The Electoral College keeps our interests in balance

The Electoral College has again come under scrutiny, which typically occurs when the popular vote and the Electoral College result do not coincide. But do we really understand why we have an Electoral College as the way to elect our president?

We often refer to the foresight of our Founding Fathers without fully understanding the unique design of our governmental structure and processes. Consider the legislative branch, where the House of Representative is elected by population and the Senate is populated by equal representation from each state. This difference was designed to provide a balance between a popular vote and equal representation from each state.

The Electoral College is intended to provide some balance to the executive branch by providing electoral votes, not based on population alone. Our presidential candidates must therefore address specific state or regional issues in order to appeal to a wider segment of our electorate. The smaller states are our producers of food, energy, building materials, manufacturing and other sectors of our economy that have very specific needs. Without giving full consideration to these needs, we could not survive. A popular majority vote alone does not force our candidates to travel the country, to listen to all of the people, and to understand the issues facing farmers, ranchers, miners and the forestry industry, which occupy a lot of land with a very low population of people.

The major cities, although they play an important role in society, are basically service-oriented and consist of consumers who too often take the producers for granite. We, as producers, are not only able to produce enough food to feed our own population but are able to export food commodities as well. These states and regions of the country have their own unique issues that must be addressed by our candidates in order to be elected. It is a matter of balancing the needs of the producers and the consumers.

Ideally, a candidate will appeal to both the producers and the consumers and the Electoral College and popular vote will produce the same result. This can best occur when a candidate offers a platform that puts country first and provides what we all want and, more especially, what we all need.

The writer lives in North Myrtle Beach.

This story was originally published December 25, 2016 at 12:30 PM with the headline "The Electoral College keeps our interests in balance."