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Even though Vice President Al Gore has won the national popular vote by a few thousand votes, that miniscule percentage of the total vote needs to know that its ballots counted. They don't count in the Electoral College.
This year's presidential election isn't the first to be mangled by the Electoral College. Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888 got the Electoral College nod even though incumbent President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, won by 110,476 of 11,381,032 votes--less than one per cent of the total national popular votes cast.
The Electoral College imposes two wishy-washy requirements on presidential candidates: 1) The victor must obtain a sufficient popular vote to enable him to govern and 2) The popular vote must be sufficiently distributed across the country to enable him to govern.
But other solid arguments exist against the Electoral College system: 1) the possibility of electing a minority candidate, 2) the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors, 3) the failure to accurately reflect the national popular will and 4) the depression of future voter turnouts.
The next Congress should--by two-thirds majority--propose a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and refer it for ratification by three-fourths of America's 50 states..(12 NOVEMBER 2000 )