Democracy

 Take It Back -   Two times in the last 25 years, in 2000 and 2016, the person who won the Presidency did not win the popular vote. First it was George W. Bush in 2000, who was handed the win by the Supreme Court which stopped the vote recount in Florida. Then it was Donald Trump in 2016, whose elevation to the Presidency came despite losing the popular vote by 2.9 million votes.... Almost a decade ago, in June 2015, Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator and inflicted himself on the American people. If the popular vote had carried the day in that election, and Trump had never been president... In 2016, despite losing by nearly 3 million votes, just 80,000 votes in just 3 states gave Trump the Electoral College win. It’s terrifying that so few votes can determine a national election in which 158 million Americans voted.  But the Electoral College is built into the Constitution, and we are not likely to get 3/4 of the states to ratify an Amendment to abolish the Electoral College. More than a 1/4 of the states are over-represented by their Electoral College votes, and are not likely to want to give up their advantage, unfair as it may be.

The solution

Here’s how the National Popular Vote Compact works: If enough states agree to assign their Electoral College electors to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the state’s own popular vote, we can guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide, without needing to amend the Constitution. The compact won’t take effect until enough states have joined to guarantee Electoral College victory to the popular-vote winner. So far, sixteen states and D.C. have already signed on, totaling 205 Electoral College votes out of the 270 needed to secure a national popular vote victory.