james madison

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Why We Don't Need a Constitutional Amendment To Undo the Electoral College

With the latest vote counts showing Hillary Clinton earning over 60.1 million votes to Donald Trump's 59.8 million here are protests in the streets and petitions online to pressure electoral college members to switch their votes to honor the popular vote count. As of this writing, more than 2 million people have signed a change.org petition calling on all electors to refuse to seat Donald Trump––1 million more signatories in just a day. But while those efforts are fervent, they are unlikely to persuade enough electors to actually do so: There has never been a revolt by the College in its entire history.

But there nevertheless is a very serious effort underway to effectively undo the Electoral College that would not require so-called faithless electors or an actual Constitutional Amendment. For some time, critics (now joined by million of petitioners) have argued that the Electoral College is an archaic institution that leaves America out of touch with modern democracies, where the national popular vote winner is always simply the winner. But getting a Constititional Amendment approved has always seemed highly unlikely. After all, the three-fourth majority of states needing to ratify it include many that would lose power without the college.

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