A Check Against Thralldom – Daniel Klein

Robert G. Natelson : The Electoral College checks some of the nastier hazards of mass politics.

He says the Electoral College helps to ensure a wide geographic distribution of support for the winner.

The Founders were not innocent of the danger of political thralldom inherent in mass democracy, he says.

Madison looked to ensure that “the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act” The geographically dispersed weighting that attends the Electoral College is another example of prophylactic against tyranny, by checking the sway of regional concentrations in thrall to government power.