Letters to the Editor

To the editor:

In Kent Hilbert’s Dec. 21 letter to the editor, he described the National Popular Vote as doing away with the electoral college. It does not. For the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, state legislatures change their state laws to direct electors differently.

The National Popular Vote does not make our country a pure democracy. With a pure democracy, citizens would take a vote on every law and policy issue in the country. With the National Popular Vote, every vote for president is counted equally across the nation, and the United States will still be a representative democracy. The president is still elected to do the duties of the executive branch — to administer the laws and act on the behalf of all the nation’s people. Voters in each state will still elect the legislative branch of representatives and senators to prevent tyrannical power and to make laws.

Courts are the third check on power. Popular election of the president does not determine if we are a republic.

I question that the current electoral college system has worked out well over history. The EC has gotten it wrong in 9 percent of presidential elections. In five out of 58 presidential elections, the winner was not the person who received the most popular votes in the nation. Two of the last three presidents were first elected without the approval of most voters.

The U.S. Constitution does not require the states to direct all their electors based on “winner-take-all” of the state vote tally.

The way Missouri and most other states direct their electors creates battleground swing states, which makes the voters in swing states much more important than voters in non-swing states. Therefore, the current way most states direct electors does not give small states more power.

Right now, voter power resides only in the closely divided states, not small states.

Concerns of rural residents get no attention unless they live in a swing state today.

I shake my head in disbelief each time I hear someone react, “Wait for the next election to have your say.” I know that it will only be a handful of states — not Missouri — whose voters will make a difference in the next presidential election.

Angie Dunlap
South County