Why We Have an Electoral College

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Josh Gelernter:

I’m in my mid-20s, and my circle of friends has suffered a nervous breakdown this week. Besides Donald Trump and his voters, a lot of sturm and drang have been directed at Russia and WikiLeaks, Jill Stein, protest voters, white women, men in general — and the Electoral College, which will elevate Trump to the White House despite his losing the popular vote. Petitions are being signed, marches are being held. You can’t help but chuckle at how many Democrats have touted their electoral “blue wall” over the last four years.

The point of the Electoral College is simple: to restrict the power of the majority. There’s a tendency to forget that majority rule is only half of a free country — the other half is the protection of the rights of the minority, of the dissenters. This is why our federal government has two legislative houses instead of one. The House of Representatives is filled on the majority-rule principle, with greater power given to larger states; the Senate, on the minority-protection principle, with equal power given to each state no matter its size.

The same balance underlies the Electoral College. Every state gets one electoral vote for each of its congressional representatives. This means that the larger states have more say in electing a president, but no state has no say — each, no matter how sparsely populated, gets at least three votes, one for the minimum congressman-at-large and one for each senator.

Remember: The constitution intends that most laws be made on a scale much smaller than the federal government, where the individual voter has, proportionally, a much greater say, and where local problems can be dealt with without affecting unconcerned strangers. The federal government is the federation of one level of distinct law-making units — the states — and a direct presidential election would mean that problems unique to sparsely populated parts of the country would be irrelevant to the president.

That’s what the Founding Fathers decided, anyway.

There is of course the counter-argument, which is that no man’s vote should be worth more than another’s, that one man’s problems aren’t more important than another’s for being more unusual, and that, anyway, those unusual problems are given an equal hearing in the Senate.

There’s also the argument that small, sparsely populated states aren’t actually given any more consideration under the electoral system — unless they’re swing states. That is, you can argue that the Electoral College has the opposite of the intended effect, ensuring that, no matter its size, every state that isn’t divided roughly in half by the two major parties is taken for granted.

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“Clinton won the popular vote” is a fantasy.
There is no popular vote. Millions of votes remain uncounted. These are absentee votes, not counted if they would not change the state total.
Pure fantasy. Count EVERY vote, then get back to me.

@Mathman: That’s my thought too.

@Mathman: You don’t mean state total , which of course would change. You mean state winner.
HRC lost this election because Blacks did not turn out in 2012-2008 numbers in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philly and Pitt—Total of ABOUT 90000 15kMi, 15kWi, and 60K Pa would have given HRC the win.
Count all the votes CAST HRC UP 200k TO 400k . That doesn’t matter

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@Richard Wheeler:

Count all the votes CAST HRC UP 200k TO 400k . That doesn’t matter

That’s correct RW.

because Blacks did not turn out in 2012-2008 numbers in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philly and Pitt—

And why should the President be decided by the Blacks in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philly?

RW, just for discussion, I watched the movie “Born on the 4th of July” over the weekend. Having been very involved in the war, what do you think of that movie and what do you think of the demonstrators back in the late 60’s and Early 70’s. I have kinda changed my mind about it over time as I was strongly opposed to the demonstrators back then, but now, I’m not so sure they didn’t have some very legitimate points. I think the protestors could have been more effective if they had not been so ‘anti-American’ and maybe more Anti-war.

@RedTeam: That was part of Dem. base that didn’t vote They didn’t vote for Trump either about 8% similar to 2008 and 2012–Many hundreds of thousands “stayed home” That cost Clinton E.C. wins in Mich Wisc and Pa. where combined loss was about 90,000– Give those 3 to HRC and she wins E.C
I didn’t particularly like Born On The 4th
Think protests were anti war which was anti-American. Stay Healthy