11. Final Words

Like everyone else, I got caught up in the possibility that the Electoral College might do its job and actually elect a qualified President. It was never a plausible scenario, and it didn’t happen. In the end, only two Trump electors defected, whereas five Clinton supporters did. (Three of the Clinton electors voted for Collin Powell so that there would be a compromise candidate in place, in the unlikely event that no candidate won a majority and the House of Representatives had to decide.)
 

In the process, for the first time, watching CNN and MSNBC all day, we actually got to see the Electors, who apparently are real people! Several Trump Electors actually spoke on TV and made a good point. The voters in their states chose Trump well aware of his good and bad points, and these Electors felt a responsibility to follow the will of the voters.
 

Several pro-Clinton commentators, such as Law Professor Joshua Douglas on CNN, also made good points, with which I reluctantly agree: Two hundred years of precedent have led to the expectation that the Electoral College will simply ratify the choice of the voters in each state. Trump voters would be understandably enraged if this tradition was overturned, which would lead to a President whose legitimacy was open to question. It might even lead to a constitutional crisis, since there’s no consensus as to whether Electors have the discretion to vote the way they want. Different states have different rules, and the constitutionality of these rules has never been tested.
 

The only circumstance under which the Electors might make up their minds, the commentators say, is if the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate dies. Well, maybe not even then.  This scenario occurred in the final season of the West Wing when actor John Spencer died. As a result, his character, Leo McGarry, then a vice presidential candidate, also died. When Matt Santos won the presidency, he wrestled with whether to recommend a new vice president to the Electoral College, or whether to wait until he took office and nominate someone under the 25th Amendment. He sought out the advice of his opponent, Arnold Vinick, and concurred with Vinick’s strong recommendation:

You can’t let 272 people no one has ever heard of elect a vice president of the United States of America. You’re going to have an unelected VP, and you’ve got to at least let the democratically elected representatives of the people vote for him. You have to submit the name for congressional confirmation. You’ve got to go through an open process, a public process that the people understand and accept.

He’s got some good points. As voters we have no idea who we are choosing as Presidential Electors. They are not even listed on the ballot (see top of post). In Massachusetts, Electors are people we never heard of, apparently party insiders rewarded for their loyalty.
 

So the Electoral College is of no use even in the rare circumstances of an unfit candidate like Trump –or even the case of a dead candidate. It’s only purpose seems to be to distort the will of the people, diminishing the votes of Democrats and minorities. It’s time for a change.