Many people say that Joe Biden won by a big margin on November 3 -- over 6,000,000 votes nationwide.
Actually, he only won in the Electoral College because of a small number of popular votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
Donald Trump would have been re-elected by a switch of a mere 21,847 votes in these 3 states.
Specifically, a switch of 5,229 votes in Arizona, 6,335 in Georgia, and 10,283 in Wisconsin would have shifted 37 electoral votes and created a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. Trump would then be re-elected because the U.S. House of Representatives picks Presidents on a one-state-one-vote basis.
Each of these 21,893 votes in 2020 was 274 times more important than the 6,000,000 votes cast outside Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
This is the second time in 20 years that the state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes has created a situation in which a switch of a small number of votes (i.e., 59,393 in Ohio in 2004 from George W. Bush) would have elected the second-place candidate President (despite Bush's nationwide lead of over 3,000,000 votes nationwide).
And, in two additional elections in the last 20 years (2000 and 2016), the second-place candidate actually won the Presidency, despite lagging considerably in the national popular vote.
In 2020, all the uncertainty, recounts, and 32 lawsuits in 6 battleground states were ways by which hair-splitting lawyers tried, over the last few weeks, to get courts to muzzle the voice of the voters.
After 2 near-misses, and 2 second-place Presidents in 6 elections, it is time to realize that the current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes repeatedly manufactures avoidable chaos and crises in the closely divided battleground states. Meanwhile, none of these elections were even close in terms of the national popular vote.
We need
- the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC to be guaranteed to become President, and
- every vote to be equal throughout the U.S.
The National Popular Vote compact will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The compact will take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes (270 of 538).
After the compact comes into effect, the presidential candidate supported by the most voters in all 50 states and DC will receive all the electoral votes of all the enacting states. Because those states will have a majority of the electoral votes (270), there will be a majority in the Electoral College to elect the national popular vote winner as President.
NOTE: Election returns from November 21 Washington Post
