Mob Rule by Compact: How the Electoral College Could Be Abolished Without an Amendment
The enemies of the Electoral College see a golden opportunity up ahead.
“Midterm victories have given states the opportunity to elevate the national popular vote,” The New York Times gleefully announced early this week. “The time is right,” Michigan’s Democratic Representative, Carrie Rheingans, told the Times.
Ending the Electoral College has been a dream of the leftist faction of the Uniparty for a long time. It would essentially quash what vestige of the American Republic still stands.
The NPVIC
Electoral College opponents realize that it’s nearly impossible to eliminate it with a constitutional amendment. So two decades ago they came up with a scheme called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). The Times provides this concise summary of how the NPVIC works:
Since 2007, 18 Democratic-run states and the District of Columbia have joined a legal framework that would pledge their Electoral College votes to the nationwide popular vote winner, rather than the winner in their state. The effect of the pact, if enacted and enforced, would be the same as replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote. The pledge would activate only if the states in the pact accounted for at least 270 electoral votes, the majority needed to win.
The NPVIC’s prospects rose significantly after November 3. As we explain in this week’s Insider Report newsletter, the midterm elections gave Democrats trifectas in at least five states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those states represent 61 electoral votes. “If these states join the 18 states plus the District of Columbia that have already ratified the NPVIC, the compact will have 283 electoral votes — more than the 270 required for it to enter into force,” we reported.
Popular Vote Weakens the States
Moving to a popular vote would make the federal government more powerful than it already is. The popular vote weakens the power of the states, and would be more harmful than the 17th Amendment. As we previously reported:
Originally, the U.S. Senate represented the interest of the states, serving as a necessary check on the federal government. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives represented the will or interest of the people. The passage of the 17th Amendment removed the voice of the states in federal matters and terminated their role as a check on the federal government, which in large part accounts for the vast increase in the size of the federal government and the scope of its control over the states, which in turn are increasingly treated as regional subsidiaries. Similarly, the NPVIC would remove the role of the states in electing the president and vice president. No longer would the country truly be the United States of America, but rather a united “people’s democracy,” where in the name of such democracy the states become superfluous.
Mob Rule
Robert Welch, founder of The John Birch Society (TNA’s parent company), made a similar point, but in his usual acerbic manner. Discussing in a letter to his niece what to do about the Electoral College, Welch wrote that his “vote” was:
Leave it alone. … Because, for us to abolish it today, or even modify it seriously, would have exactly the same purport as did the Seventeenth Amendment for the direct election of Senators. Namely, just one more push towards converting our republic into a huge and raucous mob of voting ignoramuses, otherwise known as a democracy. Which is a relatively new, but etymologically sound term, for a far-gone welfare state.
