A May 12 Opinion-page piece railed against the national popular vote compact to reform the presidential election process (Local View: “ Electoral College a compromise to ensure all states matter ”).
The writer seemed to think states have more rights than people and that it’s OK to arbitrarily take voting power from some people and give it to others. This would mean that equality before the law is meaningless. The column seemed to be in the uncomfortable position of arguing that some people are more equal than others when it comes to the value of a vote.
Suggested was that we should not be disgruntled when the popular-vote winner is declared a loser by the Electoral College. Rather, we apparently should reflect on the loser’s failure to receive broader national support. Really? I suggest it might be more productive to reflect on the fact that in virtually every other country in the world, the winner is the person with the most votes.
The Electoral College was an uncomfortable compromise forced upon the Founders by the conditions of the times. Most people were uneducated. Furthermore, the large geographical size of the new nation made a popular vote impractical in an age when the fastest means of communication was a man on horseback.
The Electoral College is a national disgrace. It is an outdated and undemocratic relic of the horse-and-buggy era. What could be more fair than to have every presidential vote counted equally? And what could be more shameful than continuing to allow flagrant discrimination that favors some and disfavors others?
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James J. Amato
Duluth
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