Can 37 votes change history?
Assuming the projections of the vote in the three states, Arizona, Michigan and New Hampshire go as the current results indicate, Donald Trump will win the Electoral College with 306 electoral votes.
There are multiple petitions circulating online that call on the members of the Electoral College to follow the "will of the people" and elect Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump; based on the fact that she has apparently won the popular vote.
If that were to happen, all of the cries of "rigged" by Donald Trump during the campaign will come to pass in the eyes of his supporters. We can trace the history of allegations of corruption in the presidential election process back to the very first time the Electoral College failed to make the winner of the popular vote the president. That was in the year 1824. Andrew Jackson trounced John Quincy Adams in the popular vote, 41.4% to John Quincy Adams' 30.9%. But Jackson failed to gain enough electoral votes and the election went to Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives.
52 years later it was Rutherford B. Hayes who ascended to the Presidency after losing the popular vote in the election of 1876. This particular result is especially egregious as his opponent, Samuel Tilden actually won a majority of the popular vote. In the other four instances where the winner of the popular vote lost the presidency, their victory in that popular vote was a plurality, not a majority.
In 1888 it was Grover Cleveland who won a slight victory in the popular vote only to be denied a second term by Benjamin Harrison. Four years later Cleveland won his second term by winning both the popular and electoral votes over Harrison. He remains the only president to ever serve nonconsecutive terms.
We all remember what happened in 2000. Al Gore won the popular vote, George Bush won the electoral college. Ralph Nader earned the blame for Gore not becoming president with his third-party candidacy.
But even then there weren't large-scale calls for electors sworn to cast ballots in the Electoral College for the candidate they are pledged to vote for; to ignore their oaths and to cast a ballot for the other candidate.
That most of the petitions calling on the electors to do exactly that point to the claim that Donald Trump is wholly unqualified to be President, gives no additional validity to the argument that electors should ignore their oaths. It is an opinion, not a fact that Donald Trump is unqualified. It is an opinion that I happen to share.
It would take only 37 of these electors to be faithless and cast ballots for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump. 37 people can change the results of tens of millions of votes. Is that right?
There is one reason why I'm willing to consider supporting this movement. Not because I believe it is NOT a rigging of the process, that's a label that such a result will have earned. I might be willing to support such a move because it may be the impetus that our nation needs to get rid of the Electoral College once and for all. Just as the Democratic National Committee process involving the use of "super-delegates" is wrong, so is the Electoral College; because it involves a system other than the "one-person, one-vote" kind of election that represents a true democratic process.
I have not yet signed any of these petitions. I need a day or two to think this through. The part of me that believes in the Constitution is troubled by this idea. The part of me that wants to see the best qualified individual in the White House, and to see the one-person, one-vote system in place sees the need for major change.
What do you think?
There are multiple petitions circulating online that call on the members of the Electoral College to follow the "will of the people" and elect Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump; based on the fact that she has apparently won the popular vote.
If that were to happen, all of the cries of "rigged" by Donald Trump during the campaign will come to pass in the eyes of his supporters. We can trace the history of allegations of corruption in the presidential election process back to the very first time the Electoral College failed to make the winner of the popular vote the president. That was in the year 1824. Andrew Jackson trounced John Quincy Adams in the popular vote, 41.4% to John Quincy Adams' 30.9%. But Jackson failed to gain enough electoral votes and the election went to Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives.
52 years later it was Rutherford B. Hayes who ascended to the Presidency after losing the popular vote in the election of 1876. This particular result is especially egregious as his opponent, Samuel Tilden actually won a majority of the popular vote. In the other four instances where the winner of the popular vote lost the presidency, their victory in that popular vote was a plurality, not a majority.
In 1888 it was Grover Cleveland who won a slight victory in the popular vote only to be denied a second term by Benjamin Harrison. Four years later Cleveland won his second term by winning both the popular and electoral votes over Harrison. He remains the only president to ever serve nonconsecutive terms.
We all remember what happened in 2000. Al Gore won the popular vote, George Bush won the electoral college. Ralph Nader earned the blame for Gore not becoming president with his third-party candidacy.
But even then there weren't large-scale calls for electors sworn to cast ballots in the Electoral College for the candidate they are pledged to vote for; to ignore their oaths and to cast a ballot for the other candidate.
That most of the petitions calling on the electors to do exactly that point to the claim that Donald Trump is wholly unqualified to be President, gives no additional validity to the argument that electors should ignore their oaths. It is an opinion, not a fact that Donald Trump is unqualified. It is an opinion that I happen to share.
It would take only 37 of these electors to be faithless and cast ballots for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump. 37 people can change the results of tens of millions of votes. Is that right?
There is one reason why I'm willing to consider supporting this movement. Not because I believe it is NOT a rigging of the process, that's a label that such a result will have earned. I might be willing to support such a move because it may be the impetus that our nation needs to get rid of the Electoral College once and for all. Just as the Democratic National Committee process involving the use of "super-delegates" is wrong, so is the Electoral College; because it involves a system other than the "one-person, one-vote" kind of election that represents a true democratic process.
I have not yet signed any of these petitions. I need a day or two to think this through. The part of me that believes in the Constitution is troubled by this idea. The part of me that wants to see the best qualified individual in the White House, and to see the one-person, one-vote system in place sees the need for major change.
What do you think?
posted by me at 8:47 AM
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