The Electoral College Stinks
The Electoral College Stinks
Support the National Popular Vote compact, it makes sense if you believe in democracy.
By D. S. Mitchell
Losing While Winning
I believe whoever wins the most votes should become president of the United States. Unfortunately, with the Electoral College system that is not what happens. Twice in the last five elections the candidate that became president of the United States lost the popular vote. Donald Trump, won by less than 80,000 votes in four key electoral college states. He simultaneously lost the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. That means the guy who came in second was elected in 2016 (Trump), 2000 (Bush), 1888 (Harrison), 1876 (Hayes), and 1824 (J.Q. Adams), thereby altering history. Does anyone doubt that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have looked very different than the Trump presidency that we got.
The GOP Solution
The Electoral College system has become a powerful tool for the Republicans in their effort to lock in one party control of government. Elie Mystal, in an Editorial from a couple of years back, in The Nation magazine, wrote the GOP’s ultimate solution to the country’s changing demographics is to “forge a new theory of government where the rule by a white minority can withstand the popular will.” The nature of that effort was clear during Trump’s first impeachment trial. Republicans desperate to acquit Trump married themselves to a group of discredited legal theories, perhaps appropriate in a banana republic, but certainly not fitting for one of the world’s longest surviving democracies. The Senators embraced a view of executive power and privilege, that ultimately denies our democracy and anoints a king; which coincidently meshes nicely with Trump’s “permanent immunity claims.”
