In
its zeal to abolish the Electoral College, the New York Times has chosen to repeat the
falsehood that the institution was created to protect the interests of
the slave-holding states.
In
a December 19 article entitled "Time to End the Electoral College," the
newspaper argues that the Electoral College is an “antiquated
mechanism” for electing the president. And of course in support of its
position, it makes the usual arguments, such as that Americans would
prefer to elect the president by popular vote. “For most reasonable
people, it’s hard to understand why the loser of the popular vote
should wind up running the country,” the Times insists.
Taking
that sentence apart, the writer insinuates that anyone who favors
keeping the Electoral College is not a “reasonable” person. Second, the
writer implies that Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Times' preferred candidate, won the popular vote.
Considering that candidates — including Clinton — are not
campaigning to win the popular vote, but rather the Electoral
College vote,
the “popular vote” is not necessarily indicative of what it would have
been if the candidates were trying to win it. After all, a football
game plan would be quite different if field goals counted four points
instead of three, or if total yardage were the way a winner was
determined, rather than touchdowns, field goals, and safeties. Besides
all that, it takes a majority of the electoral vote to
win the presidency, not just a plurality. Clinton did run first in the
popular vote, but she did not win
a majority of the popular vote. If the country opted to go to a popular
vote system, one would think that we would want a candidate who
actually won a majority of that vote, that is, if the “will of the
majority” is considered so important to detractors of the Electoral
College, such as the New
York Times.
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