Opinion

The net effect of the Electoral College

Posted January 30, 2017 12:00 am

I read with interest Mr. Jim Thompson's fencepost on Saturday Jan. 21. He states, "and why now? Because your candidate didn't win? My candidate hasn't won for two elections, and I'm not blaming the system for that."

First, as a reminder, President Obama won both the popular and the electoral vote by wide margins, so there never was an issue. My side even accepted the result from 2000 when a 5-4 Supreme Court decision gave George Bush the presidency with the narrowest of electoral margins and less than a plurality of the total vote.

Losing an election with 2.8 million more votes is troublesome. The electoral college, I was taught, has several purposes. Keeping the direct election of a president out of the hands of the people, making sure that someone unqualified gained the office and making the popular vote look like a mandate and thus validating the will of the people.

I guess one out of three is reasonable.

Michael Weiser

Wheeling

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