The Electoral College disenfranchises voters (“Are we a state? Denver looks for national alignment,” Feb. 11).
Five times in the past, the majority of voters in America were disenfranchised when the Electoral College chose the candidate getting the fewer votes.
In every presidential election, a Democrat in Oklahoma or a Republican in California might as well not vote for President – none of the folks sent to the Electoral College assembly will represent them.
Maybe 200 years ago, when most voters were of the unwashed and uneducated masses, this system made sense. But not today.
It is time to ditch that anachronism and let the people elect the president directly. A Constitutional amendment would be best, but that path is glacially slow. So some folks came up with a non-partisan end run – the National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC).
The idea is simple: prevent the Electoral College from overriding the will of the people.
It would do this by requiring that the Electoral College delegates vote for the person who won, not statewide, but nationwide.
Because it is a work-around, you might sometimes get scenarios like the Journal’s – the voters in one state go 90/10 (a stretch) for candidate A but the electors vote for candidate B, who won the popular vote nationwide. A different form of disenfranchisement, but a much less odious one.
For the NPVC to work, it must have the support of states holding a majority (270) of the electoral votes. That won’t happen in 2020. And it won’t happen without the support of blue, purple and red states, so democracy is not threatened.
Chuck Leech
Cortez
