After more than five months deliberating on your story I have some additional comments. In early 2016 it became obvious to me that Donald Trump would receive the Republican POTUS nomination. I researched his past and learned that he had been a member of the Democratic, Reform and Republican parties. I concluded that he was lacking in principles and knowledge of the Constitution. Unwilling to vote for socialist, Mr. Sanders, or safeguarding classified information incompetent or lying Mrs. Clinton I chose to leave the GOP whose candidates I had supported for most of my fifty voting years. I found that the Constitution Party platform seemed a fairly good match for my ideals and voted for their POTUS candidate Daryll Castle in the 2016 general election. Residing in a strong “red” state I had no qualms in voting my conscience knowing it would not impact the anticipated state winner. However, if I had resided in a “swing” state there would have been a quandary in making my selection. I have decisively concluded that ranked choice voting (RCV) would have eliminated my dilemma and I resolve to promote RCV for the remainder of my cognizant life.
“I absolutely believe that the Electoral College should be abolished.”
There was significant debating during the 1787 Constitutional Convention of the process of electing the POTUS and that debate has continued throughout the history of our republic. Giving the smallest states a minimum of three electoral votes (one for each of the two senators and one for each congressional district) was a compromise to gain their support. Utilizing electors instead of popular vote overcame the lack of rapid polling, communicating and traveling. At the time only male property owners were eligible to vote. I suspect that POTUS electors were highly respected statesmen whose judgement could be trusted to select the best candidate and probably had some latitude in casting their vote. Today exercising that judgement would deem the individual as a faithless elector. One advantage of the Electoral College implementation over the popular vote is that if the popular vote for the top two candidates is very close all of the state votes have to be recounted. With the “winner takes all” electoral vote method that most states implement there only “close vote” states must be recounted. Frankly, I preferred the method that Maine and Nebraska have implemented in the past: the winner of the state gets two electoral votes and the winner of each congressional district gets one electoral vote. I’m very interested to see how RCV works out in the 2020 Maine general election.
