Time for the Big Election Steal to Come to an End
After a rancorous divisive election campaign, the electoral college allows President Trump to mount a propaganda campaign against the result even though he lost the popular vote by 5 million votes.
Never, ever again says the campaign group National Popular Vote who are determined and confident that 2020 will be the last presidential election where the runner-up can claim victory. Ted Sullivan looks at the justice of their cause.
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No more battleground states, no more flyover states, no more bystander states. Only the United States
No more presidential campaigns for electoral votes focussed entirely on a handful of swing states, while ignoring the majority of states who predictably vote Republican or Democrat.
No more skewing federal spending priorities so that those same battleground states receive 7% more spending over a presidential term than the’bystander’ states.
No more losing for the presidential candidate who scores millions more votes than their opponent.
No more uncertainty, time wasting , and pointless legal challenges.
And no more undermining the democratic process and casting doubt on reliable, established state-run electoral machinery.
That’s the fervent wish — and the increasingly confident expectation — of the small campaign group, National Popular Vote that continues to lead the charge to make 2020 the last US presidential election under the current rules of ‘winner-takes-all’ in the state battles for the electoral college.
National Popular Vote, established in 2006 sponsors legislation referred to as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among individual states to allocate their electoral votes to the presidential and vice-presidential candidates who win the national popular vote across the country, notwithstanding whichever candidate gains a plurality in their state.
President Elect Biden has pledged to make many reforms to federal politics, but he is not willing to take on a campaign to change the constitution to enable this fundamental modification. It requires approval from two thirds of Congress and 38 states. As Joe knows only too well, life is too short, and there’s a lot of urgent work to attend to.
The NPVIC offers a way to bring this about without a change in the constitution while preserving the central role of individual states in controlling the presidential election.
And before you dismiss this group as errant political dreamers and innocents, take note of the fact that 15 states (plus the District of Columbia) have already passed this compact into law.
These states represent 196 electoral votes and there are many others who are either in the process of ratifying the legislation, or considering it next legislative round. According to the campaign, another grouping of states representing 88 electoral could pass the measure in the next year , taking the total of electoral votes over the magic majority number of 270.
When that happens the compact goes into effect, and those states signed up are then obliged to allocate their electoral college votes in the manner prescribed in the compact — to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote across the country.
This bi-partisan campaign has been quietly but resolutely ploughing the furrow in the political background over the past 14 years. It came into being as the result of frustration built up over more than 700 failed attempts to reform the electoral college in Congress, spanning more than a century.
The Compact legislation is framed such that no state would be expected to ‘go it alone’, and if a state wants to withdraw, it must do so before July 20 of a presidential election year so as not to interfere with the election. State compacts are not new or unusual and as long as they don’t challenge ‘federal supremacy’ they are not illegal.
But now after four years of chaos, uncertainty, acrimony and mendacity, amidst a pandemic crisis that has left more than 220,000 Americans dead, many citizens and their elected representatives may be overwhelmed by the find the clamour for change.
NPVIC scored a significant victory during the recent election in Colorado, one of the states whose legislature had already approved it in 2019, subject to approval by the state’s voters on this year’s ballot. On November 3 Coloradan voters approved Proposition 113 by 1,573,212 votes to 1,447,316 against. It now officially becomes law in the state.
Eileen Reavey, the Grassroots Director for the National Vote Campaign summarised her optimism and enthusiasm during a recent webinar on the issue.
“We are already 70% of the way there to reaching our goal of 270 electoral votes. We absolutely hope that this will be the last election that operates under the current rules. The system we have right now doesn’t work for the American people.
“When people cast their votes for the president, they do not do it as Floridians, or Pennsylvanians or Texans, but as Americans. And most of them agree with us that every vote should be equal when electing a president, the one office that represents us all.”
From as far back as 1944 polls undertaken nationally and at state level have consistently shown strong majority support for electing the president by popular national vote. In 1944 a Gallup poll showed 65% approval among Americans, and one in 1977 showed 73% support . This dipped to 68% in 1980, but In 2007 a poll by the Washington Post showed 72% support and an extensive poll conducted by AOL in 2008 gave it 74%.
As you might imagine, there are a host of arguments levelled against the national popular vote compact. The campaign group earnestly, assiduously and rebuts these on its website, NationalPopularVote.com.
A major one is that changing the way the electoral college votes would be unconstitutional. But the Office of Federal Register (OFR), which co-ordinates the functioning of the electoral college after each presidential election, is very clear that the American constitution does not prevent states from deciding how electoral votes are cast.
“Nothing in the Constitution prevents your State from using something other than your State’s popular vote results to appoint electors. Each State legislature determines how the electors are allocated to candidates…Any State legislature could enact legislation that would change how the Governor (or Mayor of DC) appoints its electors. So, a State legislature could require that its electors vote for a candidate who did not receive a majority of the popular vote in its State.”
Patrick Rosenstiel, a senior spokesman for National Popular Vote explained the constitutional position to me in an interview.
“Article I section ii of the United States Constitution leaves the method with which electors are appointed exclusively to the individual state legislatures. We are beyond confident that National Popular Vote will pass constitutional scrutiny.”
NPVIC may not yet be a trendy acronym of choice in conversations around every dinner table in America, but the steady progress made; the resolution of those involved; and the justice of the cause help create an impressive momentum.
In 2016 after Donald Trump won the White House with three million less votes than Hillary Clinton ,The New York Times voiced its support for direct election of the president on its editorial pages.
Today a united campaign by the American Fourth Estate — respected news outlets from around the country joining forces — could help underwrite public backing for this reform. It may be a long time coming, but change seems inevitable.
To paraphrase a certain well-known declaration: The justice and fairness of a direct election of the President we hold to be self evident, that all votes are created equal.
