As I write this, there is currently a petition going around on change.org, which already has over 3.6 million signatures. The sole purpose of the petition is to change the electoral vote for this recent presidential election. As of late, I've seen this petition gain well over 2 million signatures in just the past few days. Already is this a strong sign that the people, that they desire a clear change within the presidency. Now, I don't like either of this candidates and I like to put some faith in our political system, and by extension the electoral vote.
The way the electoral vote works is that each state has electors, and they typically vote the way their state votes. So, for example, if a state voted republican the electoral's would vote republican. However, the electors are allowed to vote however they chose. But if they do not, it looked upon very unfavorably. These are known as a "Faithless elector", and several states have laws that go against this. Although, they have never been enforced. Recent examples of these include the 2000 and the 2004 election.
In the 2000 case, the elector representative from Washington, D.C refused to cast any electoral votes as a protest against the system. And in 2004, in Minnesota, an elector cast their vote for the wrong candidate, although this has been written up as an accident.
The goal of this petition is to allow the electoral to vote however they want to vote, or in this case allow them to vote for Hillary Clinton. As previously mentioned, the electors are more than allowed vote for whoever they want to. But the electors who are chosen are often very loyal to their political party.
The whole purpose of this petition is to allow the electors to vote for Clinton, breaking their promises to their own parties. Clinton did win the popular vote in this election, and as such people see this as the biggest injustice given how Trump won the electoral vote.
Historically speaking, four presidents have lost the popular vote but still managed to win the electoral vote. The most recent of these is the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Now, I'm going to speak hypothetically, for a minute that this petition is a success and Trump loses the upcoming electoral vote on December, 19th. This could very well change how the future of the presidential election.
This is petition is asking us to ignore the electoral vote and instead follow the popular vote. Let's say in 2020, we find ourselves in a very similar situation. Would we do this again? Each state went to a specific party, and as such the electors are pledged to vote the way the state is supposed to. If we grant our electors the power for the other party or however they want, then voting becomes pointless. We vote for our electors, and they vote for the party which won the state.
In my opinion, I see this as something that can dangerously impact our society and rights as Americans. What's to stop the 2020 candidates from arguing for this sort of thing again? If the electors vote however they want, then what's the point of us voting? We elect them, and they elect the president. If this goes through, it'll potentially change the entire voting system. This could lead to the end of the electoral vote and we use just the popular vote, or we allow the electors to vote however we want which makes the president's appealing to the citizens pointless, they would just need to appeal to the 538 electors.
This petition, if it is successful is going to be a massive potential issue for the future of the presidential election. I don't know what to expect, this petition could very easily be ignored, but if it gathers enough signatures it could very well force something to change.
What are those changes? My instincts tell me it isn't going to be something good.
