An Electoral History

The election is finally over. I don't know about you, but I could use a break--sorry CNN, you've been temporarily black-listed (I'll miss you Wolf). Still, that doesn't mean we have to stop blogging, right? I hope not.

I thought it might be fun to take a stroll through some political history . . . you know, talk about politics without "talking politics." I found this really cool website (at least for politi-nerds like me) that contains detailed results of all of our country's presidential elections--way back to Mr. Washington himself. I thought I'd share some fun facts from the site:

• Washington won our very first election in 1789 with a total of 85.2% (69) of the electoral votes
• Washington did such a great job in his first term that he won re-election in 1972 with a whopping 97.8% (132) of the electoral votes
• Washington's 97.8% number surprisingly isn't the highest percentage of electoral votes earned. That award goes to FDR who received 98.5% (523) of the electoral votes in 1936
• Roosevelt's opponents in '36 were Alfred Landon (Republican), William Lemke (Union) and--check this out--Norman Thomas (Socialist). That's right, Socialist! And the guy got 0.41% of the popular vote...eat your heart out Obama (sorry, we're taking a break, I forgot)
• According to the site, on four occasions the winner of the election actually lost the popular vote: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush (by the narrowest of margins) in 2000

Speaking of electoral votes, you probably already know by now that, in this country, when we vote for our presidents we're actually voting for how we'd like our state's "electors" to vote. Each state has a certain number of these electors (based mostly on population) who meet on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their official ballots for president. These votes are then sealed and sent to Washington D.C. where they are read before a joint session of Congress in January.

While these electors generally vote based on the results of the popular vote in their respective states, they are not obligated to do so. Only two of these electors in recent history have voted to the beat of their own drum. A Republican elector voted for Reagan instead of Ford in '76 and another Republican voted for the Libertarian rather than Nixon in '72 . . . blasted Republican mavericks (oops, can't help it). However, such rogue electors have never decided the outcome of an election; then again, there is still hope for the faithful McCain supporters out there (that was the last one, I promise).

Why the electoral college in the first place? Why not a simple majority vote of the people? Well, the framers of the Constitution were worried that "the people" were too spread out and would not have access to enough information to make informed decisions about who should be president, so they didn't want to leave it completely in our hands. They also didn't want to leave it completely up to Congress, fearing that would shift the balance of power. And so our good friend Alexander Hamilton came up with a compromise that is essentially our current electoral college system. 

But what about now? Surely we have easy access to enough information such that we can make informed decisions (did I hear three cheers for The Citizen Post just then?), can't we move to a popular vote? Interesting question. More than 500 constitutional amendments have been introduced to alter the electoral college system. Obviously they've all failed. Partly because it's pretty hard to amend the Constitution, but also in part because a lot of people aren't too excited about changing the current system. Anyway, that's a debate for another time after we've all rested enough to be ready to start debating again.

Speaking of which, I hope that time comes soon for you, but if not, don't worry, take your time, we'll be here waiting when you're ready to come back.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Have ideas on how we can improve The Citizen Post? I'm all ears: thecitizenpost@gmail.com