As is the case with any election where the outcome of the popular vote differs from the outcome of the Electoral College results, many people are clamoring for the abandonment of the Electoral College. Their argument is a simple one: how can the results of an election be fair if the will of the majority of voters is not realized?

It’s a fair question, but it misses one important point. Despite most people considering the United States of America a democracy, we are not. That is to say, we are not a pure democracy. Instead, we are a republic, which can also be considered a form of representative democracy.

Several years ago, I asked a friend of mine whether it wouldn’t be better to determine election outcomes on the basis of a popular vote. Had I asked this question to most of my acquaintances or coworkers, we could have debated with ignorance the merits of both sides of the argument. However, the friend that I asked was Dr. Peter Schramm. Peter was, at the time, serving as the executive director of the Ashbrook Institute (Ashland University’s independent center for learning about government and politics.) What I didn’t know when I asked Peter my question was that he had addressed the Ohio Electoral College a decade and a half earlier on the merits of their function. Had I known this fact and read the address, I would have known better than to ask such an idiotic question.

Peter’s response to me was, as always, eloquent. He had a way of telling me that I was an idiot without making me feel like an idiot. To summarize Peter’s comments is always a danger, but I will try to do it justice.

The argument that we do not elect our president democratically is incorrect. We do have a democratic election for president within each state. This is one of the basic principles and the underlying brilliance of our Founding Fathers. Our founders purposely set the United States of America up not only so that the individual states would retain some autonomy, but also so they would maintain more proportioned representation in elections. The idea of federalism versus nationalism was hotly debated as our government was being formed. In the Federalist Papers, James Madison laid out a clear argument on why the rule by majority should be prevented.

As Peter stated in his address, “the formation of majorities is not simply a mathematical or quantitative problem. The Constitution is concerned not with simple majority, not with the size of majorities, but with their character. It is a qualitative problem. The various majorities that are formed, both in the different branches of the government, and in the states, have a different character than would a simple national majority.”

Clearly most, if not all, presidential candidates pander to the voting public to some extent. But, if the heavily populated, urban areas of our country could entirely control election outcomes, then presidential candidates that had any chance of winning would be forced to shape their campaign platforms entirely around the desires of these huge populated areas. The rest of the country’s ideals and beliefs would become irrelevant.

Peter then goes on to point out, “… the Founders were also aware that history showed that all previous democracies before the establishment of the American Republic were short-lived, and violent in their deaths. All forms of popular government previous to ours turned into tyrannies. Whenever the people ruled directly, in their own name and in their own interests, the rights of the minority were in jeopardy.” In other words, it is the brilliance of our Founding Fathers that provides for the continued stability of our United States of America.

Peter Schramm passed away from cancer last summer. He was a Constitutional scholar who was widely considered a leading expert on the history of Abraham Lincoln. I miss him and I miss his guidance greatly. He was the most patriotic American I had ever met, but above all, he was an educator. He did his best to speak to anyone who cared to listen. If he were to hear the crying for the abolishment of the Electoral College following the most recent election, he would probably shake his head with a sad smile and dream of a day when the voters were better educated to understand what makes our country truly exceptional.