Electoral College is the problem

At the same time, 69 percent of those polled said the United States presidential campaign had aroused their interest, up from 53 percent in October.

The backlash to the Electoral College keeps growing.

A national anti-Donald Trump group called the #NotMyPresident Alliance distributed the personal information of dozens of Electoral College members to its supporters on Wednesday through a Google doc spreadsheet. In addition, aggressive actions toward electors themselves have been exhibited.

No one has been able to devise anything better than the Electoral College to give all voters a voice, and to give the president a broad base of support from which to govern. But the president overwhelmingly won the electoral college, 332 to 206.

“You have people saying, ‘You’re a hateful bigot”.

Simple illustration. Let me illustrate how the exception happened in the 2016 (and in the 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000) elections.

This is not what our Founders had in mind.

Just one elector so far has wavered publicly on supporting Trump. It is a republic comprised of 50 sovereign states.

This Washington Post article looks at the internal workings of the Electoral College in ways that will escape most civics classes.

The Electoral College has a very interesting genesis and evolution, starting with the notion that Congress, and not the people, should elect a President. Once that happens, the deed is done and the elector is no longer relevant. According to the formula, smaller states have disproportionately more electors, leading critics to say each popular vote in those states is worth more.

Donald Trump’s “huge win” in the USA presidential election is marred by the fact that it is the biggest loss for a winning candidate in terms of the popular vote. Granted, the Senate could pass the bill if it wanted to do so, but they will be more occupied with an upcoming budget deadline than Boxer’s grandiosity in service to a narrow number of states who would back this constitutional amendment.

Even Clinton with the fact that she received a greater number of votes than Trump also received fewer votes than Romney. America today will continue to survive, with our electoral college kept intact.

Alexander Hamilton wrote that the method of choosing the president, if not ideal, was “at least excellent”.

I don’t expect an answer any time soon. Had John Kerry convinced 59,301 George W. Bush voters in OH to support him instead, he would have taken the presidency in 2004 despite losing the popular vote by 3 million. Millions have signed a petition urging electors to vote for Clinton instead, no matter how their state voted. The Trump campaign was a metaphoric masterpiece; when he said “build a wall”, they heard “stop job loss”. Whether he, or Hillary Clinton, could have racked up more votes (and whether more people would have been motivated to turn out for their candidate) in an alternative system is another question entirely.

As for his own political future and that of the Democratic Party, Mr. Sanders said he intends to officially remain an independent for the time being.

Trump is the leader of a broad cross-section of Americans, which is precisely what the Founders were looking for.

I’ll be the first to admit that this reality doesn’t do much to change the reality of the outcome of the election. “ARE YOU INSANE?” to which I responded with “There is a flaw in our educational system if you think that those two lost the popular vote”.

Republican Party officials in Georgia and MI said their electors also have been bombarded with messages, and Iowa reported increased public interest in obtaining contact information for electors.

The people did have their say.

This column was written for The Princess Anne Independent News and will appear in the November 25 edition.