by Wornie Reed PH.D
One notable feature of 21st century America is how anti-democratic the United States has become. The Electoral College and 21st-century racism are the principal culprits.
The Electoral College, always anti-democratic, is working its perverse magic by ensuring that a minority of the population decides who the President will be. Small states holding half the population have 53 percent of the electoral votes.
Further, these small states elect 82 percent of the U.S. Senators. This grotesque situation results from the spread of Replacement Theory racism in recent years. It, of course, elected and supports Donald Trump.
What the data say: a poll released last month found that 61 percent of people who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election believe a group of people in this country is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color.
So, our current situation is that we are involved in a relentless march to abolish even the pretense of democracy. This includes the ongoing efforts and plans to manipulate the electoral votes and overthrow presidential elections.
What do we do? There is a simple answer–abolish the Electoral College. But, of course, that is virtually impossible, as that would require a change to the Constitution and ratification by three-fourths of the states. But an alternative remedy is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is the agreement among the states to elect the President by the total national vote. The NPVIC would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would ensure that every vote will be equal throughout the U.S.
How would it work? As the Constitution requires, each state gets a total number of electors according to the state’s population. However, the Constitution permits states to award electors any way they wish. Thus, each state that enacts the NPVIC will provide its electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted into law by 15 states and DC with 195 electoral votes. It needs an additional 75 electoral votes to go into effect (to a total of 270).
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. But it ensures that every vote in every state will matter in every presidential election.
NPVIC, a non-partisan effort, is not affiliated with any political party. While the NPVIC’s advisory board is a majority of Democrats, there are three Republicans. Republicans have always been involved. NPVIC’s book, Every Vote Equal, has 15 forewords, with 13 written by Republicans.
Public opinion has supported a nationwide popular election of the President for over six decades by an overwhelming margin. Numerous polls have been conducted over many years by many polling organizations, using various wordings of questions, and all of them report high levels of support for a national popular vote.
NPVIC gives the people what they want, which might save our democracy.
