The Electoral College: We're stuck with it for now.
There are still things we can and must do to win in 2024.
The 2024 Electoral College Count
Issue #560 The Choice Monday, April 8, 2024
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.”
Many people do not realize that presently, there is no national election for president and vice president, but the elections for each are run by the individual States. The election of the president and vice president are held separately, and it wasn’t until around the turn of the 20th century that the president and vice president technically ran as a “team” on the same ticket. The Constitution only requires that the candidates for president and vice president come from different states.
The Electoral College is made up of electors from each state who cast their votes for the President and Vice President based on the popular vote winner in their respective states. Only Maine and Nebraska choose their electors in a split allocation, and recently Trump tried to make Nebraska change its policy to “winner-take-all,” in an attempt to eliminate the one electoral college vote from “blue” Omaha that would go to Joe Biden. The initiative failed massively in the unicameral legislature.
Because the winner of the presidential and vice presidential elections depends solely on one party reaching a minimum of 270 electoral college votes, the candidates focus on that almost exclusively, and smaller, non-battleground states are virtually ignored during the general election campaign season.
When Trump sent his supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, his goal was to stop the Constitutionally mandated count of the Electoral College votes, hoping to then send the election to the House of Representatives, which was controlled by Republicans who Trump hoped would give the election to him, regardless of the will of the people.
The Electoral College vote count of each state is completed by December 14 after the November election, and then the slate of each state’s electors is sealed and sent to Congress to await the official count on January 6. Several states tried to send “alternate” slates that illegally claimed that Trump had won their state. Those alternate slates were not entered as legal.
The only job of the Vice President on January 6 is to count the official votes in his/her role as president of the Senate. The Vice President cannot change the official elector counts submitted on December 14.
On January 6, 2001, then-Vice President Al Gore, who won the 2000 popular vote but lost the Electoral College count because of the mess in Florida, nevertheless had to do his duty as president of the Senate and count the votes of his heartbreaking loss to George W. Bush.
Luckily, during the insurrection attempt on January 6, 2021, as the members of Congress, including Vice President Mike Pence, were running for their lives, two Congressional aides had the presence of mind to grab the box that contained the official slates and counts and take it with them as they fled, or that box might have fallen into the hands of the insurrectionists, which was exactly what Trump wanted.
Because the District of Columbia is not a state, the only one who could have called in the D.C. National Guard to help the Capitol Police was Trump, and he refused to do so. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had to call the governors of Maryland and Virginia and beg them to send their states’ National Guard Units to the Capitol, which they did.
Finally, at 1 am on January 7, Mike Pence was able to call Congress back into session and the Electoral Count was completed, state-by-state and separately for Joe Biden for president and Kamala Harris for vice president a couple of hours later.
The insurrection failed, that time. We can certainly expect that Trump won't accept his loss again in 2024, and will try to overturn the results of the election again, as he is already saying that Joe Biden is an "illegitimate" president and if he (Trump) doesn't win, the election was stolen (again), regardless of the will of the people.
Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system. However, one potential solution that has gained traction in recent years is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would require states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would effectively eliminate the Electoral College without the need for a constitutional amendment.
The National Popular Vote law would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes (270 of 538). Then, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get all the electoral votes from all of the enacting states. That is, the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide will be guaranteed enough electoral votes to become President.
Unfortunately, since the Republicans know that they haven’t won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 elections, and since they hold the majority of state legislations at this time, they would not vote to eliminate the Electoral College. Both George W. Bush (2000) and Donald J. Trump (2016) became president only through the Electoral College even though they lost the popular vote.
Another possible solution is to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College altogether. This would require a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ratification by three-fourths of the states. While this may be a more difficult and lengthy process, it would ultimately result in a more democratic system of electing the President.
Either way, the problems of the Electoral College will not be solved in time for the November 2024 election.
In the meantime, other steps can be taken to improve the Electoral College system. One suggestion is to allocate electoral votes proportionally based on the popular vote in each state, rather than the winner-takes-all approach currently in place in most states. This would more accurately reflect the will of the people and ensure that every vote counts.
Additionally, increasing voter turnout and engagement can also help to address issues with the Electoral College. By encouraging more citizens to participate in the electoral process, we can ensure that the system is more representative of the population as a whole.
Just last week, the NY chair of the RFK, Jr. campaign said their true mission out loud, that RFK Jr.’s goal is to rob Joe Biden of enough Electoral College votes to keep him below 270 and throw the election to the States.
Even though some people have real problems with some of Joe Biden’s policies, especially about Gaza, we must vote in large enough numbers to give him an Electoral College advantage so big that it cannot successfully be challenged by Trump. Winning all seven “battleground” states (AZ, GA, MI. NC, PA, & WS) would be ideal, but if Biden wins MI, PA, and WI, there will be no path to 270 for Trump.
Not voting at all, voting “uncommitted,” or voting 3rd party (RFK, Jr.) gives the election to Trump, who not only wants Gaza eliminated or Ukraine turned over to Russia, but would also end all of the rights we have now that the Republicans haven’t already tried to eliminate.
We must VOTE BLUE all up and down the ballot in every state. Period.
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