POTUS-ELECT TRUMP: THE BLAME GAME

Who is to blame for the election of Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States? The answers posted on the internet are legion, but I have my own opinion, of course.

Of the eligible voters in America, just under 100 million (100,000,000) DID NOT VOTE. I settled on this website for data, but there are others that might have somewhat different numbers. It is interesting to look at the data table at that link. Here is a quick summary:

Total number of Voter Eligible Population (VEP) in USA = 231,556,622
Total ballots counted (estimated)                                        = 131,741,500
Number of VEP that did not vote                                       = 99,815,122
Percent of VEP that voted                                                   = 56.9%

The state with the highest VEP turnout:  Minnesota 74%
The state with the lowest VEP turnout: Hawaii 34%

My state of Oregon: 64%
Your state? ___%

Democracy only works as well as the voter turnout.  As of this morning, the popular vote count was:

Clinton: 60,467,245
Trump:  60,071,650
Difference between the two:  395,595 votes

(Note: don't try to add and compare numbers from different sources; they don't add up. Instead, look at the general trend or magnitude, that's the real story.)

And then there's this:

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php

CONCLUSION: The Finger of Blame (Digit of Disgrace?) can be pointed in many, many directions. I don't agree that the blame lies with voters who checked the box for a third-party candidate, or wrote-in their own candidate (like Harumbe). No, I tend to look at the number of voters who voted for Donald Trump. As Nate Silver pointed out, if 1 of every 100 Trump voters (1%) had instead voted for Clinton, she would now be the President-elect.

(Also, the number of votes does not determine the winner, it is the Electoral College votes, so it is difficult to translate a raw number of votes into actual electoral votes. In other words, if every write-in vote instead went to Clinton, that doesn't necessarily mean she would have won the election.)

But I also have to point the finger at eligible voters who don't vote. There are certainly people who want to vote but cannot because of personal situations, or because they are intentionally kept from the polls by local politicians; however, that cannot be the case for 100 million eligible voters. And we seriously need election reform in this country. In Oregon, we vote by mail, and I wonder if this is why we have a higher than average turnout. 

Interesting stuff to ponder as we try to deal with the Trump New Order. 

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United States

56.9%

131,741,500

231,556,622