We Need to Kill the Electoral College - The Nation

[JayhawkSD]

1. Sure, let's keep the election simple.

Just hold the election in California, where Clinton won by more than 3 million votes. Then we can eliminate counting all those troublesome votes in 49 other states, where Clinton lost by 1.41 million votes.

The electoral college may or may not be the best way to elect a president, but arguing its merits based on one single election, or even two out of many is meritless.

The system was not designed for slavery, it was designed to protect the interest of states with smaller populations, such as Wyoming and North Dakota, which have nothing to do with slavery and never have. It is designed to make electing a president consistent with the way we pass laws in the legislature, because this nation is a federation of states and is governed by a consensus of state voices.

Sometimes that consensus is not the same as the popular majority, but that is irrelevant, because that popular majority is not how we have ever been governed. It is not how we pass laws, and it should not be how we elect presidents.