Tim Walz has proven once again that our founding fathers were smarter than any of the Democrats who serve in our councils today.  The founding fathers established a form of government specifically designed not be quick and expedient, but also to garner consensus and prevent despotism and undue foreign influence.

Tim Walz’s calls for elimination of the Electoral College are just another attempt by Democrats to remove the guardrails that protect our country and the presidency.  The founding fathers knew that there was no more important part of setting up our system of government than the method of electing the chief magistrate of the United States.  As Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist 68, the method they came up with “is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.”  Hamilton also stated, “I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.  It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.”

It is an oversimplification to state that the Electoral College is designed only to prevent larger states from controlling smaller states’ choice of president.  The actual goal of the Electoral College is to insulate the selection of the president from undue domestic and foreign influence by placing his selection in the hands of temporary direct representatives of the people of each state, rather than one political body.  The founding fathers felt this was desirable “to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.”

To prevent this, the founding fathers felt that an intermediate body of several electors meeting and voting in their own state would be less likely to be influenced by the community to extraordinary or violent movements than the choice of “one” who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.

There is no better example of this than a look at the Teamsters’ Union’s non-endorsement of a candidate between Doanld Trump and Kamala Harris.  Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, a devout Democrat, refused to give his union’s endorsement to either candidate despite almost two thirds of his union backing Donald Trump.  O’Brien unilaterally ignored his members’ wishes and chose to not officially endorse either candidate.

As in this example, the founding fathers wanted every possible impediment to cabal, intrigue, and corruption in selecting the president of the United States.  As Hamilton stated in Federalist No. 68, “these most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.  How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”  The current threat from China and the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who have participated in birth tourism are a perfect example of this.  It is also the reason for a “Natural-Born Citizen” clause in Article II.

By requiring the selection of the president to come from the four corners of the Republic, it becomes eminently more difficult for one person, group, or foreign entity to unduly influence the people’s choice for president.  The electors are the people’s direct representatives of their choice for president, and since they come from and vote within each state, they are more likely to understand the values and desires of their specific region or state.  Current schemes to assign a state’s electoral votes to the overall popular vote winner undermine these protections and are most likely unconstitutional.  Another desirable benefit of this procedure is ensuring the president’s independence from undue influence from a singular source and that his continuance in office falls on none other than the people themselves.

The process of selecting the president of the United States was specifically designed to be not a popularity contest (as it seems to have devolved into), but rather a process to select the best qualified to tend to the administration of the Republic.

Hamilton summarized it this way:

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.

Despite Tim Walz’s and Democrats’ false cries that “MAGA” Republicans are out to destroy democracy, it is in fact the Democrats at every turn who openly voice their desire to undermine our constitutional republic by calling for the abolition of the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, and eliminating procedural checks such as the Senate filibuster.

Scott W. Houghton is a United States Marine Corps veteran (Sergeant), and retired 32-year law enforcement veteran of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, and the Denver, Colorado Police Department. He's also a 3-year SWAT officer, an FBI trained scout sniper, a Colorado Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) Certified Academy instructor, an 11-Year Field Training Officer, FBI and Denver Police-trained firearms instructor, KOGA, and Orcutt Police Nunchaku Arrest Control Techniques Instructor, a 4-year Mounted Patrol Officer, a Terrorism Liaison Officer, a 14-year Airport Officer, a certified member of the American Association of Airport Executives, and a former Aviation Security Supervisor III-Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Image: Tim Walz.  Credit: Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.