Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 15, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor,
In Guyana, the Caribbean, and every country of the world, Hillary Clinton would be elected President having won 60,274,974 votes to Donald Trump’s 59,937,338. Why? What happened? An understanding of the U.S.A. Electoral College system provides the answer to this seeming anomaly. In the Electoral College vote Donald Trump won 290 to Hillary Clinton’s 228. Why such a disparity? The constitutionally guaranteed system of electors has now taken its toll on Hillary Clinton who has joined the ranks of four past national election contests, most recently, Al Gore in 2000 who lost to George W. Bush.
This system provides for a second tier of voting to confirm the President and Vice President by electors (apportioned to the parties at the state level based on the population of each state and Washington DC). It takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Its origin can be located in the writings of the framers of the Constitution (James Madison, John Adams, et al) who did not trust the “uneducated masses” to have direct political power but were in favour of reserved powers to individual states and the people. The protection of the Presidency, Vice Presidency, and Senate was a primary obsession of those leaders who were the elite or propertied and privileged class in society.
From these origins to contemporary times, voting rights expanded to include every group and provide greater opportunities for their participation in the process through constitutional amendments and the enactment of other laws. In summary, the masses of people who voted on November 8, 2016 did not vote to elect the President directly; they granted their voting rights to states on a party basis to select electors who on December 19th will vote to elect the President. As Donald Trump is assigned 290 electors to Hillary’s 228, he is expected to be elected President by the Electoral College and thereafter inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The 2016 United States elections is an irony of fate where the anticipated outcome contrasts with the end results and where the President-elect Donald Trump had long been setting the stage to enter politics. He was even preparing to fault the system if he had lost, going far back to President Obama’s second term victory November of 2012.
As the 2012 election results were posted, Donald Trump had then tweeted, “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington to stop this travesty…our nation is totally divided…let’s fight like hell to stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us. The election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!” He continued. “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” In the Elections of 2016, it is ironic that Trump’s presidency is assured by the very Electoral College system enshrined in Article2 section 2 of the US Constitution and the procedures for the electors to meet and vote for the President in December 2016, is established by Amendment XII of the Constitution and ratified on June 15, 1804.
After the third debate, Trump was adamant that he would accept the elections results if he wins. In another irony of Trump’s 2012 call to march on Washington, the protests in major cities are spreading and many argue that he did not win the popular vote and, therefore, does not have the popular mandate of the people to govern. It would seem that the greatest challenge to his Presidency would be uniting so many alienated groups after a heavily divisive campaign. We can be reasonably assured that while the challenges of governance will be hinged on the question of unity and inclusiveness, the old conversation on abolishing the Electoral College will be revived since the last resolution was killed by the 91st. Congress (1967 – 1971) in the Senate.
Candidate Trump had persistently argued that the system of elections is rigged against him when speaking of the Electoral College, media, big corporate sources of campaign financing, and voter fraud. However, on the other side of the Democrats campaign, the impact of the WikiLeaks e-mail dumping and the presumably apolitical Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) interjection did not go un-noticed. One may question that if the system is indeed rigged whose interest would it serve.
As the protests intensify, the national conversation on the Electoral College, its vestiges, and abolition will be forced on the agenda in political and academic circles. People will demand that their votes count directly to elect the President and Vice President as the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did for the direct election of Senators in 1913. The foundations of American Democracy will be tested and alternatives such as proportional representation and real campaign finance reform proposed, to give people real choices and make a significant difference to them.
Max Wallerson
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