Electoral College in Jeopardy

Richard Morris & Eileen McGann
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:40:22 -0700
Opinion

Democrats, impelled by losing the elections of 2000 and 2016 despite winning the popular vote, are seeking to eliminate the Electoral College. But they are not going about it the normal way (amending the Constitution).

Instead, they are seeking to circumvent the Electoral College via what they call the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the plan, states will vote to instruct their electors to back the winner of the national popular vote regardless of who carried their particular state. The compact would take effect when and if states that cast a majority of the Electoral College — 270 votes — ratify the compact. With these states marching in lockstep, the Electoral College would become irrelevant.
Updated: Mon Apr 01, 2019

Democrats, impelled by losing the elections of 2000 and 2016 despite winning the popular vote, are seeking to eliminate the Electoral College. But they are not going about it the normal way (amending the Constitution).

Instead, they are seeking to circumvent the Electoral College via what they call the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the plan, states will vote to instruct their electors to back the winner of the national popular vote regardless of who carried their particular state. The compact would take effect when and if states that cast a majority of the Electoral College — 270 votes — ratify the compact. With these states marching in lockstep, the Electoral College would become irrelevant.

The Democrats have already passed the compact in 15 states and the District of Columbia. (The following states have already approved the compact: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington State.)

With Democrats in control of both houses of the Oregon legislature, passage there seems likely, adding Oregon's 7 electoral votes to the tally.

Ten states — totaling 105 electoral votes — have divided legislatures with each party controlling one house. If they were all to pass the compact, it would take effect, and the national popular vote would control the outcome. The 10 states are Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia.

What's wrong with basing the election on the popular vote?

The prime reason not to dump the Electoral College is that doing so expands — exponentially — the possibilities of fraud and makes it easier to steal the election.

With only a handful of states in a position to decide the winner in the Electoral College, the possibilities for fraud are limited. It doesn't matter how many phony votes the Democrats can steal in big cities such as New York, Chicago or Los Angeles; their electoral votes are already spoken for. Among the swing states, the opportunities for fraud are more limited, making it easier to police the voting and prevent fraud.

But if the massive populations of the big states are all in play, the chances for fraud are multiplied, making honest elections difficult to hold and harder to monitor.

Republicans and all fair-minded people must band together to reject this dangerous initiative and assure that the Republican majorities in the remaining state legislatures are not beguiled by the sweet bipartisan talk of the compact's supporters.