Why The Popular Vote Does Not Matter - and Never Has

As we approach the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, there has been a lot of people claiming he is not legitimate because he lost the "popular vote". Such people either have not read the Constitution, or do not understand it, because the Constitution makes it clear that the "popular vote" is only consequential on a state-by-state basis. It is not, and never has been a national vote.

To clarify, the residents of a state would vote for the candidate they want in office. The popular vote in that state determines only which candidate their own electors will vote for. This popular vote is not supposed to have any impact on a national scale other than the power of their electors in the Electoral College.

Take New Hampshire as an example, which has 4 electoral votes. The voters of New Hampshire cast their votes for the candidate of their choice. If, for example, the plurality of voters vote for the Democrat candidate, the state's four electors would cast their ballots for the Democrat. And the popular vote of NH will have no impact beyond that, and is not counted along with the votes of other states - at least not for purposes of electing the President.

In other words, there is not one, national popular vote count. Instead, there are 50 separate popular votes. They do not get added together for election purposes. NH votes go to the NH electors; and Florida votes go to Florida electors. One does not affect the other.

Now for the reason behind this.

The Founders determined rather quickly that if a President were elected by a popular vote on a national scale, one or two heavily populated states would forever control the entire country, and we would not have a government of, by and for the people. The people of Boston and Philadelphia would rule over all the states, particularly those in the south. They decided, for the sake of fairness, that there should be electors from each state, and the popular vote in each state, separately, would determine how their state votes. No state would have the power to affect how other states vote.

Right now, California has 55 electors because the state is so large. If their popular vote could be combined with other populous states like New York, 48 states would never be represented.

And that is why the popular vote does not, and never has determined an election. The Electoral college does that, on a state-by-state basis, giving each state a fair shot at helping to choose who sits in the Oval Office.

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