The Founding Fathers, in their godlike wisdom, were greatly afraid of the electorate. They would have as little to do with direct rule by the people as possible. This is not a cynical put-down on my part; it is the known fact of history.

As a result, although the House of Representatives was to be elected more or less directly by the people, there had to be an upper house, a la the House of Lords in England, to control the wild desires that might be exhibited by the people. So the founders created the Senate, which was not to be elected directly by the people at all, but its members appointed by the State legislatures. The expectation was that the legislatures would be informed as to who the most able citizens were, and would appoint them, trusting that they would do what was right. There was no thought in this scheme of parties mediating in the process at all; "faction", as it was called, was feared and warned against.

The Senate was not intended and does not reflect the size of population of the various states, for the very good reason that the fear was that the larger states would have too great an influence if power was in direct proportion to the number of the electorate.

As a guard against the unwisdom of the masses, and as a sort of mirror of the arrangement with the Senate, the Electoral College was to have its numbers according to the respective states' representation in the House of Representatives, but the Electors were not to be directly elected. The Constitution did not and does not prescribe how the Electoral votes were to be apportioned in a state--(remember, no parties, and "send the best men"). It was left to each State to determine how to select them. It was originally done in each legislature, and could constitutionally be done that way today if a given state decided that was best, I think; I could be wrong on that. In any case, it is the individual State's legislature that sets the distribution formula of electoral votes for that state. Most states go by the winner-take-all system referred to above.

I believe that the Electoral College approach is a good one, and should be retained to prevent an overwhelming influence by the high-population states--if there were a Constitutional amendment to require distribution of Electors on a proportional basis. Unfortunately, I think the likelihood of such an an amendment is small--almost as small as the likelihood of abolition of the Electoral College. Partisan political interests are too bound up with the status quo for that to happen.

Dave Oesterreich