Why the 2016 Election Proves America Needs the Electoral College

Jarrett Stepman

Politics, Americas

In the last week since Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in a stunning electoral blowout, there have been calls from many on the left to abolish America’s unique presidential election system.

It still hasn’t been settled whether Trump or Clinton won the popular vote, but many Democrats are upset about the possibility that their candidate may have won more total votes, yet lost the election.

Progressives are taking aim at the Electoral College and want to replace it with a national popular vote. This would both remove the indirect mediation of the electors’ votes, and more damagingly, eliminate the power of states in choosing a president.

You can read my pre-election explanation of how the Electoral College works and why the Founding Fathers created it here. The 2016 presidential election is a perfect illustration of why America needs to keep this institution in place, regardless of whether one supported the winner or the loser in 2016.

The War on the Electoral College

A number of prominent people have called for abolishing the Electoral College, including President Barack Obama’s former attorney general Eric Holder, and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. And some of the media’s charges against the Electoral College have been hyperbolic.

One liberal professor called the Electoral College a “peculiar institution” and likened it to defending slavery, others simply labeled it racist, and one Slate writer denounced it as an “instrument of white supremacy—and sexism.”

Beyond the overheated rhetoric, detractors of the Electoral College have made two serious arguments.