Democrats go after the Electoral College only when they lose: Analyst

Only 538 people, those chosen by the two main US political parties, deciding the presidential election is reason enough to abolish the Electoral College, according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist.

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, told Press TV in an interview on Friday that Democrats go after the Electoral College only when they lose.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the many Democrats running for 2020 US presidential election, has joined a partisan push to scrap the Electoral College, the constitutional entity tasked with electing US presidents, in order to prevent President Donald Trump from repeating his controversial 2016 victory.

The current election system in the US overrides the popular vote, which gives the victory to the candidate winning the most ballots, in favor of a so-called winner-take-all mechanism.

This means the Electoral College with its 538 electors across different states, who are chosen based on each state’s representation in Congress, is liable for electing the chief executive.

Despite losing the popular vote to his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, by a significant margin, Trump still won the 2016 White House race in a 304-227 electoral vote landslide. The threshold for winning presidency is 270 electoral votes.

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“Eliminating the Electoral College seems only to be in vogue when the process works against the Democrats,” said Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress.

“In 2000, through a rigged election in Florida, George Bush beat the candidate with more popular votes because they were more efficient at being corrupt. However, that Gore lost his own state and President Clinton’s doesn’t seem to affect their way of thinking that they were robbed of the presidency through the Electoral College. That more Democrats voted for Bush in Florida than Gore made no difference in their wrath either, and of course they could always blame the Green Party’s minimal performance for such a lousy end result for them,” he told Press TV.

“Fast forward to 2016 and after picking the only candidate who could lose to Trump they find once again the Electoral College as their bogeyman. That Clinton lost the election that she and her party rigged is embarrassing enough, but to prevent that from happening again they’re targeting the Electoral College. That Clinton also did not campaign in the EC states that did her in is not to be mentioned, or they would have to do some quick shuffling of logic to respond in a way only the media could accept as reasonable,” he added.  

“The Electoral College is an anachronism, a throwback to post-revolutionary days. Small states can be made mathematically insignificant when having to stand up to the powers of states like New York and California, strong Democratic Party strongholds. We’re seeing that a number of states are passing laws that their electors can only vote for the one who wins a plurality nation-wide, again pitting small states against giants,” he noted.

“There is never a guarantee who would win a state’s electoral votes when some states’ electors are not required to vote the way their state goes. In a sense, only 538 people, those chosen by the two main parties, decide presidential elections every 4 years. Isn’t that reason enough to abolish the Electoral College?” the analyst asked in his concluding remarks.  

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