The Electoral College has voted and Trump won. I know that thousands of people tried to convince Trump electors to vote for Clinton. Ironically, if I am reading the results correctly, more Clinton electors were “unfaithful” than were Trump electors.
Three comments:
First, the Electoral College no longer operates like Hamilton thought it would. The electors don’t sit down and vote for the candidate they believe is best to run the country. They vote for the candidate who won their state’s popular vote. The Electoral College has been operating this way since 1800, and it is now part of the Constitutional order. In political science terms, this is called “custom and usage.” We expect that if Pennsylvania votes for Trump, his electors will vote for Trump. I don’t particularly like that, but the problem is with the voters, not the Electoral College.
Second, the easiest reform of the Electoral College is to eliminate the actual people and assign the Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the state. Trump wins Pennsylvania, so he gets the 20 votes from Pennsylvania. No need for actual people.
Third, it is high time to scrap what is an antiquated system. We got rid of the 3/5 clause. We amended the Constitution to allow direct election of Senators. We only allow the President two terms. It is time to move to a direct election of the President. When a candidate wins almost three million more votes than her opponent and loses the presidency, that is undemocratic and calls the legitimacy of the whole election into question.
Ever since the whole Bush/Gore debacle I've felt that the electoral college was an outdated system that needed to be done away with. Now that the Republicans are in complete power, that will never happen, especially since it favors them. It's disheartening for sure.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans do benefit, but I think the tide may be turning. People don't generally like what is patently unfair.
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