My most recent column exposing the fraud that is the national popular vote movement has finally struck home. On Tuesday, November 15, I received a lengthy response from a staff member of the National Popular Vote (NPV) organization, attempting to refute my claims for the superiority of the Maine-Nebraska system of electoral vote allocation.<\/p>\n
As I read their arguments, it could not help but consider the political risks of making false and unsubstantiated claims for the national popular vote to members of the state legislatures, none of whom are dummies. The following is my response to the national popular vote email:<\/p>\n
NPV: \u201cDividing more states\u2019 electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n PRH: I can\u2019t respond to that statement because I have no idea what \u201cworst features of the Electoral College system\u201d you refer to.\u00a0 Anyone who reads the Federalist Papers will understand that the Framers wanted the members of the lower house of the legislative branch, the U.S. House of Representatives, selected by the popular vote of the people.\u00a0 They wanted the upper house of the legislative branch, the U.S. Senate, selected by the political institutions of the states (the state legislatures), and they wanted the president and vice president to be chosen, not by the people and not by the political institutions of the states, but by the states<\/em> themselves.\u00a0 That\u2019s why electors are state officials for a day.\u00a0 I suspect that few Americans have taken the time to learn this distinction.\u00a0 To short-circuit the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote is to totally reverse the original intent of the Founding Fathers.<\/p>\n NPV: \u201cIf the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n PRH: That simply is not true and cannot be proven.\u00a0 How is it fair for all of California\u2019s 55 electoral votes to go to a single presidential candidate when the voters in 14 of the state\u2019s 53 congressional districts vote for Republicans up and down the ballot?\u00a0 And how is it fair for all 20 of Illinois\u2019 electoral votes to go to one presidential candidate when voters in only 10 of the state\u2019s 18 congressional districts prefer Democrats over Republicans?<\/p>\n NPV: \u201cIn 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state\u2019s 14 congressional districts.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n PRH: This is not an anomaly of the Electoral College system.\u00a0 It is a function of the Democrat Party\u2019s long campaign to capture the votes of large political constituencies by promising them \u201cstuff.\u201d \u00a0This electoral anomaly is created by those political constituencies that want something from<\/em> government that they could not have earned at the ballot box or in a competitive market.<\/p>\n NPV: \u201cWith the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 38+ states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 98% of the nation\u2019s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally\u2026 The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to poll, visit, advertise, or organize in a particular state or focus the candidates\u2019 attention to issues of concern to the state.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n PRH: That simply is not true.\u00a0 The exact opposite is true and if anyone had ever tried to tell me a whopper like that one I\u2019d take it as an insult to my intelligence.\u00a0 For example, had the Maine-Nebraska system been in effect in all states in November 2016, Donald Trump could not have ignored the 14 electoral votes available to him in California or the 9 electoral votes available to him in New York.\u00a0 Conversely, Hillary Clinton could not have ignored the 11 electoral votes available to her in Texas or the 5 electoral votes available to her in Michigan.\u00a0 By assigning more importance to local elections under the Maine-Nebraska system, interest in local politics would be enhanced and much of the negative impact of the 17th<\/sup> Amendment would be reversed.<\/p>\n I can understand why Democratic presidential candidates tend to ignore all but the coastal states, as well as the states of Illinois and Minnesota in \u201cfly-over\u201d country. Just one cursory glance at the county-by-county electoral map of the past five presidential elections\u2026 all but totally red with an occasional splotch of blue\u2026 to convince any candidate that campaigning anywhere but in the population centers of the east and west coast could be a waste of time.\u00a0 For example, in 2012 Obama carried 653 (21.06%) of the 3,100 counties in the country, compared to Romney\u2019s 2,447 counties (78.94%).\u00a0 In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried just 568 counties (18.32%), compared to Donald Trump\u2019s 2,532 counties (81.68%).\u00a0 So is it any wonder that Republicans control the governors\u2019 mansions and both house of the legislature in more states than ever before?<\/p>\n NPV: \u201cAwarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any district or state or throughout the country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n PRH: Again, that simply is not true.\u00a0 And again, I\u2019d take it as an insult to my intelligence if someone tried to make me believe that bit of nonsense.\u00a0 In order for that assertion to have even a smidgen of truth, you\u2019d have to give me a list of congressional races that have been won by third party candidates.\u00a0 They are \u201cscarcer than hens\u2019 teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n If there is a problem with the Electoral College, it is the lack of knowledge and training among individual electors. When I was elected to my first term in the Electoral College I took that responsibility very seriously.\u00a0 I researched and read everything I could find on the origin and the purpose of the institution. For example, as an expression of the fear of foreign influence that motivated and inspired the Framers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, \u201cThese most deadly adversaries of republican government (cabal, intrigue, etc.) might actually have expected to make their approach from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this than by raising a <\/em>creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n Clearly, we don\u2019t have to look far to find examples of exactly what Hamilton was referring to.\u00a0 In 1996, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran for reelection to a second term, a major portion of their campaign funds came through intermediaries from the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army. Is it any wonder then that, at the behest of the Chinese and Japanese governments, the Clinton administration attempted a legislative coup d\u2019etat<\/em> in 1997 that would have destroyed a core function of the U.S. government, the engine of our economy and our standard of living, the U.S. patent system?\u00a0 What was it that Barack Obama promised in exchange for the huge sums of money, from unknown sources, that was funneled into his 2008 campaign after being laundered through the United Bank of Switzerland (UBS)?\u00a0 And what was it that Bill and Hillary Clinton promised to foreign political and business leaders in exchange for the hundreds of millions of dollars contributed to the Clinton Foundation?\u00a0 It was precisely these kinds of people that the Electoral College was intended to identify and deter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In Federalist Paper No. 68, arguing in favor of the Electoral College, Hamilton explained that, \u201cA small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Reading those words, it is easy to see how the Electoral College has failed in its responsibility in three presidential elections: 1880, with the election of Vice President Chester A. Arthur, and in 2008 and 2012 with the election of Barack Hussein Obama\u2026 both of whom were sired by men who were not American citizens. \u00a0Both of their fathers were British subject at the time they were born.\u00a0 In each instance, it was the responsibility of members of the Electoral College to assure themselves that these men were \u201cnatural born\u201d U.S. citizens.\u00a0 In each instance they failed to do so.\u00a0 The Republican members of the Electoral College in 1880, and the Democratic members of the Electoral College in 2008 and 2012, lacked \u201cthe information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, I am aware that letters were sent to a large number of Democratic electors in 2008 advising them that Barack Obama was ineligible for the office he sought and that it was their duty to reject him.\u00a0 However, when the electors voted, every single one of the 365 Democratic electors were so anxious to elect the first black president that they violated their oaths and cast their votes for Barack Obama.\u00a0 If Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, or Niki Haley had won the Republican nomination for president or vice president during either of my two terms in the Electoral College, could I have voted for any of them?\u00a0 Absolutely not!\u00a0 Like Barack Obama, all are products of foreign parentage; none are \u201cnatural born\u201d citizens.<\/p>\n In 2012, instead of a 332 to 206 vote victory for Obama-Biden in the Electoral College, the Maine-Nebraska system would have produced a comfortable 282 to 256 vote victory for Romney-Ryan. What this tells us is that the national popular vote movement is merely an attempt to obtain through trickery, that which the left could never achieve at the ballot box.<\/p>\n As one who has spent a career as chief lobbyist for a Fortune 25 corporation, I am acutely aware of the consequences of purposely misleading members of Congress or the state legislatures.\u00a0 Those who are selling the \u201cvirtues\u201d of the national popular vote in state legislatures all across the country are seriously misleading and misinforming legislators.\u00a0 When the legislators finally see the truth of the matter they will not be pleased.\u00a0 More and more states will consider leaving the NPVIC.<\/p>\n Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College. He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma\u2019s Green Country.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My most recent column exposing the fraud that is the national popular vote movement has finally struck home. On Tuesday, November 15, I received a lengthy response from a staff member of the National Popular Vote (NPV) organization, attempting to … Continue reading