Toss in the wikileaked document from the Podesta e-mails where the Clinton campaign talks about a "Pied-Piper Candidate" and specifically mentions Donald Trump.
I find it interesting that the predicted popular vote in this forecast by Nate Silver is fairly close to how the actual popular vote turned out. Sure, that's purely conjecture.
On the other hand, Clinton was so sure she would win the election that she didn't have a concession speech written!
We know that the Democratic primary process was rigged between Wikileaks and the Class Action lawsuit against the DNC. Hell, it's pretty much common knowledge that Clinton was supposed to have been the Democratic "nominee" since 2015 and that Sanders was an inconvenience to the process.
The problem is that you've got to wonder when a campaign is based upon "It's her turn" from a person with a serious sense of entitlement. Toss in that person is running a vanity campaign.
And the Candidate in question is one of the most unpopular candidates ever (see 2008 Michigan Primary results).
I mean who is the more likely candidate to try and rig the election:
1) the person who appears not to give a fuck?
or
2) The person who feels so entitled to the position that she shuts out any competition?
Of course Trump was exonerated he had no intent to win the election.
It's easy to divert attention away by screaming "the Russians meddled in the election". On the other hand, it's a lot more questionable when the evidence points to someone thinking they can rig the election to win.
So, I think that's the real line of inquiry if people want to keep trying to figure out what went wrong: look at the person who had a desire and a motive to cheat.
The shit will really go down once people start reading the Wikileaked Democratic Party e-mails because the Russians ain't got nothing on the Democratic Party and the Media for pushing Donald Trump.
Which was a strategy that backfired spectacularly!
Not to mention that the Democrats looks set for a replay.
There is a big difference between this and Watergate. The Republicans were the ones responsible for Watergate. 2016 was a joint effort, which was probably more from the Democrats and Media. But don't expect to get any mea culpas from the likes of Rachel Maddow John Oliver, et al.
Naw, they are going to keep beating a dead horse and working to get Trump reelected.
Any luck, there will be a move for impeachment which will blow up in the Dems' faces.
At this point, I am getting even sicker of the Democratic Party than I was after the Philadelphia DNC for their failure to live up to their name.
Like it or not, the Mueller Report said there was no collusion. It's time to drop the matter and move on.
Or maybe the Republicans should start looking into the Democratic Party's shenanigans.
While the Democratic Partisans are upset about obstruction and incorrectly accusing Trump of treason, they seem to be neglecting that one of the casualties of the Mueller Investigation is Gregory Craig, who was a former Clinton and Obama attorney. Craig was charged with violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).
DoJ's focus on FARA came about as an off shoot of the Mueller investigation.
Paul Manafort was convicted under this act for his work done for Ukraine's former President. Craig and Manafort worked together to help the Ukrainians, but failed to bother to register under FARA. Their client was Viktor Pinchuk, a wealthy Ukrainian steel-pipe maker. The Clintons and Pinchuk are linked via the Clinton Foundation.
There have long been allegations about the Clinton Foundation being a way to launder funds, if not straight out buy favours from the Clintons. The FBI has been said to have investigated the foundation for alleged “pay-to-play” politics while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.
While the Mueller Investigation might not have been totally bipartisan, I can't help but wonder if it also investigated the Clintons and the Clinton foundation after hearing about the Craig indictment.
Wouldn't it be funny if the redactions about on going criminal investigations related to the Clintons and their campaign? That would really be egg on the face of the Democrats for fucking up the 2016 Election.
Anyway, the Dems should be careful what they wish for, they might get it.
Now if you were an environmentalist group and going to endorse a candidate, which one of these would you choose?
The person with the 100% (or 92%): Bernie Sanders?
Or the person with the 82%: Hillary Clinton?
Bernie Sanders was the highest rated candidate on the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) scorecard and the Climate Hawks Vote PAC in 2016.
Clinton had the weakest environmental record of the Democratic candidates using the LCV's standard.
Yet, the LCV chose Clinton.
What the fuck?
LCV's Action Fund took an unprecedented step of endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after only one debate between the Democratic candidates and months before the first vote in the Democratic primaries was cast. That was a big mistake. It was far too early in this primary for the nation’s most powerful environmental political organization to make an endorsement.
Yet they did. And they chose a candidate who was poor by their own standards!
Clinton promoted the internationalization of fracking and oversaw the State Department’s initial support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline during her tenure as Secretary of State. The one major climate accomplishment she touts, the Copenhagen Accord, is considered by climate activists to be a huge failure. Clinton is the only candidate with deep ties to the financiers and lobbyists of the fossil-fuel industry, on Wall Street and beyond.
Clinton supported the continued exploitation of our nation’s public carbon reserves, while Sanders had introduced legislation that would put an end to fossil-fuel leases on public lands. Sanders and Martin O’Malley actively supported the climate divestment movement, while Clinton , whose campaign and super PAC accept funding from fracking investors and fossil-fuel industry lobbyists did not taken a position.
This was Clinton's reaction when asked about her connection to the fossil fuel industry by a Greenpeace Volunteer.
Clinton never did the actions necessary to gain the support of the environmentalist movement (other than those establishment groups who are hopeful that change can come through the duopoly regime). On the other hand, climate change had short shrift if it received any attention at all during the campaign.
There are a lot of issues going on here from having a candidate chosen long before the primary process begins, failure to have a serious debate on the issue, and just plain off earning the vote.
The environment is just one of many issues where Clinton just wasn't trustworthy. And she didn't help the situation by antagonising environmental activists. She failed to give straight answers on the issue. I would toss in that she failed to address The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) issue in a meaningful manner.
But this is one of many issues where Clinton demonstrated she wasn't trustworthy.
I really have to question who rigged the election when a group such as LCV essentially declared that
there’s no need for any further discussion of the environment or climate
by the Democratic candidates before the primary process really began. And they decided that in favour of a candidate who was poor by their own standard.
One of the pundits said that the Democrats see the Mueller Report as evidence of collusion and obstruction, while the Republicans see it as a vindication of the president.
And the Independent and Third Party voters?
We see it as neglecting the internal bullshit of the duopoly parties.
We have a document in Wilileaks, which has been confirmed as authentic showing that Clinton wanted a "Pied Piper" candidate to run against.
Trump received a significant amount of free media coverage, which wouldn't have been possible a while back. I remember in 1980 when the Ronald Reagan film "Bedtime for Bonzo" couldn't be shown on TV in the US because it would be free coverage. On the other hand, I've heard estimates of the free publicity received by Trump to be in the billions of dollars.
Never mind that the same media shut out Bernie Sanders. Now, who was it who was trying to meddle in the election.
Of course the media are going to be pushing the Russian collusion thing since it distracts from the far more egregious acts that are happening in the US electoral process.
The Clinton campaign wasn't too bothered by foreign assistance, which turns out to be dodgy. The Steele Dossier is coming up for scrutiny since the release of the Mueller Report. Ukrainians and Russians aren't the same nation (I should know), and there is evidence that the Ukrainians were assisting the Clinton Campaign.
It gets even more amusing since there are also allegations that the Russians tried to assist the Sanders campaign! That went well! I think there is far more evidence that the Democrats rigged the game against Sanders which makes that claim truly laughable.
Especially since it's been shown that Clinton was chosen to be the Democratic nominee in 2015: well before the voting started. Sanders was an inconvenience that showed the primary process for being the farce it is.
One of the reasons I voted for the Greens was that I saw both of the duopoly candidates as being slimey and neither party is willing to take responsibility. One major thing they could do to clear up this is to work on serious election reform.
"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add
debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance,
spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The
League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of
the American public."
Neuman was League of Women Voters President Nancy M. Neuman who said that in October of 1988, which demonstrates that this conspiracy has been ongoing for some time.
And it is internal to the duopoly parties.
But it's a heck of a lot easier to point to countries that use the Cyrillic Alphabet as being the perps since few people can understand what is really happening.
And it's happening at home.
The real takeaway from all this is that the US needs election reform badly.
Brexit and Donald Trump have one thing in common: They were intended to be alternatives which were so repugnant that no one would vote for either one.
I should be making a fortune off of this since my legal studies were geared toward the European Union. I was expecting to get hired to help someone navigate the European Union, and now navigating the disaster that is Brexit.
And Brexit is far more of a disaster than Donald Trump since no one expected to really have it happen. I could have told anyone who would have listened that it was going to be a disaster: especially since no one worked out what would happen when it happened.
Take the US Civil War: only make it non-violent with a lot of negotiation.
It was a bad idea to separate a nation which functions: no matter how poorly one may see it functioning. It's even worse when the party that wants to separate has less party than the what they are separating from. The bad divorce analogy sounds really good.
Only most divorces try to be equitable: this one has no need to be equitable.
This one can have you pay for their education and support them. Then when the person who was supporting decides to leave has to pay twice the amount of support to leave.
Not only that the party separating finds that they can only sleep in the doghouse...
If they take the agreement.
And they are totally fucked if they don't take the agreement.
Unfortunately, there is the "prestige point" factor that says, "we can't go back since we have already gone too far to reconcile." Or so the person thinks.
Yes, Britain could, and should, have a second referendum since now they understand what exactly leaving the European Union means. They have been getting a preview and not liking it since the process began.
But the other thing that Brexit and Trump have in common is that the people have to live with the decision until they decide to elect them out.
I actively supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 and am passively supporting him in 2020. Passively because I think Bernie's time was 2016 when he had the votes. Bernie was drafted to give people a choice from Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Election. Sanders was popular then, but I think the coalition that would have made him the candidate in 2016 isn't present in this election.
The Demexit was where Sanders supporters left the Democratic Party. I made the Demexit early on: after when AP called the California Primary for Clinton. The 2016 Philadelphia Democratic National Convention firmed up my resolve that my being a Democrat was pointless: even if that meant that was the only way I could vote in a primary.
But the Primaries are acts of attrition to make sure that the candidate with the largest bankroll can make it to the end. Clinton had the big money while Sanders had the popular support in 2016. The fact that the Dems chose the most unpopular candidate was a sickener to me.
But Clinton wouldn't have won the 2016 primary if she had any competition, which is why the DNC rigged the game for her. But Hillary Clinton literally couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and didn't count on the Electoral College making her plan backfire.
You would think the Democrats would have learned their lesson in 2000, but Russiagate was an example of Democratic ignorance.
Hillary Clinton is a symptom, not the disease. It took Sanders' run to make me see how much the Democratic Party is obsolete.
So, while the Duopoly Parties like to talk about "Big Tents", you can't have a party with no real agenda. Parties that can include George Wallace and George McGovern aren't going to work. Especially if they are going to run unpopular candidates.
Wow! what a loaded question from Quora. I would love to answer it there, but it seems a bit pointless for a few reasons.
The first is that the first answer is pretty good for someone unfamiliar with the US political process. The second is that any answer would be buried in the abusive answers he received.
Anyway, I'm guessing this person has voter's remorse, which happens in a system where someone has to pick a "lesser evil" (or a Scylla and Charybdis election).
First off, I would point out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with one of the largest margins ever. Or conversely that Trump lost it with one of the largest margins ever. The US is unique in having something called the Electoral College, which means the popular vote is pretty much meaningless. Clinton would have had to win the popular vote in at least Florida and one of the following states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (i.e., win the popular vote in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) to have won in the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is something that truly needs to be abolished.
But you can feel easy that your one vote isn't what cost Clinton the election. That's because unless your vote wouldn't have changed too much unless you happened to live in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Even then, one vote seriously wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election. But that is an oversimplification based on possibilities of Clinton winning any of those States.
Also, how did the election turn out in your state in regard to the Electoral College votes? You are in the clear if you lived in one of the States where Clinton won the Electoral College votes ("Blue State") since your vote didn't count: Clinton won those anyway.
Likewise, your vote didn't really mean much if you were in a "Red State". It wouldn't matter who you voted for in that case: Clinton lost.
Still, your problem is an example of why it is wrong to vote against a candidate instead of for someone you believe in. But basing an election on lesser evils means you have to vote for evil.
Sure, you could do what I did and vote for a third party because that party held values you share (or was most representative of your beliefs). The Greens were pretty much what Bernie was promoting: and I had no idea what Clinton was actually for (other than herself).
Did you consider voting for Gary Johnson if you believe in libertarian values?
One nice thing about voting for third parties is that can automatically get on the ballot and in the debates if they get enough percentage of the vote.
Anyway, you should make it clear that the popular vote is meaningless for President in the United States. Also, you should point out that you voted for the candidate you considered the lesser evil. That means an evil candidate still wins.
I voted Green because I don't vote for evil: lesser or otherwise. I also voted for a candidate and party which represents the values I believe in.
So, maybe you might want to look into a third party candidate next time.
OK, the first question you need to get around is why did Hillary Clinton lose the election? She won the popular vote by one of the largest margins EVER in an election. That is nearly 3 million votes.
Where she lost the election was in the electoral college, which is an institution found in the US Constitution. You can find it in USC Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2-4 along with the 12th Amendment. The fact that this institution was changed early on in the republic (1803-1804) demonstrates its problematic nature.
Any Russian influence in creating the electoral college would have to date back to the founding of the US given that Electoral College was the body that actually made Trump President. You can read about how the electoral college works here.
I should add that the Electoral College's main purpose is to thwart the popular vote, which it actually has done in 5 elections. The elections of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 produced an Electoral College winner who did not receive at least a plurality of the nationwide popular vote. In 1824, there were six states in which electors were legislatively appointed, rather than popularly elected, so it is uncertain what the national popular vote would have been if all presidential electors had been popularly elected. There have been five United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote including the 1824 election, which was the first U.S. presidential election where the popular vote was recorded.
Toss in that Clinton could have gotten enough votes in the electoral college by:
1) Winning the popular vote in all three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
2) Winning the popular vote in Florida and at least one of the following states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The 2000 Election focused on Florida, but a popular vote win for Gore in Ohio could have also led to his victory (see https://www.270towin.com/2000_Election/interactive_map). The 2016 narrative focuses on Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but is flawed since none of those states were solidly for Clinton. Michigan and Wisconsin went for Sanders in the primaries. I would toss in the result of the 2008 Michigan primary where:
"In Michigan, where Obama and other candidates removed their name from the ballot, Clinton won against "Uncommitted" (i.e., a vote for nobody) 55-40%. Exit poll respondents said that if all candidates had been on the ballot, they would have voted 46% Clinton, 35% Obama, 12% Edwards, 3% other."
I definitely would not call Michigan solid for Clinton in 2008 and 2016. But the Dems made it clear they preferred to lose with Clinton than possibly win with Sanders. But that's another post.
The bottom line here is that no one state's popular vote would have gotten Clinton the presidency. Additionally, it was a chance to expect Michigan and Wisconsin to vote for Clinton.
Next we get to the Clinton supporters who made it clear that Donald trump would not be President:
I would also add the Clinton Supporters who said things like:
If anything, the "Russian Bots", or whatever the fuck you want to call them, were basically using the failings of the US system of elections against itself.
So, maybe there were Russian bots, but nothing a foreign power could do would have screwed up the 2016 elections worse than what internal US forces did. And the really sad thing is that a lot of these things could have been avoided have the election been run with fairness principles which have disappeared over the last 40 years.
So, the real joke is on the comedians who gave Trump far more publicity than he deserved because of ratings. Are those people Russian bots?
Anyway, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russians did indeed cause a Trump win. Using that standard, you've lost the game before you've even started.
Another point the "Greens cost Clinton the election" crowd miss in their fixation with the three states Clinton thought were safe (Michigan, Pennsylvania,and Wisconsin) miss is that Clinton could also have won with just the votes from Florida and any one of the three "safe states".
The Florida scenario would also mean that she would have won with 21 States and the District of Columbia (see the atttached pic for how this all would have worked out).
If anything, the fact that the popular vote is meaningless is one of the more significant reasons for voting Green (toss in the Environment is far more my "single issue" if we are going there).
While people may try to shame people who vote third party, the fact is that the popular vote is meaningless as long as the Electoral College is in effect.
Additionally, the Electoral College protecting the small states argument is also fallactious.
If anything, the 2000 and 2016 Elections have demonstrated that the Electoral College is another relic from the US Constitution that needs to be purged.
The Fact is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 65,853,516 (48.5%
votes) to Trump's 62,984,825 (46.4% votes), but lost in the electoral
college by receiving 232 (43.1%) of the electoral votes to Trump's 306
(56.8%) votes.
But some people don't want to admit that the Electoral College is pretty much what put Trump in place. Probably because most people have no idea what the fuck the Electoral College does.
Quite simply it invalidates the popular vote.
Anyway, somebody was trying to tell me that Clinton would have won if Green voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania had voted for her. That argument is obviously fallacious, but It’s easy to see why people point the finger at third-party votes. In Michigan, where the election was so close that the Associated Press still hadn’t called the result until some time after the election. Trump was ahead by about 12,000 votes at that time. That was significantly less than the 242,867 votes that went to third-party candidates in Michigan
On the other hand, Clinton would have still lost even if she had managed to win the popular vote in either Michigan or Pennsylvania.
That's because of how the Electoral College works. Clinton would have won 248 Electoral College votes if the 232 Votes had been supplemented only with Michigan's Electoral votes. She would have had 252 Electoral votes if she have won only Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes. Even with winning Michigan's and Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, she would have fallen short of the 270 electoral College votes by 2 votes (268). Trump still wins in any of those three possible outcomes.
Clinton needed to win all three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, to get the 270 Electoral Votes needed to win.
There's a reason why the Interactive Electoral College map site is called https://www.270towin.com/. As they point out:
Since electoral votes are generally allocated on an "all or none" basis
by state, the election of a U.S President is about winning the popular
vote in enough states to achieve 270 electoral votes, a majority of the
538 that are available. Receiving the most votes nationwide is
irrelevant, as we have seen in two of the most recent five presidential
elections where the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner
were different.
One of the major reasons I left the Democratic Party, and the duopoly, is that Election Reform is a really big issue in US politics. Only the Third parties were discussing this.
The 2016 Election also demonstrated that voting was pretty much meaningless. The primaries are a sham and rigged to eliminate candidates from running (cost). And the Presidential Election is really a sham with the Electoral College in Place.
The Electoral College is one of the glaring flaws in US politics, but people want to blame everything but the flawed system for the problems we see.
OK, to recap. The electoral college only requires that the winner get the most votes in a state to receive ALL the electoral votes. So, if the results look like:
Clinton: 51
Trump: 49
Or
Clinton 34
Trump 33
Bozo 33
Get the idea? Clinton wins all the electoral votes. So, a candidate doesn't need to get a majority of votes, or even the most votes, to win in the Electoral College, which is what happened.
But that is a digression since we are going to be talking about a State Clinton won: New Jersey. It shouldn't be a surprise she won since Trump basically trashed Atlantic City, which had an effect on the entire state economy (no cite since it is pretty much common knowledge and a prime example of Trump's being a shit business person). I mean how the fuck can you go broke running a casino if the house has the advantage?
Here are the results of the 2016 Presidential election for NJ. You would think that the "landslide victory" Clintonistas predicted would show up here.
But they didn't. Clinton's margin is pretty much what they were like in most places she won. Toss in that there were a fair amount of people voting third party.
Yet she managed to win this state.
On the other hand, Trump received a fairly significant share of the vote: even in Atlantic County.
Atlantic County is home to Atlantic City.
OK, totally unscientific, but it does make me wonder about her popularity if she didn't totally leave Trump in the dust in a place where he has a bad reputation. Seriously, a lot of people got screwed by Trump in NJ, but he made a pretty strong show despite that.
Draw your own conclusion, but I think it demonstrates that Clinton wasn't that popular.
And the fact that the campaign neglected Wisconsin.
And a lot of people wouldn't have voted if there hadn't been alternatives. I'm not sure what I would have done, but the only way I would have even considered voting for Hillary Clinton would have been if ranked choice voting existed. And then I would have voted for her somewhere AFTER Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Roque de La Fuentes, and a write in for Bozo the Clown (not necessarily in that order).
And you still want to find blame in everything except Clinton being a lousy candidate (still more on that one to come, but look at the results of the NJ presidential election for a clue) and the electoral college.
There isn't too much I can do to help you understand that it wasn't the voters, it was the shitty, duopoly system that gave you Trump.
Hey, Bubba, the only way I would have even considered voting for your wife would have been if ranked choice voting existed. And then I would have voted for her somewhere AFTER Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Roque de La Fuentes, and a write in for Bozo the Clown (not necessarily in that order).
Sorry, but Jill Stein actually challenged the election results and I supported her doing that. Did you wife even think about that?
No, she lost Wisconsin to Bernie Sanders in the primary and neglected the state in the General.
Who needs the Russians with a coke addled fuckwit like you running around, Bubba? Your wife's campaign lost the election which you would know if your brain still worked.
My vote was my vote, it doesn't belong to any party and it sure as fuck didn't belong to Hillary Clinton.
A second opinion. She wasn't popular.
I know you have a problem understanding that "no means no", Bubba, but I said "no" twice to voting for your wife being president. The third time wasn't going to be different. I'm sick of voting for evil: lesser or otherwise.
Let's toss in that this election has shown that the process of voting for President is a sham. So, I am going to vote for the candidate of my choice from now on.
Now, why don't you, your wife, and the rest of your family piss off.
This explains what happened--and the Russians weren't responsible
I was curious since the
popular vote doesn't really matter in Presidential Elections (after all
Clinton won that with one of the largest percentages in a US election).
The Electoral College is the real decider with only 270 electoral votes
needed to win. So, I went to 270toWin to play with their interactive Electoral Vote map.
First off, there are 2,250,000,000,000,000
possible outcomes with the Electoral College system! (Long explanation on that),
but it didn't take too many states to flip for Trump to have won. That
means it was a real gamble to run a candidate as unpopular as Clinton
since there were no guarantees that New Hampshire, Nevada or Virginia wouldn't have
voted for Trump. Or that Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin would vote
for Clinton.
There were four states, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all decided by less than 1% in 2016, with Michigan the closest. That state was won by about .23% - that’s only 2,300 votes per one million votes cast. Donald Trump won three of these four states, none of which had been won by a Republican in a generation. Those 46 electoral votes put him across the 270 he needed to win. Interestingly, despite a fairly competitive election, only four states were decided by 5% or less in 2012; that number grew to 11 in 2016
The thing is that winning any of one of those four states would mean Trump would be President. Or that Trump's electoral college win could have been much higher! Remember the popular vote has no relation to the Electoral College numbers. All one needs is to get the largest number of votes to get ALL the Electoral College votes in most states.
It would have been highly likely in the case of a tie that the election would
remain undecided after the Electors voted. That means Congress would meet in joint
session on the first day in January to count the electoral votes (this count
happens whether the election is close or not). If no candidate has
reached 270 Electoral Votes, then the House and Senate take over and
elect the President and Vice-President, respectively.
Toss in it is possible to win the Electoral College
with only 11 States (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey).
However, nobody has been elected President since 1900 by winning fewer
than 23 states. (Take the quiz at 270towin to see where I got these figures)
Anyway, While the democratic party is responsible for
picking a loser like Clinton, it seems to be more that the
anti-democratic nature of the US elections needs to be addressed. After all, the only way the Russians could have influenced the US presidential election would be to have somehow created the Electoral College since that is what really put Trump in office.
I think the real issue isn't can the Electoral College be changed or abolished, but WHY hasn't it been abolished. It has already been changed by the 12th Amendment, which means that change is indeed possible.
In case you need to have proof for how this really happened.
The process of states appointing senators was replaced by direct election by the 17th Amendment.
On the other hand, there is more talk about spurious "Russian influence" leading to Trump being president than actual discussion of the electoral college and how it distorts the results of the vote.
On the other hand, the reason the 17th Amendment was adopted was that there was media outcry about the corruption surrounding the appointment of Senators, especially after William A. Clark's bribing of the Montana State legislature came to light.
On the other hand, any discussion of the failures of the electoral college seem to be arcane or on blogs like this one. It is not the stuff the media feeds upon.
It is better to portray the US populace as being fools who would have elected Trump than to point out his victory was not from the democratic process. Instead it came from an arcane institution which few people understand.
The real issue isn't can it be changed, since it has been changed in the past. No, the real issue is can popular opinion be swayed in such a way that the system IS changed.
For those of you who still keep harping on "republic, not a democracy" despite both systems having the characteristic of choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections.
The Constitution not only provided for what would become the electoral college; it also made it so that senators were elected by state legislatures, not popularly elected. Getting rid of that provision was unlike the electoral college in that it went away quickly with the 17th Amendment, which brought about the direct election of senators.
Maybe that was because the appointment system was much more obvious in its abuse.
William A. Clark was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads. Although one could argue that calling him a politician was a bit of a stretch. That's because Clark's long-standing dream of becoming a United States Senator resulted in scandal in 1899 when it was revealed that he bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes.
Clark handed out envelopes with anywhere from $1,000-$3,000 dollars to the state legislators during the legislative session where he was appointed senator. According to the US Senate report on the investigation into this matter:
Clark's response in regard to his bribery of the Montana legislature is supposed to have been, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."
Bottom line was that there was a sense that senatorial elections were "bought and sold",
changing hands for favours and sums of money rather than because of the
competence of the candidate. Between 1857 and 1900, the Senate
investigated three elections over corruption, a number that included the investigation of Clark.
The Electoral college is much more problematic in that most people don't understand it and how it distorts the electoral process. Distortion of the elections from being free and fair means that one can't really argue that the electoral college is somehow a "republican institution". If anything, republicanism would require its abolition.
And it can be done since senators are no longer appointed by the states. The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution changed that and established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held.
The Constitution can be amended and changed to go with the times. It's time the electoral college went the way of legislators choosing senators.
First off, there are 2,250,000,000,000,000 possible outcomes with the Electoral College system! (Long explanation on that), but it didn't take too many states to flip for Trump to have won. That means it was a real gamble to run a candidate as unpopular as Clinton since there were no guarantees that New Hampshire, Nevada or Virginia wouldn't have voted for Trump. Or that Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin would vote for Clinton.
There were four states, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which were all decided by less than 1% in 2016, with Michigan the closest. That state was won by about .23% - that’s only 2,300 votes per one million votes cast. Donald Trump won three of these four states, none of which had been won by a Republican in a generation. Those 46 electoral votes put him across the 270 he needed to win. Interestingly, despite a fairly competitive election, only four states were decided by 5% or less in 2012; that number grew to 11 in 2016
The thing is that winning any of one of those four states would mean Trump would be President. Or that Trump's electoral college win could have been much higher! Remember the popular vote has no relation to the Electoral College numbers. All one needs is to get the largest number of votes to get ALL the Electoral College votes in most states.
There would still be a possibility that Trump could have been president even if all four of those states have voted for Clinton (and Delaware and Nevada had voted for Trump). That is because the Electoral College result would have been a tie (269-269). That means the election would be sent to the House of Representatives with each state delegation getting one vote (a similar activity takes place on the Senate side to pick the Vice-President). In the case of a tie, the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states (26) is needed to win. Senators would elect the Vice-President, with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (51) is needed to win.
It would have been highly likely in the case of a tie that the election would remain undecided after the Electors voted. That means Congress would meet in joint session on the first day in January to count the electoral votes (this count happens whether the election is close or not). If no candidate has reached 270 Electoral Votes, then the House and Senate take over and elect the President and Vice-President, respectively.
It seems likely Trump would have been president given the current US legislature is solidly Republican had there been a tie.
Toss in it is possible to win the Electoral College with only 11 States (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey). However, nobody has been elected President since 1900 by winning fewer than 23 states. (Take the quiz at 270towin to see where I got these figures)
Anyway, While the democratic party is responsible for picking a loser like Clinton, it seems to be more that the anti-democratic nature of the US elections needs to be addressed. After all, the only way the Russians could have influenced the US presidential election would be to have somehow created the Electoral College since that is what really put Trump in office.
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