The Best Argument For the Electoral College, Ever
Hugh Hewitt > Blog
Friday, November 28, 2025
The race for the next Governor of California is, given Katie Porter’s face-plant, turning into a three-ring circus. With the jungle primary system, the host thinks the leading Republican, Steve Hilton, has a shot. The Democrat Party is currently as fractious as the Southern California earthquake fault system, but I do not share his optimism. My reasons are for another post, another time. Meanwhile, the Dem zoo is all working to see who can get to the left farthest, fastest and that has lead to one candidate offering a position that is simply remarkable.
Rep. Eric Swalwell has officially launched his campaign for governor of California, and in classic Swalwell fashion, he immediately stepped on a rake. While most candidates roll out their campaigns talking about crime, affordability, education, or the mass exodus out of California, Swalwell decided the urgent issue facing the state is… letting people vote by phone.
Swalwell’s political ineptitude is indeed an issue, but this actually frightens me. Someone else, someone more potent, might pick up on this idea. The California voting system is already legally “rigged” to insure a permanent Democratic majority and can be prone to fraud. This move would swing the that door to fraud wide open, and I can see Californians going for it in a big way. They readily and unthinkingly have embraced every previous compromise to the voting system proposed. Why would this one be any different?
But mostly this is an argument for the Electoral College. If California wants to govern itself in this futuristic, Soviet-like, fashion, that is their right. (For the younger readers the Soviet Union did have elections – and the sitting premier always won – unanimously. Pravda always reported the results with an absolutely straight face.) But given California’s population relative to the rest of the nation, they could sway presidential elections if the federal government had to recognize all those phone-in votes individually. Hence the wisdom of the founders when they put the electoral college in the constitution.
