Electoral College may be last salvation to block Trump from
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 11:31 amElectoral College may be last salvation to block Trump from taking office
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By Amy Goodman Denis Moynihan | December 15, 2016
Donald Trump continues to shock the world as he endlessly fires off derogatory, lie-laden tweets and nominates generals and fossil-fuel zealots to his cabinet posts. Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote has climbed to 2.8 million votes, yet Trump retains his lead in electoral votes with 306 to Clinton's 232. The disparity has many questioning the existence of the Electoral College, just as Trump did on election night in 2012, when he mistakenly thought Mitt Romney was winning the popular vote but losing to Barack Obama in the electoral vote count. Trump tweeted, "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy." Oddly, now, many among those who reject Trump's victory see the Electoral College as the last salvation to block Donald Trump from taking office.
The Electoral College meets Dec. 19, when its 538 members cast their votes. The hope of many Trump opponents is that at least 37 Republican electors, slated to vote for Trump, will vote for someone else. This would leave Trump with 269 electoral votes or less, not enough to be declared president. The decision to choose the president would then fall to the U.S. House of Representatives. This extraordinary twist in presidential politics has only happened once in U.S. history, back in 1824.
The Electoral College was established with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, and refined by the 12th Amendment in 1804. In essence, people on Election Day don't directly elect the president; rather, the people vote on how their state's electors will cast their votes. In most of the 50 states, it's a winner-take-all process: Whoever wins the popular vote in a given state gets all that state's electoral votes.
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[ http://rabble.ca/columnists/2016/12/ele ... M.facebook ]
[ http://rabble.ca/columnists/2016/12/ele ... M.facebook ]
By Amy Goodman Denis Moynihan | December 15, 2016
Donald Trump continues to shock the world as he endlessly fires off derogatory, lie-laden tweets and nominates generals and fossil-fuel zealots to his cabinet posts. Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote has climbed to 2.8 million votes, yet Trump retains his lead in electoral votes with 306 to Clinton's 232. The disparity has many questioning the existence of the Electoral College, just as Trump did on election night in 2012, when he mistakenly thought Mitt Romney was winning the popular vote but losing to Barack Obama in the electoral vote count. Trump tweeted, "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy." Oddly, now, many among those who reject Trump's victory see the Electoral College as the last salvation to block Donald Trump from taking office.
The Electoral College meets Dec. 19, when its 538 members cast their votes. The hope of many Trump opponents is that at least 37 Republican electors, slated to vote for Trump, will vote for someone else. This would leave Trump with 269 electoral votes or less, not enough to be declared president. The decision to choose the president would then fall to the U.S. House of Representatives. This extraordinary twist in presidential politics has only happened once in U.S. history, back in 1824.
The Electoral College was established with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, and refined by the 12th Amendment in 1804. In essence, people on Election Day don't directly elect the president; rather, the people vote on how their state's electors will cast their votes. In most of the 50 states, it's a winner-take-all process: Whoever wins the popular vote in a given state gets all that state's electoral votes.
MORE:
[ http://rabble.ca/columnists/2016/12/ele ... M.facebook ]