If the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact had been in force during the 2016 presidential election, it is unlikely that we would be suffering through this national upheaval today because Hillary Clinton would be in the White House today, not Donald J. Trump.
The compact equalizes each vote nationwide, rather than creating battleground states where each of their votes is worth several hundred times the value of votes from the non-battleground states, as the present Electoral College system produces.
Vermont passed the NPVIC through the common sense of the Vermont General Assembly and in particular by individuals like Chris Pearson. To date, 15 states and the District of Columbia have enacted and signed into law the NPVIC. Vermont did so during 2011.
The NPVIC does not eliminate the Electoral College; rather it goes around it while also using it to create much more voter equity.
Even at this late hour, Donald J. Trump should be removed as the president of the United States and he should be prohibited from ever holding federal public office in the future. That is the negative remedy to our national plight but we simultaneously need a positive remedy.
That positive remedy is: As a nation-state, we should stand up for ourselves by demanding that those state legislatures, not yet having passed the NPVIC, do so, giving substance to the credo “that all men are created equal” and by extension that all voters are also equal.
Richard Scheiber
Cabot
