I have had almost 50 “Letters to the Editor” published in local papers in Sarasota, Florida. I have submitted many other great letters that were never published. This is my best LTE that was never published.
I want to shake Hillary Clinton’s hand because she finally broke the ultimate glass ceiling for women’s rights in 2016. Yes, she did not win the presidential election(twice), but the country now accepts that a woman can be president. Our daughters growing up today believe they can be anything they want, even president, because of Hillary Clinton.
Hillary did not lose the election because she was a woman. She lost because the Electoral College gave the presidency to the candidate that had the most Electoral College votes, not the most popular votes.
People tell me how our great Founding Fathers created the Electoral College and that it has worked well for almost 250 years (except for the five times when it didn’t work well: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 when we elected a president who did not get the most votes by the people.)
The Electoral College was a great idea in 1787: before we had political parties. Political parties added “Winner Take All” to the state elections starting in Virginia in 1800. This allowed candidates to win ALL of a state’s electoral college votes with just a small plurality of votes instead of apportioning the electoral college votes to each candidate according to how many popular votes each received.
And electors today in the Electoral College have to vote for the candidate chosen by their political party, instead of making their own decisions on who would make the best president, which was the original way our great Founding Fathers in 1787 wanted the Electoral College to work.
We should replace the Electoral College with Direct Popular Vote using Ranked Choice Voting before we elect a 6th president who did not get the most votes from the people.
Steve Scott, U.S. Citizen & Voter, Sarasota, Florida
All U.S. Citizens Should Vote. 