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As I See It

Election outcome no reason to scrap Electoral College

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America’s democracy is built on the principle of one person, one vote. Yet, when the votes were counted in the recent election, Donald Trump was awarded the office of President of the United States. That is despite the fact that Hillary Clinton captured more overall votes than Trump. Clinton earned just over 60 million votes, while Trump earned just over 59 million. But who is elected President is determined not by the popular vote, but by the Electoral College. Under that system, Trump is the winner. Now some are revisiting calls for scrapping the Electoral College, and determining the winner based on the popular vote. That would be a mistake. While it is logical to argue that whoever gets the most votes should win, period, scrapping the Electoral College wouldn’t make for a better election system. If winners were based on the popular vote, many states like Wisconsin wouldn’t be in play. Candidates would only have to focus on the big cities on the campaign trail. They would ignore Wisconsin, at least outside of Milwaukee and Madison. Instead, our President would be campaigning only in places like New York, California and Chicago. It may be frustrating that the winner of our presidential election didn’t get the most votes, but the system we have now is still better than a return to the popular vote.

Scott Robert Shaw serves as WIZM Program Director and News Director, and delivers the morning news on WKTY, Z-93 and 95.7 The Rock. Scott has been at Mid-West Family La Crosse since 1989, and authors Wisconsin's only daily radio editorial, "As I See It" heard on WIZM each weekday morning and afternoon.

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