Sunday, December 4, 2016

The Unpopular Truth About The Popular Vote

Have you heard the news that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote? Unless you live under a rock you likely have stumbled across a barista or aspiring novelist mumbling something about how the Electoral College is unfair and undemocratic and how electors should follow “the will of the people” and vote for Hillary on Dec. 19. Because “democracy!” or something.

If we lived in a democracy, they’d have a point. Thankfully, we do not.

What too many of these uneducated and unshowered drum circlers don’t know, or don’t care to know, is the popular vote is a meaningless unit of measure. The Electoral College exists, and it is how we determine who is president. We are a union of states, hence the name United States of America, not singular blob on a map. Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation with differing and sometimes conflicting interests. It’s a brilliant system.

Donald Trump didn’t campaign in California because there was no point in campaigning in California. Unless Los Angeles and San Francisco fell into the ocean, the state wasn’t in play. This left a lot of potential Republican voters deciding to skip the lines on Election Day. Same goes for New York.

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/12/04/the-unpopular-truth-about-the-popular-vote-n2254534

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