The Electoral College

So, we all know that the electoral college didn't work the way it's supposed to this election. Or the 2000 election.

And of course, that means that there are going to be tons of calls to eliminate it.

But regardless of these calls, it's too late for this election.
Donald Trump is our next president barring the unlikely circumstance of over 3 dozen "faithless electors" or our justice system convicting him of the rape of a minor that he stands trial for starting on December 16th and becoming ineligible for the presidency.

So, today, I'm going to break down some of the pros and cons of the electoral college as it is right now and those of disbanding or drastically changing it.

Updated to add a link to this petition to those electors in red states that aren't bound by the popular votes to change history on December 19th. As unlikely as it is that this will happen, at least this will show the world that it isn't okay to toy with democracy.

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The electoral college as it is:

Pros: Allows for a smaller group of educated individuals to choose the candidate that they feel is best suited to act as the president of the United States in the case that said person does not receive the majority vote.

Cons: Occasionally ends up granting the presidency to the candidate with less of the popular vote; makes people believe that they must choose between one of the two major party candidates even if their views align better with that of a third party candidate; really isn't a democratic system.

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Disbanding the electoral college:

Pros: No more winning the popular vote, but losing the election. Allow those whose views align with third-party candidates to freely express that by voting for those candidates, thus hopefully reducing the disastrous two-party system that has plagued this nation since the late 1700s/early 1800s. Force America to wait until all votes are counted before declaring a winner (because it's now two days after election day and all votes still haven't been counted, which is beyond frustrating and I'm not even in one of the states whose votes haven't been counted).

Cons: Could result in a huge majority of uneducated individuals controlling our nation. 

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Doing a major overhaul of the electoral college:

Pros: Give Americans a chance to update the electoral college for the times. Not put too much power in the hands of the individual. 

Cons: Still having the chance of a majority popular vote not gaining the presidency.

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I, personally, am in favor of doing an overhaul of the electoral college, rather than disbanding it entirely. Call me crazy, but there's a reason that the founding fathers were afraid of direct democracy. If you are in favor of disbanding it, there's a petition you can sign here. It's your right to want to get rid of it, but before you sign, give me a few minutes of your time to try and explain how we can fix it.

First, it doesn't make sense that the entirety of each states' electoral votes goes to one candidate. There are only two states that can split their electoral vote, and they rarely do. Maine split theirs for the first time ever this election, granting 3 to Clinton and 1 to Trump and Nebraska has only split theirs once in history: that was in 2008, when they granted their third vote to Obama. The first thing to do would be to ensure that every state has not only the ability, but the obligation to split their vote according to popular vote. I would propose doing so in the following way:

Each state's popular vote winner would get the two associated with their senate seats. The remaining 1 to 53 (least populous states have 1, most populous/California has 53) would be divided according to congressional districts. The winner of each district would get that district's electoral vote.

For example, let's look at Virginia, my state. This election, our first 2 electoral votes would have gone to Clinton, and the remaining 11 would have been divided 7 to Trump, 4 to Clinton (this is based on the results for each district's chosen Representative assuming districts that selected a GOP candidate would have gone red and those that selected a Dem candidate would have gone blue; I couldn't find the presidential results sorted by district--no third party candidates won any district).

By doing this, voters who prefer a third party candidate would not be told that they're wasting their votes and, over time, we could gradually get away from the two-party model we've been stuck with for so long.

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Second, we need to eliminate the entire concept of having electors be bound by their states' votes. This is a big deterrent for third-party leaning voters. By binding electors, these states prevent the electoral college from doing its job. Because 29 states' electors are bound by the popular vote, these 29 states' electors don't have a chance to express their concern for the nation if they feel the best candidate was not chosen. There's also a problem with referring to those who use the right to select a different candidate than their state's choice "faithless electors." I get that the term comes from a lack of faith in the choice of their electorate, but it's really discouraging to those who are seriously concerned about it. The electors for each district would still be from the winning party and in most cases would choose their party's candidate, but they would not be stigmatized for choosing a different candidate. 

This would ensure that the majority couldn't pick candidates who want to reverse decades of progress without having the electoral college there to check that.

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Third, the electoral college wouldn't wait over a month to actually cast their ballots. The process would need to be streamlined so that there's not a gap between popular vote and electoral vote. There's no longer any need to wait so long for the college; technology has made it so that we usually know within 12 hours of the polls closing what candidate has won each state. The electoral college could meet the Tuesday after the popular election and it would be done.

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Fourth, we as a nation should not accept the predicted results of the election as final. The electors should have a chance to cast their votes before Americans as a whole say "wellp, that's it, this is the next president, like it or not." This puts unnecessary pressure on the electors to go with the vote. Recall that, in the majority of cases, they should go with the vote anyway.

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Fifth, the electoral college's final decision should be subject to review by Congress, regardless of if there is a tie or not. This just provides an extra check in the "checks and balances" equation.

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Sixth, the electoral college magic number should not be 270. This encourages bipartisanship and discourages those who prefer candidates not from the two main parties. The electoral college's results should be looked at in full, with the candidate receiving the most electoral votes gaining the presidency, not whoever gets 270 first.

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I'm not saying that this is the only way it can be fixed; I'm just offering an alternative to what we currently have and to completely disbanding it. If you still want to sign that petition, here's the link again. But it's clear that we can't just keep it as is any longer.

xx,

Sienna

The Fierce Feminist

Dear America,

Dear America,

You have spoken.

You cast your votes and 47% of you selected Donald Trump.
But wait, what's that? 48% of you selected Hillary Clinton.

So, I was going to write this post about the Electoral College and Faithless Electors and how a bunch of states that went red don't bind their electors, which means that hypothetically, if as many as 38 or as few as 9 electors in these states decide to cast their votes for Clinton rather than Trump, there's still hope. But that's not only highly unlikely; it would probably cause more problems (yes, Clinton could get into the White House, but then the whole conspiracy about it being rigged would increase exponentially which is not something we need right now).

So, instead, I'm going to offer a different message. One that may offer hope to some, but will hopefully offer encouragement to those who are stuck in this country.

And I'm going to start with this simple message:

Donald Trump will not be able to do 90% of the things he has promised to do in his campaign.

Let me say that again: Donald Trump will not be able to do 90% of the things he has promised in his campaign.

Because of our constitution, he will not be able to:

1. Ban Muslims from the United States. This would be unconstitutional; a violation of both the first and the fourteenth amendments. If you are Muslim and at any point feel that your right to practice your religion is being violated, then you have the right to report this to any authority figure that will listen.
2. Build a wall on the Mexican border, which Mexico will be paying for. I don't have any constitutional reasons why he can't do this. I just know, somewhere in my soul, that this ridiculous idea would cause way too much debt (which he promised to reduce, though his plan will most likely actually cause a major increase in the debt)
3. Make discrimination against LGBTQ+ identified individuals legal. Make discrimination against African-Americans, Latinx individuals, or any other individual who falls in any minority group legal. He literally cannot do that. Even though the Equal Rights Amendment still (a whopping 44 years after it was originally introduced) hasn't been passed and added into the Constitution, the 14th Amendment grants equal protection to all citizens.

And those are just the things that he can't do because of how our government is set up. There are so many things he will most likely not be able to do because of (1) impracticality (2) the complicated system of checks and balances that our government is built upon (3) the fact that we are a representative democracy, which means that you have the power to practice continuous democracy from now until we get someone who is not totally insane into the White House.

So, yeah. It sucks. But remember who built our country? Who fought against the tyranny of a small island nation thousands of miles away? It wasn't the big guys (okay, well, some of it was the big guys, but it was also the bastard orphan from the caribbean, a tailor's apprentice, an abolitionist among slaveholders). America was not founded on an aristocracy, and we can take it back.

Make the most of the worst.

Use your voice. 

And for crying out loud, next time VOTE. We have mid-terms in 2 years, on 6 November, 2016. So when they come around, register to vote, then actually DO THE THING. Because apparently you didn't do it this time. [based on the statistics on millennial turn-out for this election--45% less than in 2012--what were you guys doing?] It literally takes such a small portion of your day. I was at my polling place for less than half an hour. It didn't infringe on my day (other than that I woke up early to do it; but I went back to bed after) YOU DON'T EVEN NEED TO WEAR REAL PANTS. YOU CAN VOTE IN YOUR SWEATS.

So, thank you to those that voted. And to those that didn't, what?

But most importantly, now is the time to get off your butt and go fix it.

Fight.

Fight for your brothers, sisters, friends, and everyone with a different skin color. Fight for those who practice their faith in a way that is visible and easy to target. Fight for those who love who they love regardless of societal expectations. 

Fight for minorities of all shapes and sizes.

Somehow, some way, fear conquered love in this election.
We need to get our country back; we need to help love come back and conquer hate and fear.

So, wipe your tears, put on your big-kid pants, and get ready to fight like hell for four years to maintain the progress that we've made in the past 25. We will get through this.

xx,

Sienna

The Fierce Feminist