House Passes National Popular Vote Reform
The Massachusetts House recently voted 119-36 in favor of joining with other states to form a compact that will move the nation toward electing the president and vice president by a popular vote. Under the agreement, Massachusetts would award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The intent is to guarantee that the winner of the popular vote would automatically win the electoral vote. The compact, if also approved by the Massachusetts Senate and signed into law by the Governor, would go into effect when states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes have enacted the agreement.
The current system for electing the two highest offices in the land is fundamentally undemocratic because not every vote is counted equally. Republican voters in states that traditionally vote Democratic, such as Massachusetts, rightfully feel their votes are irrelevant. Democratic voters in traditionally Republican states, such as Texas, feel likewise. It is only in a relatively few battleground states where every vote truly counts. Is it any wonder than fewer than 50% of registered voters typically go to the polls?
The Electoral College system limits the national debate and skews national priorities. Many important issues are simply ignored when candidates focus their campaigns on just the battleground states.
Four presidents have taken office after losing the popular vote. There have also been many close calls. For example, in 1976, Jimmy Carter won the national popular vote by 1.7 million people. If only 25,579 votes had changed in Ohio and Mississippi, Gerald Ford would have been declared the winner. In 2004, President George W. Bush topped John Kerry by 3 million votes. Kerry would have prevailed if less than 60,000 votes had changed in Ohio.
The Electoral College was not the child of high moral principles but political compromise. At our country’s founding, the South was reluctant to sign the Constitution because they feared political domination by the North. The compromise solution apportioned the Electoral College based on a formula that counted every 3 out of 5 slaves (who had no vote of their own) as a part of the voting population. This granted disproportionate weight to Southern votes in presidential elections. The Union was established, and slavery was perpetuated for another eighty years.
All efforts to eliminate the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment (which requires approval by 3/4 of the states) has been frustrated. The relatively few battleground states have jealously guarded their privileged positions. A compact among the states, which would commit Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, is the only practical solution.
