Electoral College Reform Plan Inches Forward After Historical 2016 Electoral College Results Yields Multiple Faithless Electors
Hillary Clinton is the fifth presidential candidate in the history of the United States to win the national popular vote but still lose the election due to final Electoral College results of 2016. It’s a historical precedent that has Democrats frustrated, reports CNBC News. As such, the 10-year-old movement known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is picking up steam.
It is legislation that could lead to Electoral College reform and could permanently change the face of how presidential elections in the United States are run if it gains the appropriate momentum. CNBC News reports that “mostly Democrats” in the capitols of their states are working to seal the deal on the movement that would reform the Electoral College to coincide with the election’s national popular vote.
It is a movement that is only inching forward at a snail’s pace in light of its 10-year work on it, however, it is inching forward all the same. The United States has never seen so many defections of faithless electors in modern times, and this fact alone could assist the NPVIC movement in inching forward more speedily in coming years or before the next election.
It is a movement that is 10 years in the making. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, also known as the NPVIC, would involve legislation that requires the electoral members of the state’s Electoral College to cast their ballots for the presidential candidate that receives the national popular vote, and not the state wide popular vote.
CNBC News reports that Senator Mae Flexer of Connecticut is just one of many Democratic lawmakers hoping to reform the Electoral College after the Electoral College results of 2016 yielded a significant national popular vote lead for Hillary Clinton.
She said, “Every vote in this country should have equal weight. The Electoral College is a relic of a bygone era, and we need to change this system.”
The NPVIC has been a movement in place since 2006, reports CNBC News. At present, 11 states are on the initiative, representing a total of 165 Electoral College votes. The initiative could not become law until the legislation carried the majority of the Electoral College votes. It needs 105 more votes from other states to join the plan.
The states that are currently on the initiative reportedly include California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, and New York. CNBC News also notes that the measure has already cleared some Republican-controlled chambers, including Arizona.
It’s a bipartisan effort, explained National Popular Vote consultant Patrick Rosenstiel, who also said, “Right now we’ve got a system where the battleground states have all the political influence.”
An Associated Press analysis of the vote certification following the Electoral College results of 2016 revealed that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received the largest national popular vote margin of any losing candidate in the history of the United States. Trump’s margin in the battleground states that tipped the election in 2016, however, was very narrow.
Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer from California is also introducing legislation in the new year to do away with the Electoral College system completely. She’s hoping to remove the entire Electoral College system through a constitutional amendment, reports CNBC News, noting that the effort is a “long shot.”
For Senator Boxer’s efforts to be successful, her initiative would have to pass Congress and then be ratified by three-fourths of the Senate over seven years.
Whether the NPVIC will pick up steam with the legislators of the states not yet on the compact remains to be seen and is questionable. Despite having picked up some GOP approval in states such as Arizona, some Republican-controlled states such as Ohio might be reluctant to give up their strong hold on the state popular vote and on the attention that they receive from presidential candidates during a campaign.
Robert Alexander a professor in political science at Ohio Northern University stated, “Certainly among Democrats, yes. But a lot of the state legislatures are controlled by Republicans, and there is way too much uncertainty for them to take that issue on for their own political futures.”
Alexander said that if the Republicans had favored poorly in the Electoral College results of 2016, they may feel differently, but this is just not the case right now.
Vox News refers to the Electoral College results of 2016 as “historical,” noting that five members of the Electoral College became faithless electors during the vote count on December 19. This marks another first in American history, where previously never more than one Electoral College member became a faithless elector in an attempt to overturn elections results.
Vox reports that this happened at all suggests the system is in need of reform and took it one step further to refer to the Electoral College system as an “utter joke” of an institution. Vox says the multiple defections of the Electoral College this year, which included defections from both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, “spotlight the glaring weaknesses in our country’s bizarre, anachronistic Electoral College system that have long been evident.”
Vox notes that the defections are a symptom of a system that is “badly vulnerable to a very serious crisis.” The Electoral College results of 2016 included 304 votes for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was pledged 232 Electoral College votes but received 227.
Additional Democrat Electoral College 2016 results saw three votes go to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, one vote for Senator Bernie Sanders, and one vote for Faith Spotted Eagle, an activist known for protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Of the Trump defections in the final Electoral College results for 2016, one Electoral College vote went to Ohio Governor John Kasich and another to Ron Paul.
[Featured Image by Michael Dwyer/AP Images]
