Electoral College
Does Not Reflect
Popular Vote
By J. M. ROBERTS
Associated Press News Analyst
In the early morning hours of
Wednesday, during the period of
the “Nixon rush” in the vote
counting, there appeared, on pa
per. a possibility that the final
decision might Me in the hands of
14 men in Mississippi and Ala
bama.
These were the unpledged elec
tors who were being held in re
serve for just such an opportun
ity. They represented anti-Ken
nedy Democrats.
If neither candidate had been
able to obtain a majority from
the other states, Nixon would al
most certainly have been elected.
The possibility of manipulating
the Electoral College in such sit
uations, created by the right of
the states to control their own
election procedure, has often been
argued in connection with the ef
ficary of the whole arrangement.
Contributing to the argument has
been the fact that there have been
minority presidents, through vic
tories in the Electoral College
without a majority of the popular
vote.
The Electoral College system
was established originally be
cause of two major factors in the
minds of the country’s early lead
ers.
Uontronine, pernaos, was me
feeling that the peonle as a whole
could not know the candidates
under the conditions of communi
cation in those days, and would
be better off to delegate their
authoritv to representatives at
home whom they would trust to
act for them in choosing a Presi
dent.
Present, also, was the feeling
among the gentry who made the
rules of those times that direct
election bv the common people
was a little too revolutionary —
even in a revolutionary country,
The system actually was a hand
me-down from the ancient Ger
man practice of having kings
elected by the princes of the var
ious states.
The idea of direct popular elec
tion. involving federal control of
presidential voting, has never
taken hold.
There have been repeated sug
gestions, however, for making the
electoral vote more representative
of situations within individual
states.
This time we have the case of
Illinois, where Kennedy got 27
electoral votes through a majority
of only about 5,000 out of about
4,750,000. Under proportional rep
resentation in the Electoral Col
lege, which many suggest, Nixon
would have gotten 13 of those
votes.
As this is written there are
still enough precinct to report and
absentee votes to be cdunted to
give Nixon an over-all popular
majority. Even the electoral vote
of some states—tout not enough—
could be changed.
In such situations, the Electoral
College as it stands is not a pre
cise instrument for recording the
popular will.
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Puerto Ricans Disregard
Bishops and Vote For
Gov. Munoz Marin
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, UP —
Puerto Rico's predominantly Ro
man Catholic voters rejected the
instructions of their bishops and
re-elected Gov. Luis Munoz Marin
by a landslide.
Munoz Marin, himself a Cath
olic, captured 456,317 votes to
325,757 for his three opponents.
He won his fourth term as head
of this U.S. commonwealth island.
The results of the record poll
were a sharp rebuff to the is
land’s 3 Roman Catholic bishops
who wrote in pastoral letters
that a vote for Munoz Marin’s
Popuplar Democrats would be a
sin because the party did not
oppose birth control.
By re-electing Munoz Marin,
the voters also approved Puerto
Rico’s continuance as a common
wealth under the American flag.
Luis Ferre, the Republican can
didate, who campaigned for
Puerto Rican statehood, was out
distanced almost 2-1.
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U N. Irish Pat-ol Ambushed By
Tribesmen, Kill TO, Wound 11
LEOPOLDS VTLLE, UPl — An
Irish patrol am jiished by Baluba
tribesmen in Katanga province
apparently killed 10 of the at
tackers and wounded 10 others in
a desperate burst of fire before
they were overwhelmed.
The U.N. Congo Command an
nounced today that 10 wounded
Baluba tribesmen had been cap
tured at the site of Tuesday’s
ambush and 10 other tribesmen
were found dead. Only two of the
11-man Irish patrol escaped un
hurt.
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