Five of forty-seven presidents were elevated by winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote. Which pisses people off.
But the Electoral College is established in the Constitution. Amending the Constitution is pain in the assholes. Which also pisses people off:
- Proposing:
1) Two-thirds passage of both House and Senate -OR-
1a) Constitutional Convention: must be called by Congress if two-thirds of state legislatures vote to ask Congress to do so.
- Ratifying:
1b) Three-quarters of State Ratifying Conventions vote to ratify.
What to do? Well, here's one thing that eighteen states and D.C. have already done: Enact laws to join the National Popular Vote Compact. Those nineteen jurisdictions account for 222 of the 270 Electoral Votes needed to win the presidency.
How it works:
The Compact needs states with 48 additional Electoral Votes to join.
If and when the Compact gets to 270 on July 20 of a presidential election year, the Compact is activated: the joining jurisdictions are bound by their previously passed laws to activate it.
Upon activation the Compact binds its states to award its Electoral Votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
Why this is a bad idea (in my opinion):
Wisconsin was Donald Trump's tipping point state in the 2016 election. That is, Wisconsin put him over 270 Electoral Votes. But Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.9M votes. If Wisconsin was a member of the National Popular Vote Compact in 2016, its 10 Electoral Votes would have gone to Hillary. To me, the will of the people of Wisconsin would have been frustrated. I would be fucking PISSED if my vote for Trump had gone (via the EVs and the Compact) to Hillary. I mean really most sincerely pissed.
Losing Wisconsin's EVs would have brought Trumpie down to 294 EVs. For Hilary to have reached 270 EVs, two other states totaling 25 EV's or more would have had to have joined the Compact on July 20, 2016, thus activating it. Pennsylvania, 20 EVs in 2016 and Iowa (6) are reasonable targets. If they had been members of the Compact, along with Wisconsin, on July 20, 2016, they would have been obligated by state law to turn over their EVs to a candidate, Hilary Clinton, that their state's citizens did not vote for.
Ladies and gentlemen there would be riots. The citizenry of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Iowa would murder the Electors and their state reps.
The name of the country is the United States of America. Not the unitary "America". "States", the United STATES.
Our flag has fifty stars, one for each of the STATES. A united group of STATES is what we are and is literally woven into our flag. You want a country named America?...I don't know how you do that, actually. You want a country with a flag with one fucking star, Somalia welcomes you. But we are the United States of America and we have fifty fucking stars on our flag. Move on.
The National Popular Vote Compact should be executed and the body burned.
I am Benjamin Harris and this is Public Occurrences.