Richard Hagerty: It was an ‘excellent’ system that gave us President Trump

All the clamor over the fact that Hillary Clinton “won” the popular vote overlooks the reality that the election is won and lost in the Electoral College – not in the popular vote tally.

The United States of America is not a true democracy. It is a federal republic. This recognizes that it is one nation, comprised of 50 separate entities, each of which makes its own laws and functions in distinct difference to adjoining states.

The framers of the original Constitution carefully crafted the Electoral College out of fear that a few large states might dominate the outcome of presidential elections. Indeed, four of the first five presidents were from the same state, Virginia. Thus they granted to each state voting power equal to both population and individual state status.

Removing the Electoral College means amending the Constitution. This requires 38 state legislatures to agree with the proposal. And, looking at the recent electoral map results, you can easily see that more than 30 states are probably quite satisfied with the results, as tabulated. In the words of Alexander Hamilton, key creator of the Electoral College, if the system “be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Richard Hagerty: It was an ‘excellent’ system that gave us President Trump."