Trump’s Confession Shows Why We Must Abolish the Electoral College and Throw Him in Jail

So Donald Trump is now telling us that having Mike Pence overturn the electoral college result would have been “perfectly legal.”

He’s dead wrong, both factually and conceptually, and his admission should lead him straight to a jail cell.

The electoral college wasn’t put in place so that a president and vice president could randomly choose to extend their own power forever. If anything, it was the opposite.

America’s Founders and Framers thought they could use the Electoral College to prevent somebody like Donald Trump from ever becoming president. Unfortunately, they were wrong, and now we’re paying the price.

Given how the Electoral College hasn’t protected us from getting a president beholden to a (or multiple) foreign power(s) as president, it’s time to do away with it.

Most people have a pretty limited understanding of the Electoral College, but they know that it works against the democratic notion of the public electing its chief executive. There are organizations and a smattering of political figures who say as much. Recent polling indicates this, too.

What is not as well understood is the history of why it was chosen as the way to select a president.

It’s often said that the Electoral College was brought into being to perpetuate or protect the institution of slavery, and, indeed, during the first…