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Yale Lecturer Todd Cort wants to discard the electoral college system, because it gives rural voters the voting power to challenge the dominance of the coastal elites. But in my opinion, Todd’s focus on minutiae of the electoral system misses the big picture.
The electoral college is thwarting our ability to battle global warming
Who (you might ask) is David Brearley?
Brearley plays a critical, and entirely accidental, role in climate change because of his position as the chair of the Committee on Postponed Parts within the Constitutional Convention of 1787. While drafting the U.S. Constitution, the convention left several “sticky questions” to Brearley’s Committee, such as the manner by which U.S. presidents would be elected. Brearley and the Committee were stuck between two difficult choices: election by the U.S. Congress or election by the voting public. The committee opted for a middle ground solution – an electoral college that would vote on behalf of the citizens, but which would be populated based on the number of congressional seats assigned to each State in the Union.
It is this solution, brilliant at the time, that leads us to Brearley’s legacy on climate change. Because over the course of the last 200 plus years, the electoral college, which provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states, has elected four U.S. presidents who clearly lost the popular vote (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016). Two of those elections have occurred during the period in which we have known about the causes and impacts of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change and in both cases, the impacts of those elections have very likely had profound impacts on our actions to address the challenge.
…
The Obama administration did not solve climate change, but it did make significant strides both domestically and in international agreements. Obama signed the Paris Climate Accord of 2015 and his EPA finalized the Clean Power Plan in the United States. Perhaps more significantly, President Obama opened the doors of politics to embrace what is a known fact in the scientific community, thereby allowing climate change to be mainstreamed for a wider swath of the country.
Which brings us to November, 2016. Once again, the electoral college system has elected a U.S. president in opposition to the popular vote in the form of Donald Trump. Hindsight in four years will tell us of the legacy of the Trump administration on climate change, but, despite a recent pledge to keep an “open mind” on the subject, the statements and commitments from the administration to date provide strong reasons for anticipating which way he’ll go.
Did the electoral college system deliver an unfair victory to Trump? The following is President-elect Donald Trump’s response to this suggestion;
If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2016
Both candidates knew the rules. Nobody would have given Trump any quarter if he won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college. Trump campaigned to win, under the rules of the system as it stood. Hillary made plenty of mistakes – she reportedly derided her husband Bill Clinton, when he warned her she needed to spend more time chasing rural voters, rural voters who ultimately swung their support behind Donald Trump.
The Electoral College is working just fine. Had Trump been more Putinesque, more Electors might have gone rogue. He is not quite that Putinesque.
So since 4 EC electors for Hillary went rogue (as opposed to 2 for Trump), I guess that means Hillary is more Putinsque than Trump.
http://www.davidsahlstrom.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/NewYorkFlooding.png
h/t to Tony Heller
Now that’s a keeper! In a perfect world James Hansen would be in jail by now or least an insane asylum. SLR was faster there in the 1950’s than it is now – https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.htm?stnid=8518750
If Bill Clinton had lost in 1992 Hillary would never have become a US senator for NY and nobody would have ever known her name outside of Arkansas. So the very chance that Hillary Clinton got to run for president was obtained when the electoral college elected her husband president in 1992 … with an even SMALLER “popular mandate” than Donald Trump received BTW.
Los Angeles county and NYC are where Hillary got enough votes to surpass Donald in the popular vote so let’s just cut off off all the electricity and other forms of energy those people get from coal, crude and natural gas, let them go back in time to experience “green” city life the way it was ~120 years ago. How can they complain?
And, of course, it’s nice to remind some that in both of Bill’s wins most of the voters wanted somebody else.
I haven’t been able to read all the comments. But I have read some and some of the things in the press in defense (and condemnation) of it.
The emphasis seems to along the lines “rural vs urban” controlling the election the the President.
It wasn’t that so much.
When the Constitution was written we weren’t quite yet a nation. We were a collection of separate States (just a few years before, Colonies) that agreed to form a central government that would give the individuals in this new nation an equal voice AND all the former Colonies an equal voice. (People identified as being a “Virginian” or a “New Yorker” rather than an “American”.)
The Senate was to give equal power to the States with the method of selecting the Senators that would represent the State’s government being left up to the State. (Sadly, that has been changed giving State Governments no say.)
The House of Representatives was to give the individuals their equal voice.
The Electoral College was an attempt, and a masterful one, to blend both goals.
I wonder if the “rural vs urban” meme dominates so as not to remind people of the original intent of the Senate? And so not have to squelch any attempt to go back to it?
Here’s a better visualization of how Hillary’s popularity was EXTREMELY concentrated in urban areas – http://www.vividmaps.com/2016/12/trumpland-and-clinton-archipelago.html
😎
Those who produce vs those consume….for free.
The best presidential election reform would be to chose electors by congressional district. This would even further reduce the effect of fraud in, say, Chicago.
Maine and Nebraska assign electors by CD. So should every other state, with the statewide winner getting the two state votes. If this reform were in place, Trump would campaign in the Central Valley of CA, devastated by Progressive lunacy, as well as in the Rust Belt.
The Framers imagined voters picking electors whom they knew, trusted and respected to pick the best presidential candidate, but the rise of the party system meant that the electors became faceless hacks and ciphers.
I would likie to thank many of the contributors above for presenting a perspective of your recent election that simply does not appear in any of the UK press, much of which is parrotting the “Hillary won the popular vote” meme as if some great injustice has been perpetrated.
You’re welcome.
A comparison to what I said here that might make more sense to you.
Before Brexit, would a UK citizen consider themselves a citizen of the European Union or of the UK?
“The United States of America” was a phrase to to give a name my country that was to mean exactly what it says.
If I recall, I had to buy an EU passport when my British passport expired…and I don’t recall being asked if I wanted to do that. Unelected MEP’s at work for us.
Peter Plail
When UK media reports Hillary won the popular vote, do they bother reporting she only won 48.2% of the popular vote?
TYPO!
“to to give a name my country ”
Should have been:
“to give a name TO my country”
After reading the OP and the comments section
It’s clear that everyone was nodding off during CIVICS class or never had one ..
Per Mr. Todd Cort in the OP
“Which brings us to November, 2016.
Once again, the electoral college system has elected a U.S. president
in opposition to the popular vote in the form of Donald Trump”
Wrong and completely irrelevant ..
We do NOT hold a NATIONAL election for President in this country
Therefore, the raw popular vote total is a meaningless metric and has no bearing on the outcome ..
We hold 51 simultaneous STATE elections for President
50 states plus the District of Columbia ..
All of these simultaneous elections are decided by the raw POPULAR vote total in
THEIR RESPECTIVE STATES ..Win the popular vote in any given state and you win all of that state’s
presidential electors .. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate presidential electors on a non
“winner take all” basis ..
There are 538 total electors at stake
100 electors because we have 100 Senators
438 electors because we have 438 Representatives
By Law and per the Constitution the minimum number of electors for
any state is 3 as every state has two Senators and a minimum of one Representative
Whomever attains a simple majority of electors ( +270 votes ) becomes the President Elect ..
Changing the Electoral College would require a Constitutional amendment ..
No State with fewer than 10 electors would approve one ..
There are currently 33 states with ten or fewer electors, and 29 in single digits.
James, you are correct to say that changing the EC would require a Constitutional Amendment, however since each state decides if it has a “winner take all” or a “proportional” assignment of electors, we could elect the President by popular vote if enough states switched over and followed Maine and Nebraska.
Richard,
The congressional district system is still not by popular vote. It just increases the fineness of the filter. So it could be seen as closer to a popular vote system, but smaller states would still have more votes per capita.
That would be part of “the creep” toward “mob rule” (by those that control the mob) that removing the selection of a State’s senators was a part of some decades ago.
See my comment below.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/20/claim-electoral-college-thwarting-the-ability-to-combat-climate-change/comment-page-1/#comment-2380647
Thank you for clear and concise “cut to the chase” comment.
Those who think they can control “the mob” are those that promote “mob rule”.
Perhaps that’s why “Freedom of the the Press” was mentioned in the First Amendment?
(And today why “fake news” on the internet is being attacked by those who would control “the mob”?)
PS I didn’t learn that in my civics class. 😎