The Electoral College No Longer Serves Its Stated Purpose. Let’s Abolish It.

Presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren, recently provoked controversy by unequivocally calling for the abolition of the Electoral College.

Warren has a point. While James “Father of the Constitution” Madison created the Electoral College because he claimed that he feared “factions” that could create a “tyranny of the majority,” the Electoral College has instead created de facto minority rule. Because the Electoral College unfairly advantages less populous states, the Electoral College has produced five — yes, five! — men who ascended to the Oval Office with fewer votes than their opponents. While this happened most recently in 2016, four other men have become president that way. And, according to C-Span’s 2017 Presidential Ranking, all but John Quincy Adams rank in the bottom half of the pack.

The list is below:

1. Abraham Lincoln
   2. George Washington
   3. FDR
   4. Theodore Roosevelt
   5. Dwight Eisenhower
   6. Harry Truman
   7. Thomas Jefferson
   8. JFK
   9. Ronald Reagan
   10. LBJ
   11. Woodrow Wilson
   12. Barack Obama
   13. James Monroe
   14. James K. Polk
   15. Bill Clinton
   16. William McKinley
   17. James Madison
   18. Andrew Jackson
   19. John Adams
   20. George H.W. Bush
   21. John Quincy Adams *
   22. Ulysses S. Grant
   23. Grover Cleveland
   24. William Taft
   25. Gerald Ford
   26. Jimmy Carter
   27. Calvin Coolidge
   28. Richard Nixon
   29. James Garfield
   30. Benjamin Harrison *
   31. Zachary Taylor
   32. Rutherford B. Hayes*
   33. George W. Bush *
   34. Martin Van Buren
   35. Chester A. Arthur
   36. Herbert Hoover
   37. Millard Fillmore
   38. William Henry Harrison
   39. John Tyler
   40. Warren G. Harding
   41. Franklin Pierce
   42. Andrew Johnson
   43. James Buchanan

With the exception of John Quincy Adams, who hovers near the bottom of the top half, all the EC winners/popular vote losers languish near the bottom of the list. While a hostile Congress is partially to blame for John Quincy Adams' less than stellar presidential record, the other three presidents were either mediocre or downright incompetent.

A quick rundown:

• Rutherford B. Hayes. His decision to end Reconstruction in the post-Civil War…