Electoral college should be abolished

I am writing this letter on the morning of Nov. 25. At this point in time Hillary Clinton has received 48 percent of the popular vote and Donald Trump has received 46.6 percent of it. This means that Ms. Clinton has received 1,815,322 more votes than President-elect Trump. It also means that two of the last three individuals elected to the Presidency received fewer popular votes than their opponents.

This result is due to the institution of the Electoral College, an entity which ignores the principle of one person, one vote. The framers of the Constitution created this method of electing the President because they sought to ensure that residents in states with smaller populations were not ignored. In addition, they lived in an era that predated mass media and political parties. They were concerned that average Americans would lack enough information about the candidates to make intelligent choices.

With the advent of electronic communications from radio to television to the internet, these concerns no longer have relevance. The Electoral College has become a perverse anachronism which can and has thwarted the ability and right of the people to choose the primary officer of the executive branch of our government.

Until the Electoral College is abolished, it will be both dishonest and disingenuous for the United States to claim to be either a republic or representative democracy. It also eliminates any right we have to claim that we have some form of exceptionalism which other countries should emulate.

John Piepho, Cape Girardeau