In fact, the Electoral College was one of two measures meant to reassure small states that they would not be overwhelmed by states with large populations (the other measure was the Senate).
The "winner-take-all" nature of the Electoral College
is not a product of the constitution. By the time of the 1824 election, the Federalist Party was effective dead, electing only a few Representatives, here and there in the northeast. In 1824, from a field of nine candidates of the Democratic-Republican Party, usually just referred to as Republicans (no relations to the political scum of today), the field was winnowed down to four candidates. It was widely expected that Andrew Jackson would win (he sorta, kinda did), and that John Quincy Adams would come in second, and thereby become the Vice President. Jackson took the most popular votes, and the most electoral votes--
but he did not get 50% of either vote. Therefore, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. That was a contingent election, with each state casting one vote. Only the top three candidates were involved, and Crawford, who had come third, was in poor health, and was not expected to win. It was basically a run-off between Jackson and Adams. (Crawford did win three states in the contingent election, held in February, 1825, but that wasn't even close.) The candidate who had come fourth, Henry Clay, was the Speaker of the House. He also loathed Jackson, having once said in a letter that he didn't think that killing 2500 Englishmen at New Orleans qualified Jackson for the office. An anonymous editorial in a Philadelphia newspaper
before the contingent election said that Clay would support Adams, because Adams would then make Clay the Secretary of State. That was, in fact, what happened. Clay threw his considerable support to Adams, who won the contingent election, and then appointed Clay Secretary of State.
Well, Jackson had not built a military or a political career by sitting around stewing about what might have been. He used the network of militia officers in Tennessee and his connections among southern officers who had served with him at New Orleans, and created the Democratic Party. (Democrats who call themselves the party of Jefferson are full of horseshit.) In the 1828 election, Jackson trounced Adams, taking 56% of the popular vote, and beating him by more than two to one in the Electoral College. Democrats also won several state houses. In 1832, the Democrats took more state houses.
It was in 1832 and afterward that states passed bills to make electoral votes "winner-take-all."
Although not mandated by the constitution (nor prohibited by it), there has always been an understanding that states certify their own elections. (That is, until 2000, when the Rhenquist court intervened to end the Florida recount. John Marshall had establish the principle that the Federal courts and especially the Supremes are the arbiters of constitutionality--see
Marbury versus Madison, 1803. The 2000 decision is the first time that the Supremes have intervened in a state certifying an election. When the body charged with protecting constitutionality, violates constitutionality, there is no appeal.) The only way to end the tyranny of winner-take-all in the Electoral College would be by constitutional amendment. Although a case could be made that large population states are disfranchised by the EC, that is disingenuous--Texas and Florida have large populations, but they typically vote for conservative candidate. Eliminating the EC would disfranchise the small states, mostly agricultural. Agriculture is, as it always has been, the economic bulwark of the United States.
Therefore, I would recommend a constitutional amendment to require electoral votes to be apportioned based on the popular vote--which is what they do in Maine and Nebraska. That way, no one is disfranchised, and the small states don't get trampled by the populous states.
