Why Do We Have The Electoral College? Because More People Live in New York City Than in 40 of the 50 States.

The Democrat Party and its leaders want to do away with the Electoral College. The argument is that the President should be elected based upon the “popular vote.” Democrat Socialist Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez tweeted after Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed:

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez gets a number of things wrong in her tweet.

  1. The Electoral College is not a “shadow of slavery’s power on America.”
  2. America is not a democratic republic, rather America is a Constitutional republic.
  3. To eliminate the Electoral College would require amending the U.S. Constitution. Amending the Constitution requires 2/3rd majority of both Houses of Congress and 2/3rds of the states voting for the amendment.

The elimination of the Electoral Collage has become the clarion call of the Democrat Party, repeatedly voiced by its leadership, including Hillary Clinton.  What is important to understand is that the Electoral College is, in fact, based upon the popular vote.

History of the Electoral College

According to the National Archives and Records Administration:

The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. [Emphasis added]

How Are the Electoral College Votes Allocated?

The National Archives states:

Electoral votes are allocated among the states based on the Census. Every state is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation—two votes for its senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its members in the U. S. House of Representatives.

Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated three electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College.

The allocations below are based on the 2010 Census. They are effective for the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections.

Total Electoral Votes:  538;   Majority Needed to Elect:  270

Here is the current allocation of Electoral College votes:

State Number of Electoral Votes
Alabama 9
Alaska 3
Arizona 11
Arkansas 6
California 55
Colorado 9
Connecticut 7
Delaware 3
District of Columbia 3
Florida 29
Georgia 16
Hawaii 4
Idaho 4
Illinois 20
Indiana 11
Iowa 6
Kansas 6
Kentucky 8
Louisiana 8
Maine 4
Maryland 10
Massachusetts 11
Michigan 16
Minnesota 10
Mississippi 6
Missouri 10
Montana 3
Nebraska 5
Nevada 6
New Hampshire 4
New Jersey 14
New Mexico 5
New York 29
North Carolina 15
North Dakota 3
Ohio 18
Oklahoma 7
Oregon 7
Pennsylvania 20
Rhode Island 4
South Carolina 9
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 11
Texas 38
Utah 6
Vermont 3
Virginia 13
Washington 12
West Virginia 5
Wisconsin 10
Wyoming 3

Source:   U.S. Census Bureau    Last Update:  12/10/2010

Therefore the Electoral College is based upon the census, the number of people per state!

This is why Democrats want to give illegal aliens the right to vote and keep them on the census.

If the Electoral College was eliminated, what would happen?

If the Electoral College was eliminated then the United States would no longer be a Constitutional Republic, it would become a democracy or even a monarchy. Diffen.com published the below chart comparing the differences between the Electoral College and popular vote:

Comparison chart

Electoral Vote versus Popular Vote comparison chart
Electoral Vote Popular Vote
Political Structure Representative republic Direct democracy
Progression of Vote Citizen votes for delegate or representative, generally in accordance with their allegiances/party affiliation. Delegates convene and vote. Winner of that vote is elected for the position in question. Citizens vote for their choice of official for the position being elected. Votes are counted. Majority of votes is elected to that position.
Bureaucracy Requires formation of some form of committee, college, or council to vote after they’ve been elected. May also have government oversight organizations. Requires no formation of such groups, nor the election of such groups. May also have government oversight organizations.
Establishment of Voting Districts Mandatory, regional delegates run for given district’s delegate locations via their party or individually. Not required.
Gerrymandering Present and created as a result of voting districts. Not created due to lack of need for voting districts.
Party Benefits Favors majority parties, as they can concentrate resources, change bureaucracy, establish and gerrymander voting districts. Favors no party size in particular, though greatly improves potential for minority parties e.g., a third political party in the U.S.
Modern History Does not allow higher populated areas (say, CA or NY) to take advantage of being able to always vote for the candidate, thereby underrepresenting the other rural areas of the nation. Harder to accomplish beyond geographically-close groups prior to modern transportation and communication. These hindrances are no longer in place for developed nations.

Bartleby.com notes that Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation—in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” Franklin responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Doing away with the Electoral College will inextricably lead at best to a democracy and at worse to a monarchy. John Adams wrote,

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Eliminate’ Electoral College, It ‘Undermines’ Democracy

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