This is the time of year when voters start worrying about the Electoral College.
In two of the six previous presidential elections in this century, the candidate who received the most votes did not win. In 2000, Al Gore got half a million more votes than George W. Bush and in 2016 Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. Yet because of where those votes came from, there was never a President Gore or a second President Clinton.
It was nearly much worse in 2020. Even though Joe Biden got more than 7 million more votes than Trump, a shift of about 100,000 of those votes would have changed the result of the election.
This year is looking like a repeat of 2020 in one respect. The election appears to be coming down to so-called swing states, with most of both candidates’ efforts going into Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. If you live in California, don’t expect much attention even though about one-eighth of the country’s population lives there.
Ditto for Texas, New York and Florida.
But if you live in Pennsylvania, particularly this year, candidates are coming in and out of the state so often you might think it was the New Hampshire primary.
One of the arguments used in supporting the Electoral College is somewhat specious. The supporters argue that if it weren’t for electoral votes, candidates would never show up in the small states. Well, look at the smallest states and ask yourself when either Trump or Kamala Harris was there.
Wyoming, Alaska, Delaware …
The fact is, there are two chances to abolish the Electoral College — slim and none. Small states won’t give away what they see as power they have.
There is actually something far worse, far less democratic in the process than the Electoral College.
Thankfully, the last time it happened was 200 years ago.
If neither candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College, the election is determined in the House of Representatives. That’s bad enough, but what makes it worse is that each state gets one vote. That means that Wyoming and Alaska, for example, would get two votes to California’s one despite combining for 3 percent of the population of California.
In fact, more people live in California than in the 20 least populous states. So if the House is ever asked to elect a president, 26 states with a combined population of less than 65 million people could do it. That’s not 65 million voters, it’s a little less than 20 percent of the population of the entire country.
The whole idea behind this was that the Founders, in a coastal country of 3 million people, did not want voters to elect the president.
So much for original intent.