Joe, my younger son, attended The Athenian School in Danville. It’s a small, wonderfully diverse high school that emphasizes service to others and democracy.

As part of an Athenian student’s education in democracy, regular Town Hall meetings are held, presided over by students, in which both teachers and students participate. If either a teacher or student wants to effect change at Athenian, he presents his case to the assembled and lives by the majority’s decision.

It’s not surprising that such a system works at Athenian. Students are treated like the adults they are becoming, and teachers, who are on a first-name basis with students, are respected because of their knowledge and professionalism. Of course, not all school activities are subject to a vote, and should the process go awry, Head of School Eleanor Dase, a soft-spoken, engaging person, with an uncanny ability to make a room full of parents, students and teachers feel at ease, has ultimate veto authority.

As a junior, Joe was elected moderator of Town Hall meetings. During his tenure, new bylaws were debated, and a contingent of students proposed that Eleanor’s veto power was undemocratic. As they saw it, democracy only obtained when all votes, including the Head of School’s, were equal. They proposed that the new bylaws strike Eleanor’s veto power.

And now our Presidential election, with its sideshow political food fight, has caused many to conclude that the Electoral College is an undemocratic anachronism that should be struck from the Constitution. Like some Athenian students, many of us are most comfortable with a process in which each of us has one vote and the majority wins. But when the number of voters is large, such a system may become unresponsive to the needs of citizens and hence undemocratic.

To take an extreme example, suppose America were the world, with more than six-billion inhabitants, and also suppose that we all voted directly for the President of the World. Would such an election make sense given the world’s many different languages, customs and concerns? Would a candidate need to be an unwavering centrist, capable of satisfying the majority and possessed of a world-averaged blandness— not too black, brown, red, yellow or white—with good hair and an attractive smile? And how many political parties would be necessary to adequately reflect the diverse interests of the world?

In other words, the larger the number of people participating in an election, the less likely it is that a direct vote makes sense. Even at the state level, it’s ridiculous that more than 32-million Californians—a population 8-times larger than the entire non-native population of the United States when the Constitution was adopted!—are represented by two Senators who live within 20 miles of one another.

But we also have the House, whose members are selected from a much smaller population, and the President, who is elected by the College of Electors.

As originally constituted, the College of Electors was to function somewhat like the Centurial Assembly of the Roman Republic in which citizens were divided into groups of 100, and each group was allowed only one vote on state proposals. Additionally, since the constitutional framers publicly expressed disdain for political parties (while secretly creating them), the College was designed to function somewhat like the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church: Knowledgeable, informed Electors were to select a President based on merit rather than political affiliation or state of origin. An Elector was to be someone like Head of School Eleanor: an apolitical, highly informed citizen who would balance the best interests of her constituents against the needs of the state.

Unfortunately, the College of Electors changed dramatically after Jefferson and Burr tied in the Electoral College, a stalemate that was only resolved in Jefferson’s favor after 36 House votes. The subsequent passage of the 12th Amendment, which narrowed the independence of the Electors, and the decision by most states to adopt a winner-take-all electoral vote, guaranteed a two-party system in which Presidential elections would be decided by popular vote.

Ultimately, the proposal by Athenian students to eliminate Eleanor’s veto authority was defeated. Students and teachers agreed that one person, one vote was not always best. And if we could go back to the original College of Electors concept, which becomes more important as our population increases, we would be able to count on Electors, people like Head of School Eleanor, to do the best for us and our country.

In the meantime, we are witnessing an acrimonious electoral shell game that will weaken the presidency and is embarrassing to watch. While there should be no rush to judgment, let’s hope this election is soon behind us.