American Consequences - June 2018

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their electors – but we’ll let Mainers and Nebraskans worry about that.) And there is such a thing as a “faithless elector,” who doesn’t vote for the candidate to whom he or she is pledged. In the 2016 Electoral College proceedings, Colin Powell received three votes and John Kasich, Ron Paul, Faith Spotted Eagle, and Bernie Sanders received one each – arguably (Bernie Sanders excepted) more sensible choices than what was pledged. Being sensible like that is against the law in some states and not in others. But the law has never been tested, and, in the history of American presidential elections, faithless electors have never affected an Electoral College outcome. (Probably a relief to Colin Powell.) The operation of the Electoral College is complicated, but the effect is simple: It gives the parts of America with a thin head-count more say over who becomes president than they would have if only thick heads were counted. However, before we discuss whether this is a good thing or a bad thing (although it’s obviously a good thing), let us first not discuss the 2016 presidential election.

n an American presidential election, voters do not – oddly enough – vote for a presidential candidate. They vote for an “elector” who is “pledged” to vote for that candidate. As per rules set down in the U.S. Constitution, the president of the United States is elected by an institution called the Electoral College, which we all had explained to us in a high school civics class, which we slept through. For simplicity’s sake – and to keep us from going to sleep again – let’s just say that each state gets a number of electors in the Electoral College equal to the state’s number of congressmen plus two (its number of senators). The District of Columbia also gets three electors, whether it deserves to or not. (Given the quality of governance in Washington, D.C., it doesn’t.) Thus, the Electoral College has 538 electors, and the presidential candidate who receives the majority of their votes becomes president. Acquiring electors in each state is mostly a matter of winner-take-all. The candidate with the most votes gets the state’s Electoral College votes. (Maine and Nebraska can split

By P.J. O'Rourke

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THE ELECTORAL While it’s true that a certain person – who insists on repeatedly, constantly, endlessly reminding us – won the “popular vote” (or

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