The Democrats have been squealing about getting rid of the Electoral College system ever since Hillary Clinton lost the election. Prior to her loss, they liked the Electoral System. But, since they have proved themselves incapable of accepting their loss and moving on, now they want the President to be elected by popular vote.
They have accused Trump of “stealing” the election because he lost the popular vote, while winning the Electoral vote. But when you look at the numbers, he only lost the popular vote by approximately 2 million votes out of approximately 198 million cast. In other words, Clinton only won the popular vote by about 2 percent. Not exactly a landslide!
On the face of it, it would seem that the popular vote would be the fair way to do it. However, it’s not quite that simple. If elections were based strictly on the popular vote, then the eight or nine most heavily-populated states would control every election. Of the top 10 most heavily-populated states, except Texas, all the other nine states are traditionally Democrat states.
Think about it. Do you want California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina to control all the Presidential elections?
If the popular vote was used, the candidates would only campaign in the top 10 most populated states. States like North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Vermont, Alaska, and Rhode Island would never see the candidates. Why would the candidates campaign in those states, when they would have very negligible effects on the elections?
That is the strongest argument for keeping the Electoral College System. But, I think some changes should be made in the Electoral College System. For instance, I think every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Right now, the more heavily populated states have more electoral votes, so in effect, they still control most elections. This is not fair to the less populated states.
My solution would be for each state, and the District of Columbia, to have 10 electoral votes. That way each state would have an equal say in who gets elected to office. In each state, a candidate who did not get at least 10 percent of the popular vote would not get any electoral votes, as they would obviously not be a viable candidate. The candidate who got 10 percent of the popular vote would receive 1 electoral vote. If he got 10.1 percent to 20 percent, he would get 2 electoral votes. 20.1 percent to 30 percent, he would get 3 electoral votes, and so on. Also, electoral voters would be required by law to vote for the candidate who receives the votes. As it stands right now, even if one candidate gets a state’s electoral votes, the electoral voters can vote for another candidate if they want to. That hasn’t happened very often, but it’s possible.
This system would create a total of 510 electoral votes rather than the 539 we have now. Only 256 electoral votes would be required to win the election, rather than 270. In the rare case of a 255 to 255 tie, then it would be decided by which candidate received the most popular votes. This would probably never happen. If no candidate received 256 electoral votes, then the top Republican and Democratic candidates would have a runoff election. I say Republican and Democrat candidates, because third party candidates have never garnered more than about 10 percent of the vote in any election.
In my opinion, this would be a better system than what we have now.
