Election Primer 101

With all the recent talk about superdelegates, another little-understood facet of our democratic republic's election system has not received its due coverage or explanation. So thanks to a rather reputable college education that, alas, focused almost entirely on 20th century British literature and R.E.M.'s I.R.S. label years, allow me to provide you with the following short yet significant summary in U.S. politics:

The Electoral College and You...Minus You
The Electoral College was devised by the Framers of the Constitution as America's last stand against the democracy it had fought long and hard to secure. Of course, by "democracy" our forefathers meant "mob rule" and by "mob" they, curiously enough, meant Sicilians. In an attempt to prevent the rabble from running roughshod over the government and putting a Hummel figurine or Disney character in charge, the Framers decided that each state would choose electors equal to that state's number of Senate and House seats combined. The electors would then meet in their states and burn a witch. If the witch emitted a plume of white smoke, then there would be a new Pope. The Pope would then realize that most Americans view Catholicism as an outgrowth of voodoo and so would quickly assume the shape of a swan to allude grievous harm. While as a swan, he would then impregnate an unsuspecting or drunk Greek woman, who in turn would give birth to the next President of the United States. Unless, of course, no witch, Pope, swan or whatever achieved a majority of the vote, in which case the tallest non-twin individual in America would become Emperor.

Next Time: How Can We Be Both a Democracy and a Republic at the same time? (Hint: Mirrors)