The Electoral College Is A Fatal Flaw In The American Constitutional System

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

A recent Federal court ruling says individual Electors are free agents. So, in real terms, the only thing stopping them from voting for whomever the wish is their personal affinity for the party they represent.

Given that Electors are pretty much just average people, it is inevitable that a faithless Elector — or two — is going to put a spanner into the democratic process sooner rather than later. Given how divided America is, I don’t see this problem being fixed any time soon, no matter what happens.

So, I could see Trump losing the 2020 election only to win the Electoral College because he personally doxed them all. I could see the entire Republican Party attacking individual after the actual popular vote to such an extent that the whole thing is at least thrown into the House where Republicans probably would have a decent shot of winning.

The whole nation being divided thing makes it almost impossible to get rid of the Electoral College long after it’s proven to be a fatal flaw in our entire Constitutional system. In fact, the only way I could see any reform on the matter is if the Electoral College went rouge en masse. If someone who wasn’t from either one of the major parties won, then I think both sides would suddenly have a reason to work together to fix the issue.

Now, the one thing about the power of the Electoral College is it’s a lot like quantum physics. The actual use of the human being that make up the Electoral College to stymie the will of the people is so profound that there’s no way of knowing what would happen. Legally, we’re stuck with whomever the Electoral College picks. That’s it. Once they vote, that’s the president. The only exception is a tie, whereby it goes to the House where the states vote by delegation. Each state gets only one vote.

The average person is simply not prepared for what would happen if the Electoral College went rouge. I don’t have an easy answer for what the reaction would be. Really, the only bright spot of saying Electors are free agents is you never know when that might come in handy. The Electoral system is so bad in modern terms that there are a few scenarios one could think up whereby you might want free agent Electors. One is the idea the Russians might brazenly hack the election in 2020. If they do so in a really brazen fashion, the idea that Electors might vote for who _actually_ won once we looked into things is at least something to make you feel a little better.

But I just don’t see the 2020 election being normal. In fact, I think it is probably going to be the last proof we need that the United States is no longer a democracy. In the end, I’m afraid, no matter what the popular vote, Trump will be sworn in for a second term

A surreal combination of demographics, power and money make it nearly inevitable that until something really wild happens, we’re going to have autocratic Republican presidents for the next few decades. The America that I grew up in is gone. We’re now much like the Roman Empire in its early days when it refused to accept that it was, in fact, an empire.

Republicans are going to remake America at last. In fact, I would go so far as to say the only thing that may save us is the apolitical nature of the US Military. It may be that a junta has to step in at some point. That may, in fact, be the only thing that keeps the country together in the end. Otherwise, the country is going to split apart — peacefully or otherwise.

Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

Leave a Reply