Electoral College or popular vote best?

Webb: One of the truly sad, even disastrous, characteristics of the modern U.S. political system is that states, once proud and sovereign, have been relegated to insignificant status, literally bit players in the federal system. The relentless encroachment by the federal government via constitutional amendments, court cases, congressional action and regulatory fiat has concentrated money and control at the national level.

The result is a federal government paralyzed by problems and issues so large it can't handle them. But break those problems down state-by-state, and they become manageable. Give Utah's state and local governments most of the federal tax dollars we generate, plus the authority to act, and we will deal with Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, health care, transportation, the environment and so forth. Let the federal government handle those few, limited responsibilities intended by the Founders, and let the states do the rest.

Those determined to abolish the Electoral College are really advocating further emasculation of the states, leading to more concentration of power at the federal level. The Electoral College is one of the few remaining tools the states have to ensure that presidential candidates pay attention to them.

The Electoral College's winner-take-all system forces candidates to conduct state-by-state campaigns, to pay special attention to "battleground states." Candidates have to respect states. Sitting presidents eyeing re-election listen to governors and state leaders because they need those states' electoral votes.

Under a popular vote system, state boundaries and individual state priorities would become irrelevant, getting no attention except for a little lip service. Rather than deploy state-by-state strategies, where states matter and have a voice, candidates would ignore states and instead target national demographic segments in the gigantic population centers like New York City and Los Angeles. It would dramatically change the dynamics of presidential campaigns.

Joseph J. Ellis, professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, said the Founders instituted the Electoral College so that major decisions like electing a president would "pass through succeeding layers of deliberation. They established not a democracy, but a republic, in which popular opinion had to battle its way through artfully contrived chambers of refinement before reaching the promised land of political power."