A call for Constitution Essay Contest entries

As it has since the founding of our nation in the late 18th century, the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the president and vice president of the United States.

And for nearly as many years, some federal legislators have called for its abolition with a constitutional amendment and advocated for direct election of the president by registered eligible voters.

Yet, as established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College remains legally in place and will determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

The effectiveness of our existing election system is the subject of the ninth annual Constitution Essay Contest sponsored by Constitution Literacy Advocates, which promotes education and learning about the foundational document that guides the U.S. form of representative democracy.

This year’s contest will be open only to Solano County Students in grades 10 to 12, Vacaville resident Colleen Britton, chair of CLA, wrote in a press release.

Awards include a $700 mini- grant grand prize; $100 mini- grant Best of School awards for one student from every participating school with 30 or more entries; and, new this year, $50 mini- grant founders Choice Awards, “as merited,” she wrote in the prepared statement.

“This is a great opportunity for your students to articulate their understanding of our electoral system,” she added.

Essays, which require entrants to answer the question “Is the Electoral College still an effective way to elect a president of the U. S.?”, must be 500 words or less and will be accepted until noon Oct. 30. Entry forms are available at www.solanocf.org, at www.celebratetheusconstitution.webs.com, or by sending an email to constitution225@ gmail.com.

Coupled with the entry form are lists of contest resources, including historical background, contemporary opinions, recent relevant Supreme Court decisions, and more.

An additional resource could be retired Columbia University history professor Eric Foner’s 2019 book, “The Second Founding,” in which he noted that the Constitution, when it was ratified on Sept. 17, 1787, accorded Southern states extra power in the House of Representatives by counting threefifths of their slave population in apportioning its members. Thus, the provision enhanced Southern power in the Electoral College, Foner, regarded as a pre- eminent scholar of the Civil War era, pointed out.

Another useful resource is Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” two volumes published in 1835 and 1840, respectively, and still relevant today.

The contest’s annual awards dinner is tentatively set for Nov. 9.

All the minigrant awards come from the Constitution Education Project Fund, a component of the Solano Community Foundation.