Courtesy of Slate:
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote over President-elect Donald Trump keeps growing and currently stands at 1.677 million votes. On Election Day, Clinton received 63,541,056 votes compared to Trump’s 61,864,015 while other candidates received 7,034,595 votes, according to the latest numbers published by the Cook Political Report. So far the numbers show Clinton obtained 48 percent of the popular vote, compared to Trump’s 46.7 percent.
The numbers mean that Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is, so far at least, much greater than Al Gore’s advantage when he won the most number of votes but still did not become president. In 2000, Gore received 50,996,582 votes compared to 50,456,062 for George W. Bush—an advantage of 540,520 votes.
This of course is unprecedented and it frustrates the crap out of a whole lot of us who think the electoral college is now interfering with our democracy.
However I really believe that petitions like this one encouraging members of the Electoral College to become "faithless electors" and vote their conscience instead of representing the outcome in their state are a waste of time, and very short sighted.
Remember something that seems like a good idea while partisan passions are high, might come back and bite us in the ass when the shoe is on the other foot.
Should we ultimately do away with the electoral college, as Senator Barbara Boxer is proposing?
Sure I think that it is well past time to do so.
Will it happen?
Nope, not while the Republicans are in charge of the House and the Senate.
But someday, yes I think we need to bring back the concept of one person one vote.
As it stands right now we appear to be the least democratic member of the democratic nations of the world.
And for America that is a very troubling position indeed.
Source http://ift.tt/2eZbowp
Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote over President-elect Donald Trump keeps growing and currently stands at 1.677 million votes. On Election Day, Clinton received 63,541,056 votes compared to Trump’s 61,864,015 while other candidates received 7,034,595 votes, according to the latest numbers published by the Cook Political Report. So far the numbers show Clinton obtained 48 percent of the popular vote, compared to Trump’s 46.7 percent.
The numbers mean that Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is, so far at least, much greater than Al Gore’s advantage when he won the most number of votes but still did not become president. In 2000, Gore received 50,996,582 votes compared to 50,456,062 for George W. Bush—an advantage of 540,520 votes.
This of course is unprecedented and it frustrates the crap out of a whole lot of us who think the electoral college is now interfering with our democracy.
However I really believe that petitions like this one encouraging members of the Electoral College to become "faithless electors" and vote their conscience instead of representing the outcome in their state are a waste of time, and very short sighted.
Remember something that seems like a good idea while partisan passions are high, might come back and bite us in the ass when the shoe is on the other foot.
Should we ultimately do away with the electoral college, as Senator Barbara Boxer is proposing?
Sure I think that it is well past time to do so.
Will it happen?
Nope, not while the Republicans are in charge of the House and the Senate.
But someday, yes I think we need to bring back the concept of one person one vote.
As it stands right now we appear to be the least democratic member of the democratic nations of the world.
And for America that is a very troubling position indeed.
Source http://ift.tt/2eZbowp