This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

There have been many people stating that the Electoral College needs to be eradicated. Yet most people who live in the United States do not understand that this is a necessary mechanism to keep the balance of authority.

The U.S. is not a democracy but a constitutional republic. The founders of this republic did not envision a democracy because it usually crashes and burns and does not protect the rights of individuals. If three people live in a country under a democracy, two of those people could vote by majority for the third person to surrender his property; in a republic, only the law has authority to take property.

A republic is based on law and not the whims of an angry mob. Like it or not, the Electoral College is necessary in order to maintain the balance of authority, giving part of the balance to the states themselves and not the whims of an uneducated group of the populace who otherwise have nothing to gain but expect more from their government than they are entitled.

Wade Marshall Miller

Murray