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Thursday, November 10, 2016

Inequity In The Electoral College

Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out tonight on MSNBC that while Wyoming gets 3 electoral votes for its 586,000 residents, California gets 55 electoral votes for its 39 million. When the revered "founding fathers" drew up the constitution, California was part of Mexico, and the states that existed at the time had nothing like today's enormous population differences. If California were to be given representation in the electoral college equal to that of Wyoming, it would get 199 electoral votes.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote; she got nearly 2.5 million more votes than Donald Trump. She was denied the presidency -- as was Al Gore in 2000, the only other time it's happened since the 1800s -- because of the quirks of the electoral college.

If the winner of the popular vote won the presidency of the United States, with the exception of W's slim victory in 2004, Democrats would have taken every presidential election since Bill Clinton's first term in 1992, and Hillary Clinton would be president today.

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