A legislation seeking to rid the United States of its electoral college has been introduced by a California senator. A system that permitted Donald Trump to win the presidency despite Hillary Clinton’s lead of almost one million votes.
Its aim comes in the midst of calls for change taking after last Tuesday’s presidential upset yet is a long-shot.
Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer said, “This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency.”
The US Constitution indicates that the electoral college ultimately and primarily decides the presidential election, not the popular vote.
Depending on the size of the state’s population wherein a number of electors are given in every US state.
In 48 of 50 states, rules require all of a state’s electors to cast their votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote there, in a winner-take-all system.
Under these rules, the winner of the electoral college vote does not always correspond to the candidate who won the country’s popular vote.
Boxer said. “The electoral college is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts.”
Although Clinton received nearly 800,000 more votes than Trump, according to the latest partial results, she lost in the electoral college.
The electoral vote is at 290 for Trump and 232 for Clinton, although one state has yet to be called. No matter its turnout, they do not have enough electors to bring Clinton a win.
More than 4.3 million people have signed a petition on the change.org website asking the college’s 538 electors to elect Clinton on December 19 when their votes will be officially counted.
But because 26 states legally mandate that electors vote according to the rules and it is almost unprecedented for the remaining states’ electors to disobey, there is little possibility of a Clinton presidency.
Clinton’s popular vote performance brings to mind the 2000 election when Democrat Al Gore lost the White House despite taking 48.4 percent of the popular vote to George W. Bush’s 47.9 percent.
In 2012, Trump himself had strongly criticized the electoral college “calling it a “disaster.”, however, he changed his tune on Tuesday.
“The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!” Trump tweeted.
Over a decade, hundreds of Constitutional amendments have been proposed concerning the electoral college as it needs two-thirds or 66% of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states in amending the Constitution, but none has succeeded. -JCE.
