The election 2000 mess in Florida has raised fundamental questions about the electoral college and its validity in a modern world. We even have the Freshman senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, gaining notoriety (intentionally??) as a sponsor of an amendment to abolish the Electoral College. How should we think about this mechanism for choosing a president?

First, some comments about how it works: In effect, each state in the general election is holding an election to elect electors, who in turn will vote for the president. Each political party has a slate of electors equal to that state's number of representatives and senators. (Since 1964, the District of Columbia has 3 electors that are also elected). Whichever candidate wins the most votes in that state, his electors gets the right to vote. It is in effect, a winner take-all vote (except in Maine and Nebraska which awards electoral votes proportionally). The total possible votes in the Electoral College is 538. So, in California, for example, whoever wins that state's popular vote is awarded all that state's 54 electoral votes. This, of course, has been the controversy in Florida, because it has 25 electoral votes and in this tight election, its 25 votes will determine the presidency. Whichever slate of electors wins in the general election, those electors then travel to their respective state capitals the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (this year it is 18 December) and cast their ballots. Those ballots are sealed by the state's secretary of state and delivered to the president of the Senate (the VP of the United States), who opens and counts the ballots when the new Congress opens in January and then declares the winner. If no candidate receives a majority of the 538 (i.e., 270), the House of Representatives then chooses the president in which the states vote as a delegation (hence 26 votes are needed). The Senate follows the same procedure in choosing the Vice President.

Why did the Founders establish such a system? It is imperative to remember that America is a republic, in which the people choose leaders who in turn rule over us. Further, power is shared by the national government and the states. Therefore, the Founders had the Senate chosen by the state legislatures and the President chosen by electors. The senators and the electors would be people of noble character who would rise above the public passions of the moment and act in the best interests of the nation. The Constitution called for limited government, with power balanced! The Electoral College preserves this republican form of government where the states preserve their individual political identities and power. In other words, the Electoral College is key to preserving our federal system, where power is shared by the national government and the states.

An additional advantage of the Electoral College is that it preserves our two party system. At first this may not seem as obvious, but with additional thought one sees that for a political party to succeed it must win elections. You only have to consider the parliamentary governments of Europe, for example, to see that with multiple parties coalition governments are the result. There is a certain stability to having a two party system and the Electoral College goes a long way towards preserving that system, with all of its flaws.

Finally, this election, whatever its outcome, is one of the strangest in recent history. As David Broder stated, "It was as if two different nations went to vote. . . ." Whereas women favored Gore, men favored Bush; while the smaller, more rural states voted of Bush, the larger, more urban ones voted for Gore; city-dwellers voted for Gore, while rural, small-town America voted for Bush. Finally, the suburban vote split evenly. Exit polls tell us that those who voted for Gore voted their pocketbook, while those who voted for Bush cited honesty as the most important character trait of a candidate. Fully 20% of those who voted for Bush said they were voting against Clinton. This was an election that pitted morality versus pragmatism and economics. It is a cultural and moral divide that is splitting the nation. This is therefore a watershed election and only God knows where it will lead us!!

See Chuck Colson, "Breakpoint," (10 and 13 November 2000).

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Bias in the Media and the Academy

A few months ago, Harvard University Press was set to publish an extraordinarily important book, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Heathier, and Better Off Financially, by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher. But at the last minute it dropped the book from its publication schedule. Why? Normally, a manuscript is reviewed by two scholars and if they are positive, the book is slated for publication, pending final approval by the board. With this book, the Board stepped in and killed the book, arguing its tone was too strong and evidence too meager. One of those integral reviewers at Harvard hailed the book "as the most important book in the family field that has been published in many years." It is therefore strange that the Board would not publish this book, especially when it has published four books of Catharine MacKinnon, a radical feminist, whose books have a tone of thoroughgoing hatred of men, and who argues that marital sex that is consensual is akin to rape!! If the issue is a book's tone, then McKinnon's does not pass the test. It is obvious that this very rare killing of a book's publication by its Board was for ideological reasons: Orthodox femininity hates the book, for it argues that marriage matters and that commitment matters, something this movement does not want to hear. In short, this was not Harvard University Press's finest hour. (Incidentally, the book has been published by Doubleday and is a raging success).

Joel Belz, in an article entitled "Mind monopolizers," argues that the media and the educational forces of American society speak with a nearly single voice. He cites three areas of this single voice:

1. Naturalism always trumps supernaturalism. The Darwinian hypothesis has produced the carte blanche acceptance of this entire worldview. God is therefore marginalized and not necessary.

2. The "out-of-adjustment" explanation always trumps the "sin" explanation. No behavior is classified as right or wrong anymore. Instead, behavior is a product of a bad childhood or some other maladjustment. Therefore, one is really not responsible for one's actions. There is no accountability and no responsibility.

3. Pluralism always trumps truth. After all, no one has a corner on truth, so we must tolerate and accept all personal expressions. There is no absolute truth, so acceptance and toleration are the acceptable cultural norms.

Belz argues the these three points monopolize our mind as a culture. As Christians, we must be countercultural in our thinking or we will find ourselves brainwashed by the mind monopolizers!!

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