Opinion

Americans deserve better than a second-choice president

Posted April 22, 2019 1:00 am

In an April 5 letter ("Don't mess with Electoral College"), Robert Meale of Crystal Lake claims Abraham Lincoln failed to win the popular vote. Not so. Abraham Lincoln actually received far more votes than anyone else in 1860. This goes to the point made by those who seek reform: Shouldn't we pick presidents based on who Americans actually want to be president?

Too often, our archaic Electoral College serves up second-choice, second-rate leaders. Most Americans didn't want Donald Trump to be president, for example. The American people preferred Hillary Clinton, and it wasn't even that close, really. Yet here we are.

Surely, we can do better. Surely, we can devise a way to elect presidents Americans actually want. And wouldn't it be nice if individual voters here in Illinois finally had as much say in the process as individual voters in Wyoming or the Dakotas?

John Kohlstrand

Geneva

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