Letter: Election method shows Founders’ genius

The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they put the Electoral College system into place. It was a stroke of genius.

It not only made sense at the time, but it still serves us well today. It’s true that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by something over 2 million votes, but please consider this:

There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Donald Trump won 2,641 counties, or 84 percent of the country. Hillary Clinton won 500 counties, or 16 percent of the country. The urban counties in New York and California account for a very small portion of the country, but supplied well more than the 2 million votes that Clinton needed to win the popular vote.

When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that a handful of urban counties should select the president of the United States.

If the presidential election had been decided by popular vote, everyone in the nation who lived outside of New York or California would have been disenfranchised. When the Founders gave us a constitutional republic, not a democracy, they gave us a gift that has served us well for more than 200 years, and this is just one more example of their wisdom.

This story was originally published December 29, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Letter: Election method shows Founders’ genius."