PITTSBURGH — The fashionable thing to do in the wake of Bill Belichick’s apparent snub for the Pro Football Hall of Fame is to blame the process, blame the by-laws set forth by the people in Canton, Ohio, for the way candidates are elected.

Right after that is the groundswell of opinion that the 50 members of the selection committee should reveal the candidates for whom they voted, as though the public and those affronted by what they perceive to be a miscarriage of justice are owed some measure of transparency.

Preposterous. On both fronts.

I am a member of the committee and feel no obligation to reveal how I voted. I don’t think any of the other 49 members need to defend how they voted, either, though I understand why some of them have.

That, though, doesn’t mean the embarrassment brought upon the Hall of Fame in general and the selection committee in general isn’t deserved. Because it is. In bunches.

And blaming the process doesn’t make it any better.

In light of the backlash from all corners of the NFL and beyond, some members of the selection committee have felt compelled to publicly reveal their vote and explain why they voted the way they did. Among them was even one of the 11 who didn’t vote for Belichick. He said he had no anti-Belichick sentiment but instead blamed the voting process set forth under the by-laws of the Hall.

In case you are unaware, here is how the process works:

The committee is given five candidates who have been advanced by sub-committees in three separate categories — three seniors (L.C. Greenwood, Ken Anderson, Roger Craig), one contributor (Robert Kraft) and one coach (Belichick). The 50-person committee is then asked to vote for three of the candidates in no particular order.

This vote is independent of the one in which modern-era players are selected for induction.

To be elected, a candidate has to receive at least 80% of the votes, or, in this instance, 40 of the 50. Belichick, according to a published report, did not. He received 39.

But if Belichick didn’t receive at least 40 votes, who did?

According to the by-laws, at least one candidate has to be selected. If none of the five candidates received at least 80% of the votes, the one who received the most votes will be elected. So, if Belichick was informed by someone with knowledge of the vote he wasn’t elected, then that would mean some other candidate received more votes than the coach who won six Super Bowls.

And, yes, that is embarrassing.

To me, the process isn’t that confounding. In fact, it’s simple.

You start with the most Hall of Fame-worthy candidate — Belichick. That is the purpose of the process. Then pick two more.

Sure, maybe picking two of the remaining four isn’t easy. Maybe there’s sentiment for players who have waited a long time to be enshrined. Maybe you think it’s unfair.

But what’s unfair is what happened.

As for the demands to have the Hall of Fame make public the votes of the selection committee, well, that is no different than Steelers fans wanting Mike Tomlin to be more transparent during his weekly news conferences, as though they are “owed” an honest answer.

This whole mess has placed the Pro Football Hall of Fame in a precarious, unflattering position. But it’s not because of the process.

It’s because of a failure to vote for the one person who most deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, above all the others.

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