ONE MAN, ONE VOTE
A remarkably elegant solution to an age-old problem.*
Four times since the framers met in Philadelphia in 1787, the presidency has gone to the candidate on the losing end of the popular vote. The republic still stands.
That’s hardly a compelling argument for leaving things as they are. The Electoral College less than perfectly reflects the will of the people, and the threat of the “faithless elector†who tips an election the way his partisan bias dictates is real, if remote. Both threats would vanish if the election automatically went to the candidate for whom most registered voters pulled the lever.
This is the point at which the conversation normally would turn to amending the federal Constitution to abolish the Electoral College. But the state Senate has just passed a bill that would achieve a comparable effect by simple statute.
The bill provides that, if enough states join in to command a majority in the Electoral College, all of North Carolina’s electoral votes will be awarded to the winner of the popular vote — not the statewide winner, but the one who wins nationwide. More than 40 states are already looking at substantially the same bill.
*Calling something an “elegant solution” is the highest form of compliment among scientists.