Half the wigged weirdos had a bunch of people living in their states that they considered property and certainly weren’t about to let them vote…but at the same time, they were doing the work of people who would have to live there if not for the slaves.
So they wanted to have their cake and eat it too: they wanted to have their slaves count as population when it came to representation but they weren’t remotely considering those same people as population when it came to actual voters.
So you got the 3/5 compromise in it’s appalling simplicity, and the electoral college which favored lower population (read: plantation) states by giving them outsized influence over national elections compared to what their actual population would normally warrant.
If that wasn’t enough, the EC was also intended as an insurance policy for the elite: if the population ever overwhelmingly elected someone that the elites overwhelmingly opposed, the EC could serve as a last ditch firewall to protect their interests and simply ignore the will of the voters to choose their own leadership.
You’ll notice that none of the purposes of the EC are in the interests of the people.
Wanna know what the wigged weirdos thought?
Slavery.
Half the wigged weirdos had a bunch of people living in their states that they considered property and certainly weren’t about to let them vote…but at the same time, they were doing the work of people who would have to live there if not for the slaves.
So they wanted to have their cake and eat it too: they wanted to have their slaves count as population when it came to representation but they weren’t remotely considering those same people as population when it came to actual voters.
So you got the 3/5 compromise in it’s appalling simplicity, and the electoral college which favored lower population (read: plantation) states by giving them outsized influence over national elections compared to what their actual population would normally warrant.
If that wasn’t enough, the EC was also intended as an insurance policy for the elite: if the population ever overwhelmingly elected someone that the elites overwhelmingly opposed, the EC could serve as a last ditch firewall to protect their interests and simply ignore the will of the voters to choose their own leadership.
You’ll notice that none of the purposes of the EC are in the interests of the people.