To begin with, there will be no getting rid of the Electoral College.
It simple cannot and will not happen in any of our lifetimes.
Why not?
Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2, 3 and 4 is the part of the U.S. Constitution which tells us how we will elect our President and Vice President. The ONLY way to change that is by a Constitutional Amendment.
Have you looked around this country lately? See a lot of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans in the United States Congress? Yeah, me neither. Which is why an Amendment to change how we elect the President and Vice President is a no go.
Okay, but if we can’t do that, how can we change it? Didn’t you say “You want a true 'One (wo)man, One Vote' democracy? Me, too. Here's how we get it...”?
Yes, I did — and we can.
If we can’t Amend the Constitution, we have to go around it.
Here’s what that looks like...
Chris Bowers recently ran a story on the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), with a Daily Kos sponsored petition for action in it. It’s a good story and you should go read it if you missed it. I wouldn’t be writing THIS story, if I knew for sure where that Petition was being sent to or what it was asking. But I don’t. So here we go.
The run-around fix to get the United States to the place where every four years, American voters will go to the polls (or open their ballot envelope, if they are lucky enough to live in a 100% Vote By Mail state like I do), cast their vote for President and Vice President — and wait for the News to tell us which pair got the most votes from all of the people and will become our next national Leaders?
That would be the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
How does it work, if the Electoral College is still there and part of the Constitution?
Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 says
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.
That’s it. Those are the only instructions. They meet and they vote. But those don’t have to be the only instructions. The states have the ability to add more instructions on how they can vote. Which is where all the talk about “faithless electors” comes into the story.
Like 28 other states, my state of Washington has a law which tells those Electors how they can vote when the Electoral College convenes in Olympia, Washington every four years. But our state has already signed onto the NPVIC and instructions on it are included in this Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Law.
Nomination—Pledge by electors—What names on ballots—How counted.
Follow the link for the full text
In addition, like 28 other states, we have another law which address “faithless electors”.
Meeting—Time—Procedure—Voting for nominee of other party, penalty.
Follow the link for the full text
That’s a lot of text to read through, here’s the condensed, easier to read, version:
Every four years we elect a President and Vice President
As a citizen voter, on your ballot you vote for President and Vice President, but you aren’t electing them, you are choosing our State’s Electors. In our state, whichever Party’s candidates get the most votes from the citizen voters gets to seat their Electors (chosen by their Party in the primary season). Those electors sign a pledge to vote for their Party’s candidates, if they don’t they pay a $1,000 fine, but they can vote for someone else if they’re willing to pay the fine.
EXCEPT and unless enough other states, with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes, sign onto the NPVIC, in which case, ignore all of those previous instructions.
Our state Electors will be chosen based on the Party of the winner of the national poplular vote of all of the voters in all of the states, combined, and our Electors WILL vote for that candidate in the Electoral College.
So whomever wins the national popular vote will become the next President of the United States.
Pretty smooth, right?
We don’t have to go through a Constitutional Amendment process, which is a good thing.
Because the last time anyone tried that was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) first proposed in 1923.
Just 49 short years later it was finally passed by Congress and sent to the States for Ratification in 1972.
By 1977, 35 states had ratified the ERA. But since then, it has been sitting and waiting for THREE more states to vote to Ratify it for 39 years.
Oh, and did I mention, that is a really complex and lengthy Law, because for it to have taken so long and still be waiting it must be, right?
WRONG.
The Equal Rights Amendment
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
So yes, it’s a good thing some brilliant people figured out a workaround which doesn’t require a Constitutional Amendment. Because THAT will not happen.
Which brings me to the part of the story where YOU come in.
From Chris Bowers’ story:
There are the 10 states & the District of Columbia (and it’s 3 electors) which have already joined the NPV Compact (with a combined total of 165 electoral votes) and enacted a Law like my state of Washington has in RCW 29A.56.300.
It still needs to be passed into Law in enough other states which, combined, have at least 105 more electoral votes.
It has passed at least one house in 12 states with 96 electoral votes.
Current Status in all 50 states
Courtesy NationalPopularVote.com:
Click on your state to see what actions, if any, have been taken and by which Legislators, to join the NPV Interstate Compact.
If it’s one where it’s already been passed by committee or better yet, by at least one House of your state legislature? CALL the sponsoring member’s office and find out how you can help get it passed into Law in your state!
Start a Facebook group in your state to get other people in your state to help you get it enacted it into law and join the Compact.
Attend your local County Democratic Party meeting and bring up the issue and ask if anyone there knows about this or is willing to hear about it.
Talk to family and friends who are Republicans and ask them to do the same — Because of those current states which have passed a bill in at least one House of their legislators? Republicans are voting FOR these bills, too. Like this:
Most recently the bill was passed by:
- 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House
- 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate
- 57–4 in Republican-controlled New York Senate
- 37–21 in Democratic-controlled Oregon House
If we want to stop seeing election results like the one on November 8, 2016 — where the Voice of the People is being ignored and we are being saddled with Presidents like George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump by the anachronistic Electoral College as it exists today?
YOU NEED TO STEP UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
We don’t have a time machine and we cannot re-write history. The current election is already over and we cannot change it.
But we can write the history of the future, by simply changing how enough states (with at least 270 electoral votes, combined) decide to choose their Electors and how they instruct them to vote when the next Electoral College convenes in 2020.
So find your state and see what’s happening there and Take Action. Be pro-active. This is possible within the next four years.
Hillary Clinton could be the last Democratic presidential candidate denied the White House even after winning MILLIONS of more votes from citizens just like you.
FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
This Parade Magazine article from April 2016 by Kathleen McCleary does a really good job of explaining what exactly the Electoral College is and why we have it, instead of a pure democracy [one (wo)man, one vote] when it comes to our presidential elections in the United States. It starts out like this:
The Electoral College doesn’t have a sweatshirt, a logo or a mascot. It’s not a physical building, its members never get together (except with colleagues from their own state) and it ceases to exist as soon as it has performed its function. The term “Electoral College” doesn’t even appear in the Constitution. Yet its 538 members are responsible for one of the most significant tasks in the world: choosing the president of the United States.
When you cast your vote for president this November, you’re not voting for the candidate on the ballot, you’re voting for which group of electors from your state—Republican, Democrat or some third party—get to vote for president. If you don’t understand exactly how it works, you’re not alone. “For most Americans, even those who study it, the process is still a mystery,” says Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University.
Kathleen ends her article with this:
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact In this plan, states award their electors to whoever wins the popular vote nationwide, not statewide. So far 11 states (with 165 electoral votes) have signed on; to take effect, the compact needs enough states to total 270.
People may be wondering why that number 270, is so important but it’s just simple math. There are 538 Electors (the number of US Senate & House members plus the 3 electors the 23rd Amendment gave the District of Columbia). To win the presidential election, according to Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, it takes a simple majority. So for now, that’s 538/2 = 269 +1 = 270.
Currently, under the rules of the Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, this is how we determine how many electoral college ballots there are to divvy up between the various states:
Each state adds up how many Senators & House members they have in Congress, that’s how many Electors they get. Plus, none of those current Congress members can be one of their Electors.
I hope you found this article informative, but more importantly, if you have been stewing about the results of the 2016 election and have been fearful, angry, outraged or even apoplectic about it?
Then I cannot strongly enough urge you to channel that emotion into action.
President Obama said, during the campaign season, “Don’t Boo, VOTE!”
I think that’s a challenge to each and every one of us to not sit seething in front of our computers, but to put our collective energy together and RISE UP and create the change we desire. We get all hot and bothered and argue amongst ourselves during the primary campaign season every four years — and nothing much changes.
But here, on this one issue? We can do what the Hillary Clinton campaign took up as it’s leading motto during 2016 and become truly #StrongerTogether. We can work together, separately in our respective states, and bring forth a solution to the 240 year old problem which is rearing it’s head every four years and impeding our progress towards a More Perfect Union.
So what are you waiting for? Go check on the status of your own state. Use that information to start something where you live, which can, with the efforts of the people in as few as 14 more states, change how our nation elects it’s presidents for the rest of all time.
We can turn our Republic into the small (d) democracy which it has been trying to become for all of our lives, at least when it comes to the election of the person who sits in the chair behind the Resolute Desk for the next four years.
It’s just one more in a long line of issues in which this is actually true:
Think Globally, Act Locally