good for country

Why is it fair that Donald Trump won the election when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote? This is not a Republican or Democrat issue — it is simply wrong to use the popular vote to elect a president. Here’s why.

The founders of our country created the Electoral College to ensure individual states were fairly represented. Otherwise one or two densely populated areas would speak for the whole of the nation. It was not created as a device to favor any political affiliation — it was created as a system of checks and balances to guard against any small vocal area, with a specific agenda, from speaking for the whole of the nation.

There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Trump won 3,084 of them, Clinton won 57.

There are 62 counties in New York State. Trump won 46 of them, Clinton 16.

Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.

In the five counties that encompass New York City, Clinton received well over two million more votes than Trump. In other words, these five counties alone nearly accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote for the entire country.

These five counties are 319 square miles in size. The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles. When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election.

Large, densely populated cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles do not, and should not, speak for the rest of our country, and somehow the geniuses who founded our country understood this and created a system to avoid that circumstance.

This is the supreme importance of the Electoral College.

Jack Gagnon

Lakeville