Importance of the Electoral College

Popular Vote vs Electoral  College

I have kept mostly quiet since election results came in. While I was pleased with the results, I will remain cautiously optimistic. I have had great discussions with people with opposing views over the last week. While I disagree with their viewpoints, we have had some extremely respectful conversations. (The way it should be done, not violent protests, profanity laced tirades, defecating in public on signs, etc)

So lets look at the results, President-elect Trump is currently sitting at 290 electoral votes to Hillary's 232. Michigan has not yet been called, but he currently holds a lead. Those 16 votes move him to 306. Now the other aspect of election results are the"popular vote" results. An irrelevant metric that I feel is only used to create more angst and discord.

Currently there is a petition circulating to have Hillary declared President based off her winning the popular vote. Even though this has happened three other times in our history, many are acting as if this is the first time. What I want to do is break down why the electoral college is important.

In the 2016 election, 121 million votes were cast. Hillary is winning 61 million to President-Elect Trumps 60.3 million. A difference of 700k. There are two states that create such a close popular vote tally. California and New York. In California 8.5 million , or 7% of total national vote were cast and in New York 6.7 million, or 5 % of total national vote. In California, Hillary won 5.5 million to 3 million, a difference of 2.5 million. In New York, Hillary won 4.1 million to 2.6 million. That is a difference of 1.5 million votes. Between those two states she has a lead of 4 million votes.

The electoral college was set up to protect exactly this. Those 4 million votes only represent 3% of the total vote cast, and only .009% of the entire country population. Those two states only represent 4% of the United States of America. Looking at the map above, the sea of red is evidence of why the electoral college is important. All of the non blue counties get a fair say. Why should a few dense counties decide for everyone else. Our founders were intelligent and set up a system that would allow for growth of our nation, but still give everyone a fair say.

On another side note, I find it interesting to see how the country has changed from 1992 to 2016. As you know 1992 was when Bill Clinton won, I also posted 2008 when Barack Obama won. It is interesting to see the country has turned consistently more red each presidential election since Clinton's first four years. To think we almost allowed that family a third term in the White House!