Our Unelected Electoral College

They say in the US that the "Electoral College" chooses our Presidents. At one time this may have been true. The original US Constitution contained these provisions:

Article II, Section 1

1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

3: The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

I always thought the so-called Electoral College was created to ensure the sovereign states would select the very best persons available to be our President and Vice President. Note that Clause 2 above leaves it to the states to determine how "their" electors are chosen, and that the original Clause 3 implies each elector can vote for anyone he or she chooses.

But now we have a bastardized system, thanks in part to the 12th Amendment, in which We The People vote for presidential candidates along party lines and in which most electors are bound by law to vote for their state's "winners" in the general election.

Many are now whining because they don't understand how Donald Trump, a man they believe is unfit to be President, won that office in 2016 via the bastardized Electoral College system. Here is a pre-election news report on that topic:

Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. (The meeting was not planned to be a strategy session on how to stop the GOP front-runner, but rather evolved into one, as a subsequently obtained agenda makes clear.)

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he “cannot support Donald Trump.”

You can read the rest @
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d

Note well the meeting attendees are NOT members of the official Electoral College. But their influence and support has been crucial to the "resistance", the mass of people now protesting Trump's election and sabotaging his presidency. In fact, one could argue that Tim Cook, Larry Page, Sean Parker, Elon Musk, and their ilk are "our" real unelected Electoral College. They almost succeeded in derailing Trump's chances for election, and they definitely are succeeding in wrecking his presidency. And it's very likely they will decide who becomes the next President as well.

Rich people and large political parties have a long history of being destructive to democracy in the USA. Perhaps restoring the original intent and rules for the Electoral College would not stop them from influencing our elections, but shouldn't we at least try?

Let's repeal the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution and restore the old school method for selecting the US President. I am confident such a move would not yield any worse result than that of the election we just had.