In January of 2017, the Federal Election Commission reported that in the 2016 general election Mrs. Clinton received 65,853,516 votes and Mr. Trump received 62,984,825 votes. Clinton therefore beat Trump by 2,868,691 popular votes.

President Trump has said that if the illegal votes were deducted that he would have won the popular vote. If one looks at that FEC report, one sees that in California, the state with the most illegal aliens, Clinton got 8,753,788 votes, while Trump got 4,483,810 votes. So Clinton beat Trump in California by 4,269,978 votes.

What’s interesting is that Clinton beat Trump by more votes in California than she did nationwide, precisely 1,401,287 more votes. Though Trump’s claim that illegal voting threw the popular vote to Clinton is sheer speculation, we can say that if we exclude California that Trump did in fact win the popular vote in the rest of the nation, and by exactly 1,401,287 votes.

Because Trump didn’t get any electoral votes in California and New York, when we subtract the electoral votes of those two states, Clinton won just 143 electoral votes in the rest of the nation while Trump’s electoral total remains unchanged at 304. In the Electoral College, which is what we use to elect our presidents, Trump beats Clinton by more than 2-to-1 when California and New York are excluded. Even if the votes of the seven faithless electors were given to Clinton, Trump would still have trounced Clinton by more than 2-1 in the 48 states of “real America.”

It takes a bare minimum of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Had Clinton received all 46 electoral votes in the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, she would have gotten 273 electoral votes. She then could afford to lose only the least populous of those three states, Wisconsin, and still prevail, but only if she were also awarded all seven votes of the faithless electors. In which case, Clinton would have won with a grand total of 270 electoral votes.

Government officials have assured us that Russians did not change the vote counts in 2016. Elections are conducted by the states, and each state has its own separate election system, so changing the votes would be enormously difficult. And besides, “there is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they’re so decentralized.” We were told this by no less than Obama Himself, (so it must be true).

Obama fails to see the obvious. If the Russians wanted to throw the popular vote to Trump in 2016, all they would have needed to change is the popular vote in just one state, California with its 55 electoral votes… not the entire country. Trump could have even lost his three “blue wall” states and still have won had he gotten California, and he’d have had an even greater total at 313 electoral votes.

Some progressives think we should junk the Electoral College and elect presidents with the popular vote. Other progressives think we should rejigger the College and allocate its votes in a way that is closer to the popular vote. But if one believes in federalism, the above data argues just the opposite. We can’t have the preferences of two populous coastal states being imposed on the other 48 states merely because they have some tiny majority. That’s especially so when those two states are so very different from the rest of the country. Let California have its tent cities, its free healthcare for illegal aliens, and its San Francisco values, but leave us “hicks” in the heartland alone.

Given the above, I think we can say that in 2016 the Electoral College worked as intended, and that America got the correct president, the one she needed. Even so, the electoral vote is derived from the popular vote, so there’s still the nagging little question of what the legitimate popular vote count really was.

One of the safeguards to ensuring the integrity of the popular vote is voter registration. But the states are failing at this important task. Recently, California came under fire for registering illegal aliens at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

On October 8, the San Francisco Chronicle ran “California DMV may have registered noncitizens to vote” by Melody Gutierrez, who quoted Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno:

“There is much more to see here than what the DMV is admitting to,” Patterson said. “They have either been hiding the truth from the public or are completely unaware of this voter registration disaster -- either should be a startling realization for this governor and the public... We cannot trust the current management to fix the very problems they created.”

(But what does Patterson know, he’s an Anglo. He might even have a MAGA hat.)

The Secretary of State has responsibility for voter registration in California. But despite the snafus in his office, Secy. Alex Padilla was re-elected in November, and in a landslide.

On October 10, the New York Times reported in its “California Today” series: “At the center of the controversy is California’s new Motor Voter program, which automatically registers eligible voters who visit the D.M.V. to renew or replace their drivers’ licenses.”

On January 7, Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times reported on a settlement to a suit brought by Judicial Watch (video) in which Los Angeles County agreed to purge its voter registries of inactive voters perhaps numbering 1.5 million:

Judicial Watch said it targeted Los Angeles after finding the county’s total voter population was higher than the number of people the Census Bureau estimates to be citizens of voting age in the county. That’s true for the state overall, which Judicial Watch said has a 101 percent registration rate for its eligible adult population.

Here’s the thing about California’s voter registries: a federal law enacted 23 years ago mandates that only citizens can vote for federal officials. It was called the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.” For the operative language, see SEC. 216 on page 26 of the pdf of the entire act, or if you want the short sweet excision, click 18 U.S. Code § 611. Voting by aliens.

Since they’re corrupted, can California’s voter registries be used in the election of a federal official? The problem of illegal aliens on California voter registries isn’t just a problem at the DMV, as voter registration in California asks for only the last four digits of one’s SSN. California isn’t doing even the most basic vetting to comply with the requirement that voters for federal officials be citizens.

California is by no means unique, however, as none of the states really verify registrants’ citizenship, not even in Kris Kobach’s Kansas. Perhaps the Electoral College should reject a state’s votes if that state cannot demonstrate that all of its registrants and voters are citizens.

The vulnerability of our federal elections to fraud is just fine and dandy with the Democrats because they’ve been planning to steal the 2020 election anyway. Why do you suppose the Dems hate voter ID laws and love open borders? Democrats don’t want President Trump’s wall precisely because it keeps their voters out. The illegal alien vote is the Democrats’ “insurance policy.”

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.