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| BIDEN: Will confirm next month that Trump won |
I’m all for anything that gives the public a better comprehension of the processes by which we elect people to public office. Yet it disturbs me that it takes instances of screw-ups for the bulk of us to show any instance in learning the lessons.
I
BELIEVE WE’D be better as a society if we put some serious thought into who we
choose to hold public office. Yet we don’t. In fact, some of us seriously
resent the notion that public office even exists, and that people like me think
they ought to be thinking about it.
Seriously,
I suspect that most of us remember the term “Electoral College” as something
that came up in a high school class taken long ago that they promptly let slip
from their memories. I’m sure that upcoming party with a beer keg was more
interesting, and the alcoholic consumption probably killed off the brain cells
that once contained government details.
So
it takes an instance where a presidential candidate takes nearly 2.9 million more
votes than her opponent, yet loses under the rules we have in place, to get
people to think seriously about the Electoral College – which personally is
something I consider to be an obsolete concept.
It
was created at a time when the Founding Fathers believed the public (or at
least the white, male portion of it) would not know enough to properly pick a
president. So they were supposed to pick learned people to represent them, and
those people would pick the president.
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| TRUMP: He and Bush beneficiaries of quirks |
THE
ELECTORAL COLLEGE process has evolved since then into one where the electors
are supposed to represent the mood of the people of their state. The electors
who gathered in Springfield on Monday were Democratic partisans who made sure
Illinois will go into the history books as a sensible place that resisted the
rancid rhetoric and twittish Tweets of one Donald J. Trump.
But
no one seriously expected any significant numbers of electors to change their
stances. I suspect those who were chosen to back Trump’s campaign are taking
pride in being able to say they gave us “President Donald J. Trump,” and probably
think it was a sense of cosmic justice that their guy “won” despite losing the
popular vote!
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| BUSH: Is he embarrassed by any tie to Trump? |
All
of this means that come Jan. 6, when Congress holds its joint session to
formally affirm the Electoral College count taken Monday, I suspect there will
be at least one (probably more) political pundit eager to proclaim the look of
depression on Joe Biden’s face (don’t forget, he serves as Senate president) when
he has to formally announce that Trump really will be Number 45 in the line of
men who served as U.S. president.
Anybody
who was paying attention in school would have learned about this lengthy
process that leads up to the naming of a new president – although I’m sure
there are those for whom this is new.
AND
ALSO SOME who are upset that the unofficial vote count from back on Nov. 8 didn’t
just make the whole thing official.
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| CLINTON: How many non-voters overcome Trump? |
Just
as I’m sure there were people who back in 2000 couldn’t comprehend the need for
another vote count to answer questions about the one in Florida that first gave
the state’s electors to Al Gore, then to George W. Bush, and left enough
questions in the public’s minds that there are people who will forevermore
think we don’t know what it was that Florida voters intended to do. Because a ballot's intent isn't always blatantly obvious.
Of
course, understanding the process is one thing. Actually getting off one’s duff
and casting a ballot is all the more important. Because of the evidence that
certain segments of the electorate that might have been disgusted by the
concept of “President Trump” were too lazy to bother to vote at all.
As
odd as it might sound that Clinton needed more than her 2.86 million lead in
votes to actually win this election cycle, that is the reality of our current
system. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we will be!
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