<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">One of the most significant accomplishments of the 2016 presidential election is the realization by many voters that there is an Electoral College that decides the eventual outcome. In my many years of covering politics, I can’t remember another time when the 538 members of the college gained so much widespread publicity.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Extremely disappointed Democrats felt certain Hillary Clinton, their candidate, had the presidency in the bag, so they are having a difficult time accepting the outcome. Their extreme dislike of Republican Donald Trump, who did win, promises we may have a divided government for at least the next four years.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The irony in all of this is the fact Democrats had chastised Trump, who refused to say during the last debate whether he would accept the eventual outcome. Celebrities and other Democratic Party members then led the fight to try and sway electors to vote for Clinton or some other Republican.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Every effort failed completely when the electors met in their state capitals Monday and cast their votes. In fact, more Clinton electors defected than Republicans. With 270 electoral votes needed to win, Trump picked up 306 votes on Nov. 8 to 232 for Clinton. After Monday’s vote, Trump had 304 and Clinton had 227.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The seven electors who didn’t cast their expected votes Monday are called “faithless electors.” Two Trump electors from Texas defected and voted for John Kasich of Ohio and Ron Paul of Kentucky. Three of the five Clinton defectors voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one each for Native American tribal leader Faith Spotted Eagle and Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who opposed Clinton for the Democratic nomination.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There have been 167 faithless electors since the Electoral College was founded in 1787, but they have never decided the outcome. Of the 167, 71 voted for someone else because the original candidate died before the electors voted, 3 abstained and the other 93 changed votes on their own initiative, according to Fair Vote, a non-partisan group.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Although the elector furor is over, the next president isn’t actually officially declared the winner until a joint session of Congress convenes at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6. Vice President Joe Biden will open the electoral votes from each state in alphabetical order. He will pass the votes to four tellers — two from the House and two from the Senate — who announce the results. Biden at the end of the count will declare Trump as the next president.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Disappointed Democrats often cite Alexander Hamilton, a founding father who, as Politico reported, “envisioned a free-flowing debate in which electors followed the dictates of their own conscience, rather than the will of the voters who chose them — a debate not so different than the one waged by anti-Donald Trump electors to block his election as president.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It comes as no surprise that the election of Trump has renewed a call for electing presidents by popular vote, particularly since Clinton picked up nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Justin Nelson, a constitutional lawyer and founder of One Nation, One Vote, and others are urging states to adopt a plan to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The idea has already been approved in 10 states and Washington, D.C., which represent 165 electoral votes. Another 105 electoral votes would be needed to achieve that goal.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Amy Sherman of PolitiFact, a fact-checking website run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, asked in a Nov. 17 story if states could really do an end run around the Electoral College system as One Nation, One Vote is suggesting.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sherman said amending the Constitution to do that would be difficult. It requires a two-thirds vote by the House and Senate and support from three-fourths (38) of the states. She said since that is a high threshold, popular vote advocates are looking for other paths.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Derek Muller, a Pepperdine University law professor, told PolitiFact awarding electoral votes to the popular vote winner would be an end run around the Electoral College as opposed to abolishing it. He said electors would still vote, but they would be operating in a different way.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The 10 states that have approved the idea are California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Sherman said those are blue (Democratic) states and experts say it is unlikely that enough red (Republican) states would sign on to reach the 270 electoral votes required.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Even if they did, Sherman said there is every indication Congress would have to sign off on the idea. She added the Constitution says and courts have ruled that if federal supremacy is threatened, congressional consent is required.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sherman concluded, “If enough states ever sign on, the plan would likely face a court challenge, with the Supreme Court getting to rule on whether the plan passes constitutional muster. That’s a future scenario we can’t predict.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Clinton became the fifth Democratic presidential candidate in the nation’s history to lose the election even though she received more popular votes than Trump. The others were Andrew Jackson in 1824, Samuel Tilden in 1876, Grover Cleveland in 1888 and Al Gore in 2000.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Dissatisfaction with the Electoral College system is nothing new, but the furor over the 2016 election has been historic. The system has withstood the tests of time, but the record of the Trump presidency could say a lot about what happens in the future.</span><p>(MGNonline)</p>