On December 15th, time warp politics will decide who really won the presidency.
"There is no reason to feel sentimental about the Electoral College. One of the main reasons the founders created it was slavery. The southern states liked the fact that their slaves, who would be excluded from a direct vote, would be counted — as three-fifths of a white person — when Electoral College votes were apportioned."
We're stuck with the false perception that this country is divided between "red" and "blue." It's not.
"The Electoral College also makes America seem more divided along blue-red lines than it actually is. If you look at an Electoral College map, California appears solidly blue and Alabama solidly red. But if you look at a map of the popular votes, you see a more nuanced picture. More than 4.5 million Californians voted for Mr. McCain (roughly as many votes as he got in Texas), while about 40 percent of voters in Alabama cast a ballot for Mr. Obama."
This time we "blues" are feeling tolerant of the system: it delivered both the popular vote and electoral votes to our guy. Presumably we won't make abolishing the Electoral College a top priority. We might have tolerated it in 2000, too, even though we won the popular vote. In 2000 (and maybe now), we turned our righteous wrath on the Supreme Court.
So which is more important? Getting rid of the old, irrelevant Electoral College? Or focusing on making voting procedures simple, clear, easy, and free of corruption, all of which are just as damaging to elections as the original threats of using slaves as votes or handing the final decision to people who were uninformed?
Once we've shown we're capable of creating an honorable election system, we'll be ready to write the amendment getting rid of the Electoral College.
