I have mentioned and discussed the reasons we have an Electoral College. And for purposes of full disclosure, at one time, I wrote a paper in college calling for what I felt at the time was an antiquated, eighteenth-century system to control the vote because “the people did not understand” how to vote.
But of course, I was wrong. The Framers understood what they were doing. They created a representative government, with each State allotted one Representative for every 30,000 people, with each State assigned at least one, and two Senators. Of course, as the population grew in each State, so did the number of Representatives to the State’s population, based on the census
In turn, the Electoral College was created by adding two Senators to the total of a State’s Representatives. Therefore, for example, Wyoming has three and Florida has thirty.
And since there are 435 Members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators, there are 535 total persons eligible in the Electoral College.
And with the ratification of the twenty-third amendment in 1961, the District of Columbia was awarded three, as if it were a State.
Therefore, it takes 270 Electoral votes (50% + 1) to elect the President, ((535+3)÷2)+1.
Now that I have provided a "readers digest" version of the purpose and the process, let’s discuss what happened this week.
Tim Walz said that the College should be eliminated. This is the same talking point we heard in 2000 and 2016, because the Democrat candidate won the popular vote.
But, we are a Representative Republic, not a Democracy. Each State has a weighted vote, just like our Congress. If we used only the popular vote, New York, California and Illinois would be the deciding factors, as they have our largest cities.
So when Michael Strahan of GMA confronted Tampon Tim, of couse, he tried to walk it back. Poorly. And when the Harris-Walz campaign tried to help, they failed.
Apparently, the great former defensuve end knows more about our government than seasoned politicians.
No comments:
Post a Comment