vote.
Unfortunately, with the polarization of society with red/blue states, presidential elections are now determined by about a half-dozen states frequently electing a president who is not the will of the majority of voters.
Exactly, and that is why woman didn’t vote, because the traditional family started early where the land owner was a corporate shareholder with an allodial title, and the family’s elected representative was the man of the house. It had nothing to do with being hateful to women. It was never intended to be a popularity contest. Democracy isn’t listed anywhere in the constitution. The right to live in a republican form of government IS. The right to OWN property is, but now we have fake color of law titles and no corporate representation. The caucus is rigged, and the entire system has been hijacked.
Excellent article. Vermont students should read and understand this. And students and voters should also note the damage our lone Representative is doing to our voice in electing a President.
So Vermont’s Jr. Senator Peter ” The Follower” Welch thinks he knows better than our founding fathers, another liberal genius.
So the Electoral College is the safety net, our founding fathers had the foresight to see that large states would overshadow the smaller ones, so it levels the playing field,
can you imagine all policy decisions would come from states like California, New York
no thanks, even though Vermont is very blue we have other states that will save us, and apparently, Peter has his marching orders …………
Wake up people, eliminate the collage and you’ll eliminate your freedom and choices.
welch knows what he needs as well as his brethren politicians. He does not and never will understand what Vermont needs, he is too focused on satisfying he, his donors and his political party. The Electoral College is a threat to welch’s perceived power.
Corruption was alive and well in 1787 as much as 2025, our founder’s knew it and codified the greatest possible protections against it. For a compromised politician in 2025 to want to change the protections only verifies the original intent and reasoning for the electoral college.
What has Peter Welch done in all his timein D C for VT? The question may be more appropriate to say “What has Welch done to VT”.
This guy is the the best at occupying space, of anyone Iknow including like minded brethren Bernie, from VT. Ever heard of him?
You mean we dont need CA, NY, IL, MI etc. to pick our president every four years?
Peter, Peter Inside Stock Trader teaming up with withering fossil tricky Dick Durbin? Whatever means necessary to cling to their sinking ship of corruption – who is being ridden like a rented mule now and who is slapping the whip on their hindends?
If they believe in 1-for-1 representation, they should start with abolishing the Senate. Because if the Electoral College, which combines the principles of the bicameral legislature, one of which is by state entity rather than population, is undemocratic, so are their own positions, particularly Welch’s.
The other point to add is that with the electoral college, Vermont’s three votes is actually makes us vastly over-represented on a per capita basis. And the popular vote fools want to throw that away. Duh???