Could there be a contested presidential election?

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have the highest unfavorable ratings of any presidential candidate in modern American history. Each ballot cast will essentially be an anti-vote against the other contender and not necessarily for the person deemed most qualified to be president. It is a matter of choosing between someone who wants to build a wall to keep people out, and another who has built a wall of political intrigue and near-immunity to keep secrets from getting out. This election will be like Gore v Bush (2000) when the Supreme Court decided the outcome after Al Gore won the popular vote but not the Electoral College delegate count.

It is doubtful that Clinton or Trump will get 270 of the possible 538 votes in the Electoral College to become president, so according to the Constitution, the Twelfth Amendment is invoked and the president as well as vice-president has to be chosen through the House of Representatives. As Donald Trump likes to say, “It’s going to be huge, really, really huge.” Yes, Donald, it will be and whoever becomes POTUS may not win us over, but when this election is finally over it will surely wear us out. To take a page from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “You don’t vote for the candidate that you wish you had but for the one [choices] that you have.”

 

Robert Randle
776 Commerce St Apt 701
Tacoma, WA 98402
September 7, 2016
robertrandle51@yahoo.com