The Electoral College end around
The founders of our country and authors of our Constitution were some pretty sharp fellows. It took the writers about two years to come up with a document which withstands time, tides and technology as our national guide-book for over 230 years. Those revolutionary men in Philadelphia had plenty of examples NOT to follow when they penned the blueprints as a way for our republic to exist in the best possible way, not perfect, but better than most.
To make sure no royalty, kings or tyrants rose to power, the Electoral College was included in Article 2 of the Constitution. Another reason for the Electoral College is to make sure big states didn’t overpower small states when selecting a President – each state had a voice that was heard. Some even say another surreptitious motive for an Electoral College was to make it easier to count a smaller number of votes in a time when quill and ink tabulated the results.
Whatever the reasons, the Electoral College has worked well for almost 60 presidential elections, with confusion and conflict in only a few cases. In our nation’s history, only five candidates have won the majority of the national popular vote yet lost the election. They are; Andrew Jackson 1824, Samuel Tilden 1876, Grover Cleveland 1888, Al Gore 2000, and Hillary Clinton 2016.
Because two of those losses happened in the last 20 years, and both losers were Democratic Party members, there are some sour feelings when it comes to the Electoral College process. There are many on the left who would love to get rid of the electoral process. Doing this would ensure Democratic Presidents forever by allowing the east and west coast urban areas to decide the outcome for the whole nation. Luckily, ending the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment – or would it?
There is a movement growing in blue states which started in 2006 known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This is an agreement among a group of twelve U.S. states to award all of their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote – no matter how the people of their state voted.
Currently, there are twelve states joined in this compact which represent 172 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a President, and yes New York is one. Our state, with 29 electoral votes, joined the compact in April of 2014. The most recent state to join the Popular Vote club is Colorado with nine electoral votes. This was one of Colorado’s first legislative votes of 2019.
If enough blue states join the compact they could wind up deciding future presidential elections, and right now they are only 98 votes away. As the left inches closer to 270 compact votes there will certainly be a legal challenge of some sort alleging this is a conspiracy of the states trying to circumvent our Constitution.
The people who want to tinker with our elections should remember our country is made up of 50 individual states which are united by our Constitution. The people of each state vote and each separate state’s electors then vote for President. We in upstate New York are used to having our voting voice shouted down by New York City, yet we still go out and vote our conscience. The people voting in ‘swing states’ know when they cast a presidential ballot it could potentially make a difference in the outcome of a national race.
The imaginary state lines drawn on maps serve an important and distinctive purpose. For example, in 2016 if two counties on the border of Illinois had artificially been in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton would have won Wisconsin. Then, if two counties on the border of Florida had somehow been gerrymandered into Alabama, Clinton would have won Florida, thus becoming Madam President. That example of a hypothetical presidential election would have happened without a single person’s vote being changed. That’s why separate states and their electoral votes matter.
We know there will be a large field of Democrats in the presidential race for 2020. Who will be the ultimate candidate to challenge President Trump is anyone’s guess. There are many Democrats who don’t even care who their candidate is; they are only concerned about getting to the magic number of 270 electoral votes and using Electoral College chicanery is one way to get there.
Instead of fiddling around with 230 years of the Electoral College, if I were a Democrat I’d change my strategy to win over the rural states by not treating them as rural, know-nothing deplorable people in a basket. I might even spend some time in the ‘fly-over’ states listening to their rural plight. But the dems won’t do that. They will continue to woo the metropolitan coast cities and mid-west urban areas moving further and further left with the results in 2020 likely the same as 2016.
To make sure no royalty, kings or tyrants rose to power, the Electoral College was included in Article 2 of the Constitution. Another reason for the Electoral College is to make sure big states didn’t overpower small states when selecting a President – each state had a voice that was heard. Some even say another surreptitious motive for an Electoral College was to make it easier to count a smaller number of votes in a time when quill and ink tabulated the results.
Whatever the reasons, the Electoral College has worked well for almost 60 presidential elections, with confusion and conflict in only a few cases. In our nation’s history, only five candidates have won the majority of the national popular vote yet lost the election. They are; Andrew Jackson 1824, Samuel Tilden 1876, Grover Cleveland 1888, Al Gore 2000, and Hillary Clinton 2016.
Because two of those losses happened in the last 20 years, and both losers were Democratic Party members, there are some sour feelings when it comes to the Electoral College process. There are many on the left who would love to get rid of the electoral process. Doing this would ensure Democratic Presidents forever by allowing the east and west coast urban areas to decide the outcome for the whole nation. Luckily, ending the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment – or would it?
There is a movement growing in blue states which started in 2006 known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This is an agreement among a group of twelve U.S. states to award all of their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote – no matter how the people of their state voted.
Currently, there are twelve states joined in this compact which represent 172 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a President, and yes New York is one. Our state, with 29 electoral votes, joined the compact in April of 2014. The most recent state to join the Popular Vote club is Colorado with nine electoral votes. This was one of Colorado’s first legislative votes of 2019.
If enough blue states join the compact they could wind up deciding future presidential elections, and right now they are only 98 votes away. As the left inches closer to 270 compact votes there will certainly be a legal challenge of some sort alleging this is a conspiracy of the states trying to circumvent our Constitution.
The people who want to tinker with our elections should remember our country is made up of 50 individual states which are united by our Constitution. The people of each state vote and each separate state’s electors then vote for President. We in upstate New York are used to having our voting voice shouted down by New York City, yet we still go out and vote our conscience. The people voting in ‘swing states’ know when they cast a presidential ballot it could potentially make a difference in the outcome of a national race.
The imaginary state lines drawn on maps serve an important and distinctive purpose. For example, in 2016 if two counties on the border of Illinois had artificially been in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton would have won Wisconsin. Then, if two counties on the border of Florida had somehow been gerrymandered into Alabama, Clinton would have won Florida, thus becoming Madam President. That example of a hypothetical presidential election would have happened without a single person’s vote being changed. That’s why separate states and their electoral votes matter.
We know there will be a large field of Democrats in the presidential race for 2020. Who will be the ultimate candidate to challenge President Trump is anyone’s guess. There are many Democrats who don’t even care who their candidate is; they are only concerned about getting to the magic number of 270 electoral votes and using Electoral College chicanery is one way to get there.
Instead of fiddling around with 230 years of the Electoral College, if I were a Democrat I’d change my strategy to win over the rural states by not treating them as rural, know-nothing deplorable people in a basket. I might even spend some time in the ‘fly-over’ states listening to their rural plight. But the dems won’t do that. They will continue to woo the metropolitan coast cities and mid-west urban areas moving further and further left with the results in 2020 likely the same as 2016.
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