Let’s Vote Out the Electoral College
“Plucking Votes From Disasters” (Commentary, May 12) provides yet another justification for abolishing the antiquated electoral college (as if the idea of having the voters decide presidential elections wasn’t convincing enough). Without an electoral college, we’d have no more “battleground states” to get preferential treatment with respect to disaster relief or plain old “pork.”
Unfortunately, the least populous states have an effective veto over the constitutional amendment required to discard the electoral college. They’ve resisted this reform because their proportion of electoral votes is far higher than their proportion of popular votes.
But most of these states are not presidential battlegrounds either, and they may find themselves at the back of the line when it comes to federal aid. Perhaps an appeal to their pocketbooks will convince them to support a long-overdue move to democratic presidential elections.
John J. Manier
Sherman Oaks
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