These three paragraphs quoted above are from David Ramsay Steele, “ Winning the Popular Vote,” The London Libertarian, June 30, 2019. Or, as an economist would put it, change the incentives and you change the outcomes. A few thousand more or less Republican or Democratic votes in California, which would have counted for absolutely nothing in the actual 2016 election, would have been exactly as important as a few thousand more or less Republican or Democratic votes in Michigan. The campaign would have been, in some conspicuous ways, unrecognizable compared with what actually occurred: absolutely no one, for instance, would have cared who “won” Florida or Pennsylvania, a virtually meaningless concept under a popular-vote-decided system. Many people would have been caught up in the campaign who in fact ignored it almost completely, while voters in certain counties, who in the actual election became centers of attention, would have gone unnoticed. Many people would have voted differently than they did. If the 2016 election had been decided by popular vote, then the popular vote would not have been the same as it was in the actual election. But, of course, the conclusion most certainly does not follow! There’s all the difference in the world between “winning the popular vote” in a system where no one who matters gives a flying freak about the popular vote, and winning the popular vote in a system where the popular vote is the all-important decider.
The people who make this claim appeal to the fact that Clinton got more votes-a bigger popular vote-than Trump in 2016. People who want to abolish the electoral college, currently mostly Democrats, typically say things like this: “If the 2016 election had been decided by popular vote, then it follows that Hillary Clinton would now be president.” This assertion is blatantly false.
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