Campaigns trying to quash Trump’s victory through electors

We think that would be a mistake.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton last Tuesday, Democrats across the country are protesting in a variety of ways. While it may be too early to know for certain, Hillary Clinton likely won the popular vote in 2016 despite losing the electoral vote to Donald Trump. Yet neither became president.

The electors from all states meet later in December to vote for the president of the United States. Slavery has been abolished, civil rights of minorities recognized, women allowed to vote and presidential terms limited. But the electoral college has survived for more than 220 years. Let stand the requirement of 270 out of the total 538 electoral votes, or 50.19%, to be elected president. “The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this”.

Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, plus one of Maine’s districts (which, along with Nebraska, splits up its electors by district), giving him 290 electoral votes.

On Monday, December 19, seven prominent citizens – three from Vermont, four in New Hampshire – will assemble in their respective state capitols to participate in a curious, historic ceremony – casting votes for the next president and vice-president of the United States. That’s what the original planners decided, and it has been good enough for us. And, lest we forget, it would require amending the Constitution, no small or easy feat.

Most blame Gore’s loss in 2000 on the long-disputed ballot tussle in Florida that had to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Alex Kim, a Republican elector from Tarrant County, says he is getting up to 1,000 emails a day asking him to not support Trump. Trump’s opponents are motivated by the outcome of the popular vote and by their contention that the businessman and reality TV star is unfit to serve as commander in chief.

State laws govern how votes are divided, and those laws can be changed. These states tend to be highly competitive with an electorate relatively evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

The remaining 38 to 40 states do not matter almost as much when it comes to the outcome of presidential elections. This argument is weak, because as the Washington Post piece cited, Darin DeWitt and Thomas Schwartz highlight that in a multiple candidate race under a simple “most votes” provision, a victor based on the plurality of votes could be “detested” by the majority of voters. But if that amounts to less than 50 percent, it’s hard to see how relying on the popular vote improves things.

As designed in the Constitution, America’s presidential election is very much a product of the states-channeling the principle of “federalism” that the Founders cherished.

After his victory in this election, president-elect Trump also stated that if that if the election was exclusively popular vote, he would have “won even bigger and more easily”. Were it not for the Electoral College, Bill Clinton might not have been elected. Electors who cast their votes for her would simply be throwing their votes away. Democrats still won three statewide races _ for treasurer, auditor general and attorney general _ and Republicans can not count on another such embrace by middle- and working-class voters, Groen said. Many of them are similar.

Finally, National Popular Vote’s process refutes its own argument for a broad-based approach. How Texas one day needs to join the union.

Finally, history isn’t on Clinton’s side.

The 1800 race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson took five days and 35 ballots in the U.S. House of Representatives before a president was elected, according to the National Archives.