12-25-2016, 11:16 AM
As a child, I remember when the electoral college was explained to us in school in the sixth grade. I think every single student said, in spite of the good intentions of our founders, that all votes should be counted equally and the winner of the popular vote should win the election. Nearly 40 years later I still feel the same way.
But if the EC is somehow supposed to be about proportionality, then OK, lets award electoral votes within states proportionally. If a candidate wins a state 51-49 percent, then split the electoral votes the same way - you don't even need electors - just say 51% of the state's electoral vote value goes to the winner, 49% of the state's electoral vote value goes to the loser. It would be interesting to see what the result would be if we did that in this (or previous) election(s). Perhaps Trump would still win, but I wonder since he had small victory margins in some modestly valued states while Clinton had bigger margins in highly valued states. But, big enough for her in a non-winner take all scenario like this? Maybe not.
But if the EC is somehow supposed to be about proportionality, then OK, lets award electoral votes within states proportionally. If a candidate wins a state 51-49 percent, then split the electoral votes the same way - you don't even need electors - just say 51% of the state's electoral vote value goes to the winner, 49% of the state's electoral vote value goes to the loser. It would be interesting to see what the result would be if we did that in this (or previous) election(s). Perhaps Trump would still win, but I wonder since he had small victory margins in some modestly valued states while Clinton had bigger margins in highly valued states. But, big enough for her in a non-winner take all scenario like this? Maybe not.
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
