The Electoral College maintains a stable system that counts Minnesota and North Dakota as viable parts.

Life on the border, always interesting, has been positively hypnotic recently. No, not the U.S-Canadian border; the North Dakota-Minnesota border, where we see the political contrast between a swing state and one that’s colored a deep red.

Along with that excitement comes a renewed appreciation for the Electoral College that makes it so.

The Electoral College seems little understood and even less appreciated by the general public. After all, how can a system be legitimate when, on occasion, it installs as president the person who lost the popular vote?

The answer is that the Electoral College proved its legitimacy long ago by shaping the American political landscape. We have a two-party system that splits power 50 ways between the states; and for that, we can thank in part the Electoral College.

That two-party, shared-power system has helped elevate the United States to its current economic, political and military superpower status. Would a popular vote system threaten that status?

Over time, the answer could be yes. That’s one reason why the Electoral College, for all its faults, should be retained.

The Electoral College does two things that matter a lot in Minnesota and North Dakota. First, it makes the rural areas in those states count. It’s true that the candidates are bypassing North Dakota this year, but that’s because of the state’s politics, not its population size.

Those states and every other small state would be completely irrelevant in a popular-vote system. All money and attention would be focused on America’s cities, because that’s where politicians could get the biggest bang for their buck. That would confine the campaigns largely to America’s coasts (including the Great Lakes), where well over half the population lives.

Second, the Electoral College keeps the influence of third parties to a minimum in national politics. The two-party system forces candidates to move to the center, both to win election and to govern. That has added tremendous stability to our political system.

The results prove the point. America has won its status as a world leader in part because our system inspires more consensus and unity than do the multiparty systems elsewhere. It’s easier to act decisively when only two &uot;factions&uot; must be satisfied, rather than six or seven.

The system, on balance, has worked enviably for centuries and promises to keep doing so.

As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jane Eisner put it recently, &uot;Like democracy itself, the Electoral College is the worst way to pick a president. Except for all the others.&uot;

Along with the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College helps us remain a country of 50 states rather than a handful of super-populous city-states. Let’s keep it so.

(Grand Forks Herald)