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National Popular Vote Compact Should Be Rejected

Quietly, New York voters have been swindled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature.

Recently, Cuomo put the Electoral College back in the limelight by signing legislation that adds New York to the list of states joining the National Popular Vote compact, an agreement that could end the Electoral College.

Here’s a primer on the Electoral College. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors with a majority of 270 electoral votes required to elect the president. Electors are divided amongst the states based on population. Most states have a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state wins all of the delegates, though Maine and Nebraska divide the number of Electoral College votes proportionally according to the vote.

Critics say the Electoral College system of electing a president means candidates ignore small states or the states that typically vote either Republican or Democrat and focus on battleground states considered to be up for grabs. Cuomo pointed to New York’s ranks as the nation’s fourth most populous state and the state that received the least presidential campaign advertising as reasons to end the Electoral College.

He’s wrong. The popular vote compact wouldn’t mean every state is treated equally. It would simply mean different battleground states and a system that doesn’t protect the interests of all Americans and which particularly ignores small states. It would also mean states with longheld political positions – think of Republican-dominated Texas in 2008 and 2012 or Democrat-dominated New York in 2004- ignoring the majority of their voters because they are held to voting for the national popular vote winner.

It is scary, frankly, that a foolish system like the National Popular Vote compact is more than halfway to being enacted. It is a movement largely by and for politicians instead of by and for the people. Most New Yorkers had no clue the state Legislature was debating such a bill, given that its passage came during budget deliberations. Much like the SAFE Act, it was snuck through with little actual public discussion.

We should be wary of such actions as well as actions that place such power in the hands of a majority. The Founding Fathers realized the dangers posed by majorities and the impulse toward pure democracy. Federalist Paper 10, penned by James Madison, describes the danger of direct democracy and advocates for a representative democracy to protect individuals from majority rule – such as a party popular in populous areas that is able to run roughshod over everyone else.

“A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths,” Madison writes.

This piecemeal approach advocated by the state Legislature, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the other states that have similarly approved this compact should be rejected. Revolting against the wishes of our Founding Fathers should require more than a vote slipped into budget discussions. If the voters truly agree with the National Popular Vote Compact, then they should begin the process to amend the U.S. Constitution.

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