In the wake of the presidential election, Hillary Clinton supporters have cried foul because their candidate won the popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College. So now they want to abolish it. In response, Tom Woods recently hosted an episode of his podcast discussing the Electoral College with historians Kevin Gutzman and Brion McClanahan.
The title says it all: Why the Electoral College Is Great, and No One Should Even Think About Abolishing It.
Woods, Gutzman and McClanahan dug deep into the history, along with current challenges to the Electoral Collage, emphasizing that the popular vote has never been a factor in electing presidents. In fact the popular vote total wasn’t even reported until 1824. The Electoral College is an integral part of the Constitutional system, ensuring state representation as opposed to creating a situation where a few large areas could control the executive.
After all, for example, the politics of New York are very different from those of Texas.
The trio also pointed out that the popular vote is meaningless in the context of American elections. Since the Electoral College is the constitutional means to become president, candidates campaign to get state votes rather popular votes. Even if the popular vote is calculated, it is a very skewed statistic. If the person winning the popular vote became president campaigns would look entirely different and candidates would employ completely different strategies. The end result does not necessarily mean Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote.
Woods and his guests also talked about the movement to circumvent the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment.
Listen below. Learn more at Tom’s Liberty Classroom (click here)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LEocayWFH8&feature=youtu.be
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