What do YOU know about the Electoral College?
The lack of knowledge about the Electoral College (EC) only shows how (deliberately?) terrible our schools are today about teaching government and civics.
Since the Constitution was ratified and George Washington first assumed the title of President, we have had 58 presidential elections and elected a total of 44 men to the Presidency (Grant had two non-consecutive terms and is counted twice). Only four of those elections, John Quincy Adams, (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888), George W. Bush (2000) and Donald Trump (2016) had the president lost the popular vote but won the EC. That means there’s a 93% chance historically that the popular vote and the EC go the same way.
A federal government is a government that binds together a group of independent, sovereign states to a common purpose and vision. The European Union is a federal government. That’s why we call the collective group of idiots in Washington D.C. the federal government and the country as a whole the United States. The EC was also, like many other parts of the Constitution, a compromise between the interests of the states and the people.
Since the federal government governs the states, why wouldn’t it be that the people of each state choose as a group who they are voting for the President and Vice President, then the states cast ballots according to desires of their people?
If I told you that nine states hold a majority of the population, would you believe me? They are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina total about 168 million, or 52.4% of the population. Under the EC, these states only have 240 votes, short of the 270 votes that are needed.
If the President was selected by national popular election, a candidate would spend easily 70-80% of their campaigning time in those 9 states, with the other 20% going to the next 5-6 most populous states just in case the big cities of the “top 9” states are too deep in the pocket of their opponent. The remaining 35 states would be ignored entirely, or only visited by 3rd rate party officials. This was how Hillary ran her 2016 presidential run and why she won the popular vote but lost in the EC. She visited only the deep blue enclaves and ignored dozens of states.
Is that really how you want presidential elections to go down?
Under the current EC system, California has 55 electoral votes, but that can be beat by winning Texas and Ohio, or Arizona, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Washington State.
It is better for the country as a whole if we treat a presidential race as 50 independent races rather than one big race. The interests of each region are better heard and represented, plus more people get to see the candidates up close and personal.