A recent column about what I believe to be the shortcomings of the electoral college spurred some spirited comments. It was about a 50-50 mix. After responding to each one, I was dining alone at a Cracker Barrel. As I dipped my cornbread into a cup of turnip greens, a woman walked over.

“I read your column about the electoral college,” she said. I didn’t know whether I would be showered with praise or scalded with hot tea. These days, you never know. “I agree 100 percent,” she said, much to my relief. She was the tie breaker in my personal electoral college.

Some of my critics were cordial, and others were profane. I was told by several that if the electoral college was abolished, the presidential candidates would only visit New York City, Los Angeles, and a few other heavily populated areas. 

 I pointed out that even if that were the case, would it really be any worse than now, when it appears that Harris and Trump are running for President of Pennsylvania?

Others say I mentioned that in the two most recent instances of the electoral college canceling out the popular vote, Republicans won the presidency. Therefore, they say, I am simply trying to eliminate a system that gave us George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.

One can argue the pros and cons of those two guys until the cows come home, but it doesn’t change the fact that anything can happen this year. According to various legitimate pollsters, the presidential race is “thisclose” with only a few days remaining.

So, it is possible that Donald Trump could win the national popular vote by a few million, but still lose the election if enough of the 7 battleground states (and their electoral votes) are won by Kamala Harris. When I posed that scenario to several folks who were angry about my column, I asked, “If that happened, would you still enthusiastically support the electoral college, and do you think most Trump supporters would accept the results? And if, as in 2020, the individual secretaries of state, and judges (most of whom are Republican) count, recount, and then certify the results as accurate, would you encourage Trump to concede?”

For some reason, most of them chose not to respond any further. Some who did pledged they would indeed support the continuance of the electoral college. I encouraged them to share their opinion with others because I suspect this will be a close election, and the eventual losing side may not want to go away quietly.

I also introduced an unlikely, but possible scenario in which Harris wins the popular vote in those 7 swing states. Let’s say she gets around 51 percent of the vote in each of those states, with Trump getting 49 percent. Among actual voters, that means she could get almost 15 million votes in those states, and Trump could get more than 14 million. Those numbers would flow in to the popular vote, along with the numbers in the other 43 states.

But in the electoral college, the final approximate score from those 7 states would be Harris 100, Trump ZERO. Does that sound like an accurate representation? The electoral college is “winner take all” (with very few exceptions). And that same scenario could work in Trump’s favor and to Harris’s disadvantage if Trump narrowly won all of those particular swing states. So no matter who you support, that candidate could get stung by the electoral college this year.

As I noted in the original column, it would take a movement of mountains to eliminate, or even tweak the electoral college. Depending on who wins and loses, and which party ends up controlling Congress, the chorus for change could grow or it could fizzle.

Perhaps the pollsters are wrong. Maybe the election won’t be that close. Maybe the popular vote and electoral vote will both be won by the same candidate, and this will be a moot point. That won’t make the losing side any happier, but it might save us all a lot of headaches. For now anyway.

David Carroll is a Chattanooga news anchor, and his new book “I Won’t Be Your Escape Goat” is available on his website, ChattanoogaRadioTV.com. You may contact him at 900 Whitehall Road, Chattanooga, TN 37405, or at RadioTV2020@yahoo.com.