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Title: National Popular Vote Promises to Gut the Constitution
Source: [None]
URL Source: https://www.theamericanconservative ... mises-to-gut-the-constitution/
Published: May 22, 2023
Author: Hayden Ludwig
Post Date: 2023-05-22 08:53:32 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 50
Comments: 1

If the Left can’t abolish the Electoral College, they’ll bypass it. So why are some so-called conservatives along for the ride?

If you think leftists aim to cut the Electoral College out of the Constitution, guess again—they plan to simply ignore it. The scheme is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and if enough states join, it will force red states to vote Democrats into the White House every four years—forever.

It works like this: Every state that joins the compact pledges its electoral votes to whichever candidate wins more votes nationwide. When enough states join to reach the critical 270-electoral-vote majority, it spells doomsday for Republicans.

If this scheme had been in place in 2016, Hillary Clinton would’ve won the presidency by garnering 48 percent of the popular vote to Trump’s 46 percent. Clinton famously ignored Wisconsin on the campaign trail, visiting just thirty-seven states plus the electorally useless D.C. and Puerto Rico. Trump visited forty-five states. Voters in key states rewarded each their due.

Amazingly, the national popular vote plan would mean future Democrats could visit even fewer states and still win the White House. All they’d have to do is juice the vote in California, Illinois, and New York—no need to visit “flyover country.” Why change your strategy when you can change the rules?

With 195 electoral votes across fifteen states already pledged to the compact, we’re closer to the abyss than you might think. So why are some Republicans backing this national suicide compact?

It’s no secret that each of the Left’s election “reforms”—voting by mail, ranked-choice voting, and automatic voter registration—is meant to codify permanent Democratic control of Congress and state legislatures. When it comes to the presidency, they’ve put National Popular Vote (NPV) in charge.

The name is misleading. While most presidential election winners have won more votes than the losers (Trump is the fifth and most recent exception), all won the presidency by garnering more electoral votes—not popular votes—than their opponents. Every state has a slate of electors determined by its population: California has fifty-five while Idaho has four. There are a total of 538.

Put simply, when individual voters cast a ballot they’re really voting for one party’s proposed slate of electors versus the other’s. After the November election, the winning party’s electors gather in Washington to vote for their nominee, who is soon sworn into office.

Americans instinctively understand this. You don’t vote on legislation in Congress; you vote for a representative to do so with your interests and well-being in mind. No one is outraged by this—yet NPV would have us believe that the United States has never held a free and democratic election in two and a half centuries.

“Progressives” cast this system as uniquely insidious and undemocratic, a relic of colonial-era “white supremacy” in dire need of an update.

In fact, it was one of the Founders’ most ingenious concoctions for balancing the will of the American people across every state against the threat of voting in tyrants who would enact despotism. The Electoral College is meant to be “undemocratic” because it is republican, relying on representatives voted in by the people instead of direct votes from the people.

Practically all Western countries use a similar system to elect their executives because they usually produce leadership that represents a broad array of interests and geographic areas. The United Kingdom’s prime minister, for instance, is chosen by democratically elected members of parliament, not the voters. Ditto in Japan and Italy. Germany is even less democratic, electing the chancellor in the legislature by directive of the president, himself elected by the legislature, not the people.

Practically no other country uses a national popular vote system. Of the 38 OCED countries—all modern, democratic nations—just three count popular votes to elect their executive: Mexico, South Korea, and the Philippines, each marred by corrupt leaders, often elected by far fewer than 51 percent of voters.

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#1. To: Ada (#0)

It’s no secret that each of the Left’s election “reforms”—voting by mail, ranked-choice voting,

Ranked Choice voting is an improvement over the pluralist voting system we use now, which is the worst voting method in existence and only makes sense back in the days when ballots where parchments on which voters wrote the name of their preferred candidate. Ranked choice lets voters express an opinion about all candidates instead of just one.

Pinguinite  posted on  2023-05-22   9:57:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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