LETTER: Franklin resident says popular vote should determine presidential elections

To the Editor:

As we prepare for the next presidential election, many voters will cite the common axiom, "one person, one vote."

Our early leaders did not want the largely illiterate population of 200-plus years ago to select an ill-prepared presidential candidate. Therefore, they established the Electoral College to provide a provision for them to overrule the people’s vote when deemed necessary.

Students are often taught in history classes that the Electoral College was established to prevent large states from dominating presidential elections. Small states, however, have greater power per citizen than large states. Texas, with 40 electoral votes and a population of 29.53 million, has only one vote per 738,250 citizens. But Vermont, with three electoral votes and a population of 645,570, has one vote per 215,190 citizens.

There are about 40 democracies in the world. The United States is the only one in which citizens do not vote directly for their leader, but for electors. Five times during our history (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016) the Electoral College prevented the candidate who was the preference of most American voters from serving in the executive branch.

After the 2020 presidential election, small groups in several states attempted to designate electors who were not selected by the voters. Converting to the process of "one person, one vote" would make such malfeasance extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

The United States should follow the practice of all other democracies and allow for the direct election of our president. The selected presidential candidate should reflect the majority of the people’s voice across the full nation, not that of electors.

Robert Doyle

Franklin

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Franklin resident writes that popular vote should determine presidency