In a democracy, the majority vote should determine the winner. Because Hillary won the popular vote, she should be the next president. It’s only logical.
Would Hillary have won had the election been based on the popular vote? I’m not so sure. Here’s why.
First, there are the fraud and dead voter problems. Dead people shouldn’t vote. But radicals in the Democrat Party will do, and seem to do, virtually anything to ensure their candidate wins. In Detroit for example, there were more votes than voters.
A second problem is voting by illegal immigrants. Some city mayors and, unbelievably, Obama himself urged them to vote. Obama said he would not prosecute anyone for doing that. How many illegal voters were there? Don’t know exactly but certainly there were some. Upwards of 80% of them vote Democrat. With its enormous number of immigrants voting Democrat, California, for example, has become a virtual wasteland for Republicans. Given almost two Democrat votes (8.8 million) for every Republican vote (4.5 million), it’s almost pointless for a Republican to even vote here.
Third, some people voted more than once. There were reports of unions from Illinois busing its members to Iowa to vote in more than one place. It’s apparently easy to do there.
But we are not a democracy. We are a federal republic. Our founders set it up that way and did so for at least two very, very good reasons. They set up the electoral college (credit Hamilton) because they were as fearful of (1) a fickle, emotional, and easily swayed citizenry as they were of (2) domination by an individual state or states. The electoral college is a product of that fear; the concentration of too much power anywhere. We also see that in their fear of too much power being concentrated in one branch of government. Hence our three branches. Their worries are just as valid and problematic today as they were over 200 years ago.
Hillary won the popular vote by 2.8 million plus. Per Wikipedia, in six states, plus Washington DC, Hillary won 20% or more of the popular vote that combined, totaled 8.1 million more votes than Trump. They are California (+4.3 million/+30.1%); Washington DC (+270 thousand/+86.4%); Hawaii (+138 thousand/+31.5%); Maryland (+735 thousand /+26.4%); Massachusetts (+904 thousand/+27.2%); New York (+1.7 million/+22.7%); and Vermont (+83 thousand/+26.0%). Hillary also won 17.1% (945 thousand plus) more votes than Trump in Illinois. Add Illinois, and these states alone accounted for a little more than 9.0 million more votes for Hillary then for Trump.
Anything stand out here? Sure. States where Hillary vote totals exceeded by 20% those of Trump are all on, or very near, the east or west coasts. Were the president to be elected on the basis of popular vote, the votes of us living in flyover-country would become completely insignificant.
Or looked at from another angle, throw California results out of the total and Trump wins the popular vote by more than 1.4 million. Trump didn’t even campaign in California.
Should we allow the country to be totally dominated by any one state? Or by the large cities within that state who would have a disproportionate influence on deciding whom the president would be? Put another way, should the policies and politicians of California and its big cities become national policy? And for the voters of the rest of the country to become virtually irrelevant. No way.
California is known as the granola bar state for very good reason. Its left-wing politicians are overwhelmingly fruits, nuts and flakes. New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois are granola bar-light as well. Economically and politically, and in many other ways, these states are just not healthy.
These things unquestionably confirm that our founders were very, very wise men. It is absolutely imperative to keep the electoral college. Otherwise our country becomes nothing more than a reflection of what voters in California and, to a lesser degree, New York, Illinois, and their large cities effectively alone determine. The rest of the country will then have to operate according to the diktats of the goofiest of the left. That’s scary. And stupid. And dangerous.