In our presidential elections, we don’t just rely on the popular vote. We have the Electoral College which ends up selecting the president. Last week, we witnessed a flaw in this system. The Electoral College was designed to prevent an unfit leader from ascending to the presidency.
President-elect Donald Trump won the Electoral College, even though he is completely unfit to lead, and his rival, Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote.
NEW: @SenatorBoxer introduces bill to abolish Electoral College, calling it an "outdated, undemocratic system" pic.twitter.com/amXLNygocm
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 15, 2016
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has introduced a possible Constitutional Amendment to get rid of the Electoral College. It’s hard to tell if it will pass, but it’s worth a try. A lot of people are mad that Trump won instead of Clinton.
The Electoral College, part of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, was ratified in in 1804. It says:
“The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President…”
Boxer gave a statement in which she pointed out that Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote by 2 million votes.
She also said:
“This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts.”
To be successful, this amendment must pass Congress and be ratified by 3/4 of the states.
It will be very hard to get this bill through a Republican-run Congress during a “lame duck” session.
Donald Trump was, of course, praising the Electoral College after he was previously against it.
He’s trying to rewrite history because he certainly did not win “easily,” but tweeted that:
If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2016
After the 2012 election, Trump came out against the Electoral College because Obama won the presidency.
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
The Senator also said:
“Why should a vote in California, Washington state or New York state or Connecticut be worth less than a vote in one of the red states? It just doesn’t make sense, it should be one person, one vote.”
We would love to see Hillary Clinton win the presidency. Unfortunately, the Republicans may not be interested in this bill.
Here is a news clip about Boxer’s bill:
Featured image by Neon Tommy via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
