Readers respond to my post-analysis of the Trump-Clinton contest:
Worth pointing out: While poll-bashing in the wake of the Trump “victory” is a popular sport, the actual vote on Clinton v Trump was within a point of the consensus of the published legitimate polls. As predicted, Trump lost the vote. The distortions introduced by the electoral college put this beast in power, not the American people.
And thus Trump’s almost frantic cries of voter fraud. But his own hand-picked commission couldn’t find any evidence of massive fraud. Another reader responds to the first:
not even that. I believe there were 2 individuals (faithless electors they called them) whose states voted for Clinton but decided to cast their electoral vote for a third party. So, she really won the electoral college vote. If I had been her that would have been my lawsuit to win. Way better than hanging chads
Unfortunately, not true. From Taegan Goddard’s Electoral Vote Map:
Trump received 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227 electoral votes. Clinton won the national popular vote with 48.2% of the vote, while Trump received 46.1% of the vote. Clinton and Trump criticized each other over character issues and shared divergent views on America’s role in the world.
The map above shows Trump winning 306 electoral votes because that’s what would have happened if two Texas electors hadn’t voted against him.
Wikipedia notes there were ten faithless electors initially:
As a result of the seven successfully cast faithless votes, the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost five of her pledged electors while the Republican Party nominee and then president-elect, Donald Trump, lost two. Three of the faithless electors voted for Colin Powell while John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one vote.[8] The defections fell well short of the number needed to change the result of the election; only 2 of the 7 defected from the winner, whereas 35 were needed to defect in order to force a contingent election in Congress (a tally of less than 270).
The gap of almost 80 electoral votes was far too large to be affected by the two who defected from Clinton. The reader continues (the link at the end may be associated with the above, not the below):
… and the Supreme Court recently ruled that electors must vote the way their states voted. https://www.google.com/…/mobi…/article/amp/idUSKBN1480FQ
I believe the decision made clear that if there’s a state law requiring electors be faithful, it is not unconstitutional. However, in the absence of such a law, an elector cannot be legally compelled to vote for the candidate chosen by the state’s voters.
