I’m pretty excited about the possibility of this because we don’t need
the Electoral College. Both houses of the New York legislature voted to join a
multi-state compact to ensure the person who received the most votes in the
presidential election would become President of the United States. As we all
know the Electoral College enables a person who loses the popular vote to win
because of Electoral votes. This has happened four times in the history of the
US. Ian
Millhiser wrote about it for ThinkProgress.
The bill is waiting for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature, which would add
New York to an agreement to award the state’s electoral votes to whoever wins
the popular vote of the nation as a while regardless of who wins the popular
vote in New York. This compact does not take effect until a bloc of states
totally 270 electoral votes (the total needed to win the Electoral College) agrees
to sign on. The compact will end the risk that the losing candidate will become
president.
If the bill is signed it will bring the compact’s total to 160. The idea
behind this is candidates have no incentive to campaign in some states, while
other swing states (Ohio) get all the attention. Of course, most of the states
that have signed on to this compact have been blue state instead of red states.
Oklahoma is the first state that leans Republican to come to the compact.
I think we should throw out the Electoral College because it is
condescending and as far as I’m concerned continues to keep the powerful in
power. That said, I wonder about the implications for funding, specifically
whether people with a lot of private funding (their own funds for example) will
have better luck campaign in every state, which would now be necessary. Then
again, the only people who ever win elections are from the upper class so this
probably won’t matter anyway.
