Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rep. Tim Jerman, D-Essex Junction, who is the vice chair of the Vermont Democratic Party and a Vermont elector to the Electoral College. He is retiring from the House of Representatives.
[F]or the fifth time in American history, we’ve again stunned and confused the rest of the world by installing as president someone who did not win the most votes in the election. Hillary Clinton has a 2 percent final margin over Donald Trump in total votes cast, but, of course, did not carry the electoral vote. This has now happened twice in the past 16 years, and was narrowly avoided a third time in 2004 when a 50,000 vote swing in Ohio would have given the presidency to John Kerry, when George Bush won the popular vote by nearly 4 million votes. This year, Hillary Clinton has almost a three million vote margin.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The National Popular Vote initiative is a compact of states that agree to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote in the nation. This makes every vote count. Eleven states have passed NPV representing 165 electoral votes; only 105 more are needed to make every vote count in America. NPV is a non-partisan solution. It was most recently passed 40-16 in the Republican Arizona House, 28-18 in the Republican Oklahoma Senate, and 57-4 in the Republican New York Senate. Vermont passed NPV back in 2011 with a tri-partisan coalition in both House and Senate.
This year, fully two-thirds of presidential campaigning took place in just siix states! You know who they are — Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan.
Passage of the National Popular Vote would immediately alter presidential elections for the better. This year, fully two-thirds of presidential campaigning took place in just siix states! You know who they are — Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan. Ninety-four percent of all presidential events (375 of 389) happened in just 12 states! The rest of us were bystanders, or fly-over states. Think of the economic multiplier campaigns bestow on those states.
To learn more about the National Popular Vote initiative, visit its website at www.nationalpopularvote.com.
No one is naïve about changing the electoral college overnight. The anger about un-democratic elections subsides quickly, but as the Electoral College fails on a more frequent basis, as it’s likely to do, more people ask why we cling to an antiquated system designed over 200 years ago for a 13-state union for reasons totally absent today.
Want to get involved? Call your friends and relatives in states which have not passed NPV (listed on the website) and encourage them to contact their legislators to help get NPV over the finish line to restore fairness and the principle of “every vote counts.” As every Democrat in Kentucky (the 15th state) and every Republican in Vermont (the 14th state) knows, your vote for president does not count under the current winner-take-all system, and it should!
