Brian Baker: Election recount is futile

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In my last column I discussed the hair-on-fire reaction of the American left to the electoral rejection of the pantsuit woman in favor of the guy with the world’s biggest comb-over.

Since then, more hilarity has ensued.

We have the political Kabuki of Jill Stein, hitherto a virtual political unknown non-entity, trying to force vote recounts in three (as of this writing) states.

Of course, she has a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery than actually reversing the results in any of those states, but that doesn’t really matter.

She’s now catapulted herself from complete obscurity and irrelevance to being nationally known, not to mention being in control of millions of dollars not previously available to her.

Think that might come in handy in – oh, say, four years – when her presidential aspirations are as sure to resurface as a dolphin gulping for air?

You tell me.

Then, of course, we have the complete and utter outrage that Ms. Pantsuit can win a couple of million more popular votes than Mr. Comb-over but still lose the actual election, all due to the “arcane, unnecessary and outdated” institution of the Electoral College. Naturally, this leads to bleats for the elimination of the Electoral College all together.

Wake-up time: The Electoral College isn’t going anywhere, since it would take an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate it.

But here’s where the so-called “logic” of the leftists falls to pieces. Our national election is just like the baseball World Series in that the election consists of 50 individual contests for electoral delegates just as the World Series consists of seven individual games.

The outcome is based on who wins the most of those individual contests (in the election) or games (in the Series), not the cumulative total of runs – or votes.

That team with the most states – or won games – wins the election or the Series.

There’s another huge gap in their “logic.” There’s a built-in assumption that if the election were a straight plebiscite, the vote totals would be the same as they are under our present system.

But here’s a dose of reality. I know of several personal acquaintances – and I’m sure they’re typical of many, based on simple human nature – who are conservatives and/or Republicans, who simply never vote for president because they know that this state’s 55 Electoral College delegates are going to the Dems no matter what.

They consider their votes a waste of time, or an opportunity to make some other “statement” a la the NeverTrumpers.

But if those people had known their votes would have a direct impact on the actual outcome of the election, I have no doubt they’d have shown up in droves to vote not for Trump, but against Clinton.

As of now Clinton’s popular margin is around two million more votes than Trump, but I’d bet big money that if there weren’t an Electoral College he’d have gained around a million votes out of California alone.

Throw in New York, Massachusetts, Washington state and Illinois and he’d have cleaned her clock in the popular vote, too.

Brian Baker is a Saugus resident.

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