Oh, the Post must have published my op-ed…
I’ve been back and forth with the Washington Post about an oped I submitted. I knew they were publishing it, though not sure when. My inbox this morning gives good evidence it was published last night.
Here’s the piece:
(If you agree, sign the petition at EqualCitizens.US?)
Here are some of the (publishable) emails, with some replies:
John writes:
You’re a fricking idiot.
No doubt.
J.U. writes:
Dear Professor Lessig,
While you make a cogent argument on why the electoral college should choose Hillary Clinton as president you leave out two very important points.
Firstly — if (like you say) the entire purpose of the electoral college was to make certain that the people do not elect a crazy person then why have the electoral college in its present form? All we would need is to have a popular vote and then have the electoral college confirm the vote.
In its “current form,” the College (as opposed to Congress) has only deviated from the “popular vote” twice—so, in practical effect, that’s what we have. But yes, more generally, excepting the extraordinary problem (fraud, criminal, etc.), I think they should vote the way candidates are nominated at a convention — a first vote to see who won, then a second vote to make it unanimous. For the electors, the first vote should be the popular vote; absent some reason to doubt that, their vote should make it unanimous.
Secondly — even if Trump had won both the popular vote and electoral college you would be making the same point. Nothing changed now that Hillary won the popular vote. In essence what you are saying is that the entire election needn’t have taken place at all.
Not true. When Bush beat Kerry, I argued Dems should let it go—because both pointed to the same result. (My blog archives are acting up just now; I’ll supply the link when they’re behaving).
Geoffrey writes:
You whining Libs just cant let it go can you? Were there no electoral college, candidates would campaign without regard to the states. You would have seen Trump campaign much harder in California and Clinton in Texas. This strategy could very well have had a significant impact on the popular vote and we could just as easily have seen the percentage swing to Trump’s side.
This argument—that the expectation the electoral college voters would not deviate from winner take all affected the strategy of the campaign—is a good one. For obvious reasons, I do understand the unfairness in moving the goal posts.
But that was the point Richard Briffault made in the piece I published here: There have been “faithless” electors in nine of the last 17 elections—“1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1988, 2000, and 2004.” Seems to me non-cog-like electors are baked into the existing system. My aim was to offer them a principled reason to exercise their judgment to support the winner of the popular vote.
Give it up Larry. You, Paul Krugman, and other liberals are looking like desperate fools with your weak attempts to de-legitimize the election results.
I should think the fact that the electors-as-cogs model will select as President the person not supported by a majority of the voters “de-legitimize[s]” the results all on its own.
We are, literally, the only “democracy” in the world that has a system by which an elected executive can be elected with a minority of the popular votes (and don’t start with the parliamentary democracies “counterexamples”—they are not democracies that give the public a direct vote on who the executive should be); (and PLEASE don’t start on the “we’re not a democracy; we’re a Republic” canard — yes, we’re “a Republic”, by which the Framers meant “a representative democracy”; a “representative democracy” is “democracy,” just like a “Ford truck” is a truck.)
Rob writes:
Congratulations! Your editorial just validated two, possibly three, of Ambrose Bierce’s cynical definitions. Obviously “qualified,” though, as it appears in your editorial, is used according to your own warped definition of the word.
If “qualified” means something other than “I (or you) happen to like her,” then I certainly stand by my claim: The breadth of her experience (not to mention the seriousness in the policies within her campaign) make her the most qualified candidate for President in a generation (at least!)
Perhaps the better solution would be to invite New York and California to secede from the Union. It’s a win-win proposition!
Can’t agree here: I’m a union man.
Then those of us who abide by both spirit and letter of law could have as our President the duly-elected candidate, and those of you skilled in circumvention of it could have yours!
Letter and spirit of what law? The actual Constitution? Me too.
A person from cfl.rr.com writes:
How can a man with so many credentials be so fucking stupid? Go to the Enquirer with your sensationalistic and propagandist bullshit.
Don’t get me started on stupid people with endless credentials. I’m with you brother. But alas, the Enquirer finds my stuff way too boring.
Bob writes:
Professor Lessig:
It’s obvious you have big time academic credential but it’s hard to understand how you think it’s appropriate to replaced one terribly flawed candidate, Donald Trump, with another with another flowed candidate Hillary Clinton.
…
Most Americans will agree Donald Trump shouldn’t be president. But that is no reason to support Hillary Clinton. The Republicans won the election in the Electoral College. There are many capable people from Paul Ryan on down.
I can’t agree that an Elector should pick someone other than Trump or Clinton. I get the argument they should; I get the claim many make that Trump is not qualified. But were I an elector, the fact that 62 million Americans disagreed with that argument would weigh heavily on me. My argument, however, does not depend on dissing Trump or his supporters. It depends on elevating the core principle of one person, one vote.
If the roles were reversed I’d say pick another Democrat.
And me too: If a Dem won the college but lost the popular vote, I’d say the same thing too.
Andy writes (a bunch of unpublishable stuff and then):
If we did what you want, then candidates would only campaign in New York and California.
Actually, if we abolished “winner take all” in every state, then candidates would have an incentive to campaign everywhere. The current system narrows the range of sensible campaign states to (at most) 10. Why does that make any sense?
Finally, following a bit of my writing on this before the oped, julian from India tweeted:
Fear not, they do (but no, I won’t tell you where we’re living!)
Ok, back to work. I remain hopeful the campaign to get the electors to recognize they are not meant to be cogs, but citizens will focus on the edifying, pro-democracy reasons for them to vote, and not the divisive, anti-trump reasons for them to vote. We need to respect 62 million votes, even if it isn’t 64 million votes. My only point is just that we should respect 64 million votes more.
