Donald Trump was unofficially declared the winner of the
2016 presidential election early in the morning on November 9, and that victory
survived the slow vote counting in some states, and challenges of voting
irregularities. And last Monday that victory was finally verified when the
electors of the 50 states and the District of Columbia that comprise the
Electoral College gathered in their respective districts to officially cast
their votes.
The integrity of the Electoral College survived both the illegal
and legal efforts of Trump opponents to bribe, intimidate or otherwise persuade
Trump electors to not vote for him, with unexpected results: While a few
electors did not vote as they were instructed by the voters they represented,
the vast majority did as they should have done. And Trump won this contest,
too. Of the 538 electors only seven of them did not vote according to the
voting in their districts. Five of the “faithless” electors withheld their vote
from Hillary Clinton, while only two withheld their vote from Trump.
Democrats and liberals have been crazy since the election, and
now want the Electoral College to go the way of those thousands of missing
emails from Clinton’s private server, since she won the popular vote by 2.1
percent, but lost the electoral vote. However, the Electoral College did
precisely what it was designed to do; it did not “misfire,” as the Clinton camp
charges.
The opinions of scholars and other commentators uphold the
value of the Electoral College. For example, The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von
Spakovsky explains: “In creating the basic architecture of the American
government, the Founders struggled to satisfy each state’s demand for greater
representation while attempting to balance popular sovereignty against the risk
posed to the minority from majoritarian rule.”
In addition to those concerns, “as students of
ancient history, the Founders feared the destructive passions of direct
democracy, and as recent subjects of an overreaching monarch, they equally
feared the rule of an elite unresponsive to the will of the people. The
Electoral College was a compromise, neither fully democratic nor aristocratic,”
writes Jarrett Stepman, an editor for The Daily Signal.
The University of Buffalo’s James Campbell explains that had
the popular vote been the mechanism that chose the president, candidates would have
focused their campaigns on the population centers, ignoring the rest of the
country. And he further suggests that then voters probably would have behaved
differently, too. Many in the less populated areas, for example, might have
stayed home, feeling that their vote didn’t matter, effectively
disenfranchising them.
California essentially provided Clinton the 2.8 million
votes that comprised her popular vote victory. The Electoral College protected
the interests of those millions of Americans who do not live in the population
centers.
The other side of that argument is that under the Electoral
College system, candidates would limit their campaigns to the swing states,
producing a similar effect as the popular vote method does. However, swing
states change from time to time, whereas population centers do not.
Looking at the final version of the electoral map, Clinton’s
strength lay primarily in the coastal areas and a few spots in the middle,
while Trump’s support covered a tall and wide swath across the area between the
coasts. Clinton’s ballot power came primarily from New York, California and
Chicago, the population centers, while the huge area of the country that went
for Trump covers primarily small towns/cities and sparsely populated areas, the
heartland of America.
And that is the value of the Electoral College system: it
protects Americans in flyover country from the tyranny of big city dwellers, who
generally have a much different set of values and desires. And remember that
the president’s job is to act in the best interests of the entire country, not
to satisfy the desires of a voting majority or of the big cities.
What if instead of the football team that scores the most
points winning the game, the winner is the team that gained the most yards?
That is a similar situation to electing a president: The number of votes – like
the number of yards – is not necessarily the most important factor.
So don't do away with the Electoral College, as the spurned Clinton
voters want. It provides the balance of national interests the Founders
understood was necessary.
One change that makes sense is to stop having electors that must
get together in a formal ceremony to vote. Since the results are known when the
vote count is done, this step is unnecessary; it serves no useful purpose,
costs money, delays the finalizing of the voter’s decision, and provides losing
parties an opportunity for harmful mischief, as we witnessed.
And while the aggrieved are creating mischief, they are also
building false hopes, which will cause even more grief when their mischief
fails to change the results of the election, and generates bad feelings that
will endure long after the election is over.
These days some group wants to change virtually everything
about America that made it the unqualified success it has been since it was
founded.
Stop trying to change it and instead enjoy its abundant
benefits.
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