Some food for thought for those who question the validity of the Electoral College…
These last 5 days have been excruciatingly slow for our nation, but do you realize that California has only tallied 3/4 of their votes? New York is a little better, with 84%, but between those two states alone they represent over 6 million uncounted votes – Biden’s current margin of victory is 4 million votes. Tonight while people are celebrating (or lamenting), every state is still counting votes.
A big part of what took the press so long in calling this election was waiting for a threshold state (Penn, Nevada) that would build up a large enough margin that wouldn’t trigger a recount. In keeping with the spirit of our republic, the Electoral College dispersed power and accountability, sharing it across multiple states.
As with all things government, the Electoral College is not perfect, but I would ask those who may not fully understand it from assuming that it’s without virtue. There are other tweaks that could be made (e.g. revising winner-take-all) could offer a compromise for many concerns.
Lastly, I wanted to share a chart of Swing States and Tipping Point states from the last 5 elections prior to 2020. There are definitely the usual suspects, but you may be surprised just how many states have had this status over the last 20 years.
