David Benkof Dismantles the Popular Vote Claim

If you're a party-line partisan, you're going to have disagreements with Benkof, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, or belong to another party. I wouldn't call myself a party-line partisan, but I'm in the conservative camp consistently enough that I don't always agree with Benkof. To his credit, Benkof seeks out thoughtful disagreement, which makes his arguments better. Because of these things, I'm happy when he writes something with which I can completely agree that makes arguments I hadn't grasped before.

His latest column at the Daily Caller is an example. It is provocatively titled "The Popular Vote Is A Hoax." As he says in the column, he voted for Secretary Clinton, but his fellow HRC voters need to stop pointing to her winning the "popular vote".

Preposterously, since the election some leading Democrats have been calling the Electoral College racist and even akin to slavery. But usually leftists argue the opposite – that popular vote systems are racist, not those that count by jurisdictions. Heavily Democratic California passed a voting-rights law in 2001 that allowed minority groups to sue cities with “at-large” systems of electing councilmembers. Supporters of such laws argue that citywide systems (the popular vote) stifle minority voices, and thus only Electoral College-like district elections ensure racial fairness.

This is a very important point. I have been a witness to local governments in California being subjected to lawsuits and other objections that demand voting districts. An example is that a city might have five councilmembers and only one or none of "Latino ancestry" even though about half of the city's population fits into that category. This is seen as evidence of a problem, even though it presumes that 1) all of those residents are citizens, 2) all of those citizens vote; 3) they only vote for people of Latino ancestry. Anyway, the point is, it has been decided that each district needs representation.

Of course people will object and that mayors are often elected by citywide popular vote and districts elect members of the House of Representatives, rather than having all voters decide every member of the House. Yes, but we have to remember our nation is a union of states. Those states are republics or commonwealths that have always retained some powers, some degree of sovereignty. This is why the voters of each state elect their own Governor, Senators, and certain other statewide offices rather than having them appointed by Congress and/or the President. It is the states that collectively elect the President, not a direct national popular vote. We are a union of states, not a centralized government with 50 divisions called states, plus districts and territories.

Not that it matters much, because a popular-vote constitutional amendment would probably be unconstitutional. That seeming absurdity dates to a wrinkle the Founding Fathers ironed out in drafting the Constitution. The Electoral College is based on the two-chamber legislative structure known as the Connecticut Compromise, which gave big states like Virginia representation by population in the House; and small states like New Jersey an equal voice in the Senate.

After that careful balancing act, the Founders froze their hard work with the only permanent exception to the provision allowing constitutional amendments: that the Connecticut Compromise could not be repealed without the consent of every affected state (look it up: Article V).

How many of you were ever taught about this?!? Whine all you want about smaller or less populous states having a disproportionate influence; this was the contract to which the states agreed. Without this conditions, we literally would not have the country we do. Some states would not have joined the union. They joined, at least in part, because of what the Constitution assured.

In fact, the nominees themselves might very well have been different without the Electoral College. Candidates garner primary endorsements, volunteers, donations, and votes based mostly on their case that they would be the strongest nominee in November – under the rules of the Electoral College. Marco Rubio, to take one example, may have looked like a stronger 2016 nominee under a popular vote system, because votes from his fellow Latinos in Texas and California would matter, whereas they barely register in the Electoral College. If Trump – or Hillary – had lost the nomination, what relevance would her 2.7 million-vote margin have then?

Read it all.

Secretary Clinton and President-elect Trump, and every other candidate, entered the race under the understanding and implicit agreement that the Electoral College is how we choose our President.