[EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary would be the winner

[Smith, Brad]

Richard,

There is pretty little reason to include 1824, when not every state even counted popular vote and the campaign was entirely different. In 1876 and 1888 the Republicans would have won the popular vote except for massive suppression of black votes and Republican votes more generally by the Democrats in the deep south. In each of those elections, the electoral college actually helped to make sure that the candidate actually favored by a majority of the populace actually won the election, by isolating the Democratic vote suppression and fraud.

Even in 2000 and 2016, the results will be close enough that one can't really know what would happen in a system in which each candidate would have very different incentives on how and where to campaign.

All of this points up that our electoral structure reflects values other than raw popular vote totals. At the same time, the popular vote usually carries the electoral college, and the system is designed to assure that no one without substantial and widespread popular support can be elected.


Bradley A. Smith

Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault

   Professor of Law

Capital University Law School

303 E. Broad St.

Columbus, OH 43215

614.236.6317

http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx

________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Richard Winger [richardwinger at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:17 AM
To: Election Law Listserv
Subject: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary would be the winner

With the greatest number of uncounted votes in California, Oregon, and Washington, by far, states that are very strong for Clinton, it is clear to me that she will have approximately 1,000,000 more popular votes than Donald Trump.

The Democratic Party has been the victim of the electoral college five times now:  1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016

Democrats should have been concentrating on passing the national popular vote plan instead of focusing on campaign finance reform.  Clinton's side spent far more money than Trump's side.  We should get over the idea that voters always vote for the candidate with the most spending.

Another reform Democrats should have been working for is instant runoff voting.  Yet just a few weeks ago Jerry Brown vetoed the California bill to expand instant runoff voting.

Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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