“HOLY COW!” One can only imagine how excited legendary Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray would have been after those perennial losers clinched the World Series title on the evening of November 2nd.  After all, it had been ONE HUNDRED EIGHT years.  Quite a streak.

Yet there was a longer streak which was broken in the 21st Century.  On another November night 16 years earlier, George W. Bush became the first successful presidential candidate to lose the popular vote to his opponent in ONE HUNDRED TWELVE years.  (In 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the electoral vote while losing the popular vote to Grover Cleveland by 90,000 votes.)  And just as the Cubbies are favored to win the baseball championship again in the near future, it did not take another century for this to happen again. It now appears Hillary Clinton will have won the 2016 popular vote by as many as two million votes or 1.5 percent of the total ballots cast.

As a result the electoral college has come under attack, particularly among Democrats as their candidate has been on the losing side in 2000 and 2016.  They are not alone.  Before he realized he would be the beneficiary of what appears to be unfair in light of Supreme Court decisions (e.g. Baker v. Carr, 1962) which affirm the principle of “one man, one vote,” president-elect Donald Trump tweeted following the 2012 election, “The electoral college is a disaster for democracy.”

I believe both sides are wrong.  And here is why this year’s outcome is the perfect example why the electoral college makes sense.  Forget the fringe supporters for both candidates. As the county by county returns clearly demonstrate, this election was about rural and exurban voters saying, “We don’t care if a majority of Americans live in metropolitan areas of one million or more residents.  We still matter.”  Although, they were often characterized as “angry,” perhaps better adjectives might be “frustrated” or “unappreciated.”

The media wondered how this would play out post-election if their candidate lost.  Would they accept the outcome?  Would they be marching in the streets?  Would they take up arms?  [NOTE: With the exception of taking up arms, many on the losing end of this election have not accepted the outcome and have taken to the streets.  A perfect example of Miles law, “Where you stand, depends on where you sit.”]  To say this election was volatile is an understatement.

So what does this have to do with the electoral college?  At last count, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the State of California by 2.49 MILLION votes, almost a half million votes more than the margin in the national vote.  Just imagine the level of frustration among Trump supporters if one very urban state had marginalized the preferences of 31 other states.  How wise were the founding fathers to see this coming?  But California did not exist in 1789, when delegates to the Constitution convention came up with this concept.  True, but Virginia was the California of their time.  And they realized the dominance of one state threatened the stability of the union.

This is not to say the electoral college process does not have it flaws which need to be addressed.  This first requires differentiating electoral votes from electors.  Two Washington State electors (die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters who were included on the slate of Democratic electors) vowed not to vote for Hillary Clinton when the college convened.  Talk about a violation of “one man, one vote.”  I do not know if this would require a constitutional amendment, but it is time we simplify the system.  I would suggest the authorized chief of elections (often the Secretary of State) merely certify the state totals and announce the recipients of each state’s electoral votes.  Eliminate any possible rogue human factor.

Second, two states (Maine and Nebraska) have chosen to allocate their electoral votes by congressional district.  We have already seen the impact of gerrymandering on Congressional elections.  Here are two examples.  In 2012 in Michigan, the cumulative vote in 14 contests for the House of Representatives was 2.08 million for Republican candidates and 2.33 million for Democrats.  Yet the Michigan delegation consists of NINE Republicans and FIVE Democrats.  The same was true in North Carolina.  In spite of a cumulative margin of plus 80,000 votes for Democratic House candidates, the congressional delegation includes NINE Republicans and FOUR Democrats.  Basing Congressional elections on arbitrary boundaries which change every ten years based on the whims of state legislators or reapportionment commissions is bad enough.  To rely on such a system for electing national offices would be a travesty.

There is no need to throw our the baby with the bath water.  All we need to do is adjust the temperature.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP