Hillary wanted to abolish Electoral College

We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.

Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke those words opening her victory tour of upstate New York in 2000. The outcome of the election was still hanging by a chad in Florida (get it?). Al Gore won the popular vote clearly, though not handily, with a half-million vote advantage. George W. Bush maintained a lead of less than a thousand votes in Florida.

Sixteen years later it doesn’t seem much has changed. Hillary will carry the popular vote — aka get the most votes — but lose the election. Think about that: In 2 of the past 5 elections the person who received the most votes did not actually win.

Politicians and people promised to fix the system after the 2000 election debacle. We didn’t. Obama also proposed ending the Electoral College. He promised to “fix” our system after problems in 2008 and 2012. Nothing happened. Even the 2004 election was riddled with problems in Ohio. It was another case, like Florida in 2000, where the Secretary of State, in charge of elections, was also a State Chair for George W. Bush. Voters in urban areas faced massive lines in bad weather while perfectly good voting machines sat in warehouses.

Of course, none of these small state issues would matter, or at least they would matter less if we actually lived in a democracy. But progressives and Democratic leaders never made real reform a priority. As a result, we get President Trump.