Things You Didn't Know About Our Government: Democracy by Proxy

Did you know that the Founding Fathers of the United States were absolute skeptics about direct democracy and the "popular vote?"

Seriously.

None of them weren't really big fans of democratic election because they didn't trust that the average Joe was educated enough on politics and the law to pick out their own leaders. Until 1913, the only directly elected members of Congress were the House of Representatives.

Until then, Senators were elected by each State's Legislator and the Electoral College elected the President and Vice President. When the Electoral College actually work correctly, each State was allowed to decide for itself how they would elect their Electorate. It could be done by popular vote, appointed by the governor, decided by the State legislator, or whatever they wanted. I suppose they could have put the names of each resident of the State into a hat and pulled out 12, or 17, or however many Electorates the State was allowed to have. And of course, Judges are appointed by the President- not the people.

It wasn't that the Founding Father's thought that the Average Joe was stupid or ignorant. It was merely that they didn't want all these powerful positions to be decided by the whimsy of group-think. Mobs of people don't always make the best choices based on the facts at hand. And so the decision was made to give the people the chance to elect representatives from their community who would make it their job to explore each circumstance and vote accordingly.

Even today, with as much information and technology as we have- I think this system is a good thing. In fact, I sort of wish we could go back to the Senators being elected by the State and the Electorate elected by each State. It's not that I don't want to have a vote. It's that I don't have time to keep up with everything in the world of politics and theory. Neither do any of my friends- even the most politically active ones.

So, instead of being caught up on who to vote for, we'd elect people from our community who we know and trust to learn and vote on our behalf. It's democracy by proxy and it's the way that our Country was supposed to work.