The Electoral College

I bumped into an old friend the other day.  His politics are decidedly to the left of mine, so I was not surprised to hear him advocate for the dissolution of the Electoral College during our protracted discussion.  Funny how a few cocktails can engender such wet dreams.  

He said it was an old, outmoded and unnecessary body.  He said its role in tipping the Election toward Trump proved that it could no longer be trusted to carry out the wishes of the American Electorate.  He said just the NY vote alone proved how much more popular Clinton was than Trump.  He said, in summation, we should simply bow to the wishes of the 3+ Million more voters Clinton received than did The Donald, overturn the Election and seat Hillary.  

Oh yeah, he also thought that ICE should be shut down.  Sad case, this one.

I spent the next few minutes explaining to my friend why he should perhaps reorder this thinking on this matter (actually, why he was dead wrong).  First, I explained, there are 3,141counties in the United States.  Trump won 3,084 of them.  Clinton won 57.

I went on the tell him there are 62 counties in New York State.  Trump won 46 of them.  Clinton won 16.

Clinton won the popular vote by approximately 1.5 million votes in the 5 counties that encompass NYC (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond and Queens).  Clinton received well over 2 Million more votes in NY than did Trump (Clinton only won 4 of these counties, Trump won Richmond).  Therefore, these 5 counties alone more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote of the entire Country.  

These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles.  The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.  

When you have a Country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those that encompass a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a National Election.  

I told him that I wouldn't even bother to dissect the California vote, as the New York example more than made my case.  But, for the record, Clinton received roughly 2 out of every 3 votes in CA, accounting for about a 2+ Million vote advantage.  Thus, Clinton received about 3 and 1/2 million more votes in total, but received them from only a tiny fraction of the Country.  But that "tiny fraction" contains the majority of our population.

The Bottom Line, I told him, was that America is not, was not, and shall not ever be a "democracy."  It is rather a "representative republic," whereby we elect those who represent and vote our interests in that "Federal City" called Washington, D.C.  

Then I added that just a cursory look at the mess called California can tell you what happens when the inmates take charge of the asylum, and that our current system sands the rough edges off of that potential train wreck if overlaid on the entire Country.  

As the woman asked Benjamin Franklin when he left Independence Hall that fateful day in July, 1776, "What have you given us, sir?"  "A republic...," he answered, "if you can keep it."

So, I summed up with this:  "Would you like a situation where candidates for national office would only have to visit, spend, campaign, run ads and shake hands in CA, TX, NY, IL and FL in order to control a majority of the Electoral College votes?  Which of course would leave the smaller states with no representation and no voice in national matters at all?"

He answered, "No."  How would you answer?