The Electoral College
votes on Monday for President of the United States. Naturally, this has been a
source of angst for Democrats this year. Even moreso than it was in 2000 when
Gore had more votes but didn’t win the Electoral vote.
In the final debate, Mr.
Trump was asked if he’d accept the results of the election. His answer was that
he’d look at it and until then he’d keep
the press in suspense. Hillary was horrified. She said so. ““That’s horrifying,” Mrs. Clinton replied. “Let’s be clear about what he
is saying and what that means. He is denigrating — he is talking down our
democracy. And I am appalled that someone who is the nominee of one of our two
major parties would take that position.”
Yet, now, it’s the Democrats challenging the results
of the election. It’s a slightly different reason, but still questioning the
results based on our Constitution.
So how do we elect a
President of the United States? It is not entirely based on the popular vote. If
you look at an electoral map that breaks it down by states, you can see that
bulk of states, even those won by Hillary, are red for Trump. There are two
exceptions that stand out. California and Hawaii. Here’s a link where you can
see that. http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
Minnesota, long a stronghold
of the Democrats, looks mostly red when you look at the state. Even New York
looks like a red state with a few exceptions. All around Manhattan is blue.
This is where a large number of people live. Around Buffalo it’s blue, but the
vast majority of the state of New York is red.
So if we counted only the
popular vote, the election each time would come down to New York and California
leading the way all because of the cities.
Another problem was that
slaves couldn’t vote, but they still had to be fed, clothed and sheltered. So
for the purposes of the elections, they wanted the slaves counted as part of
the population despite the slaves not being permitted to vote. It would give
the states more representation in government.
Another reason for the
electoral college is the electors are usually informed about what goes on in
government. So if a particular candidate was considered a dangerous or unsavory
character, the electors might catch it where the general population wouldn’t
and could prevent that type of person from becoming President. This scenario
was actually used in 1800 when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied. The
decision went to the House of Representatives and after 35 tie votes, Alexander
Hamilton let it be known he was more in favor of Jefferson despite disagreeing
with Jeffersons policies, because he considered Burr unsavory. Oddly enough,
Burr later killed Hamilton in a duel.
In the 1880’s states
changed from a proportion of the vote to winner takes all in the states. There are
two that don’t award winner takes all. Nebraska and Maine. They award electoral
votes by districts and the winner of the state takes the other two votes in
addition to those they won.
People complain now that
those that are uninformed should not be permitted to vote. If the electoral
college were eliminated would they then require everyone to take a test of the
issues then decide if they can vote? It would be interesting to see who gets to
be the judge of who’s “smart enough” to vote.
Since our electoral
college is based on the number of representatives and senators, there are 538
electoral votes. 535 for the representation and 3 for the District of Columbia.
If neither candidate reaches the 270 (the majority), the House of
Representatives then chooses the President and the Senate chooses the Vice
President.
We have had 58 elections
in this country since the beginning of the country. Twice it’s gone to the
House of Representatives (1800 and 1824). Once it went to the full Congress
(1878). Twice the one with the popular vote lost the electoral college (2000
and 2016).
We have had close
elections that could have been challenged and possibly gone the other way. In 1960,
many believe that Nixon won the election against Kennedy because of some
election shenanigans going on that may have overturned the election had Nixon
challenged it. Nixon thought it was bad for the country to go through, so he
did not challenge it. It’s ironic that Nixon took the high road. Now Hillary is
in a similar position and her team is holding out hope that enough of the
electors can’t stand trump and will vote for her.
Imagine if we changed it
to the popular vote and then in the next election, the Republican won the
election with the popular vote but the Democrat would have won the electoral
vote but since there isn’t an electoral college any longer, would they then
call to reinstate the electoral college?
It’s not likely that there
will be enough Trump voters to change the outcome of the election. However, if
37 of the electors don’t vote for Trump as they are pledged to do, it won’t
give Hillary the victory because those that have spoken up have said they will
vote for others such as John Kasich. So the election would then go to the House
where Republicans would decide the outcome. Since the House and Senate are both
in Republican control, Trump and Mike Pence would likely still win the
election.
You’re welcome to comment.
Brett
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