March 27, 2017

The "majority of the popular vote" myth

And a proposal for Federal legislation

That Hillary won a majority of the individual votes cast in the last presidential election has been a huge talking point for the Donks.  They use it to justify their Fascist attacks on free speech and attacks on Trump generally.  But it is basically a fraudulent claim.  Donks use it to claim that Hillary had more support than Trump among the voters at large.  But it does not indicate that at all.

The key is that "votes cast" is only part of the story.  What about the non-voters?  Non-voters could be non-voters out of indifference but there is another large reason for non-voting. Take California. California gives ALL its electoral college votes to the candidate who won the majority of the popular vote in that State.  Other states send electors to the electoral college in proportion to the popular votes gained. So if a candidate got 55% of the popular vote, only 55% of the electoral college votes from that State would go to that candidate.

So what would a rational GOP supporter do in California on election day?  Stay home.  California is a solid Democrat state so there is no point in the GOP voter troubling himself on election day.  ALL the electoral college votes from CA will without fail go to the Donk candidate.

In other states, however, there is a BIG reason for a GOP voter to go out and vote.  The number of GOP voters who turn out will influence the makeup of the electoral college.  Even if a majority of the State's voters support the Donks, GOP voters in that State can still send a lot of GOP votes to the electoral college.

So nobody in fact knows how many people supported Hillary versus Trump.

But the imbalance between the popular vote and the electoral college vote certainly looks anti-democratic and that is deplorable.  So can anything be done to fix that situation?  It can.  Pass over-riding Federal legislation to wipe out the California practice. Oblige the States to give their electoral college votes in proportion to the poplar vote.  Had that been done in the recent election, Trump might well have gained a majority in the national popular vote.  There could have been a LOT of "discouraged" GOP voters in CA.

Footnote:  There is a distinction between the number of votes counted and the number of votes cast. States don’t count their absentee ballots unless the number of outstanding absentee ballots is larger than the state margin of difference. If there is a margin of 1,000 votes counted and there are 1,300 absentee ballots outstanding, then the state tabulates those. If the number of outstanding absentee ballots wouldn’t influence the election results, then the absentee ballots aren’t counted -- JR.




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