The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a bill this past Tuesday, February 11, 2020, to award Virginia’s delegates to the winner of the popular vote nationwide, regardless of who wins the contest in the state of Virginia.
Supporters of the so-called “National Popular Vote” movement argue that the Electoral College is not fair, and that the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide should become the President.
Now, you may or may not have a pre-formed opinion on the matter, but if you are reading this article, I assume you are a fair-minded and reasonable person. So, I invite you to take a few minutes to put on your thinking cap with me.
First, let’s remind ourselves what the United States are.
Yes, I said “the United States are,” not “the United States is,” and it was no mistake. Why did I say “are”?
I said it because the United States are not a single nation. As our family friend Leah Garber recently reminded me, the United States are a group of states, originally 13, by now 50, whose citizens 231 years ago formed a federal government for the purpose of doing those things, and only those things, that the states cannot do for themselves. The detail to note is that we are not a big and singular blob of people spread across a land mass divided by inconsequential lines on a map. Every one of the states united has its own government that includes a legislature and executive. Every one is accountable to its own citizens.
The federal government serves the states, not the other way around. So, first remember this.
POINT 1: UNITED STATES ARE 50 INDIVIDUAL STATES
Words matter. May I encourage you to renew the habit of saying “the United States are,” rather than “the United States is?”
Second, let’s consider, for a moment, a very important question: In theory either party could lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College. In other words, a Democrat could win the Presidency having lost the popular vote, just as well as a Republican could do so. But it is not Republicans who are wild-eyed about the need for the President to be chosen solely based upon who gets the most votes all over the nation.
Why? And why is it so urgently important to them?
Put a different way, what do the Democrats feel is in it for them?
To answer the above question requires only a bit of common sense. The United States cover a total area of about 3.8 million square miles. Among this massive expanse are localities where vote fraud is very difficult, and other localities where vote fraud is quite easy. Under the current system, if some party wishes to steal a national election, one must decentralize their fraud and operate with a great deal of risk in enough states to secure the requisite number of electoral votes. Massive fraud in only one or two states will not guarantee a national election win under the current system.
The problem for would-be fraudsters is that today it is also relatively easy to determine where fraud is likely to take place, and this makes it somewhat easier to shine the light of accountability. Imagine if fraud anywhere would not merely affect the delegates from the state in which it occurred, but could — quite literally and quite directly — affect the outcome of the entire national election.
Having understood this, now consider what would be the main effect of the National Popular Vote, and you will have your answer concerning why the Democrats are so hot on this massive change to our electoral system.
If the presidential candidate who receives the mere majority of the individual votes nationally will become elected President, then there will no longer be any need for vote fraud to be carried out in places where there is a higher chance of getting caught. All that will be necessary in a state where Democrats are in control of the department of elections and the other layers of government will be to “look the other way” and give the wink to levels of vote-padding in those precincts that would make anyone Al Capone blush.
One might argue that Republicans could do the same thing, and one would be right, they could. But the fact that Republicans are not the ones calling for a National Popular Vote gives you the answer about who wants fair and honest elections.
Vote fraud is a felony. For a non-citizen or other ineligible person to cast a vote in a federal election is a felony. For a person to cast a vote for another — such as returning an absentee ballot for a deceased relative — is a felony. For a person to cast a vote in two precincts (for example, a person moved but never canceled their old registration and decides to vote in both places) is a felony.
All these things happen. Guess what? The National Popular Vote would create a perverse incentive for all these things to increase, and if you think it is bad now, such activities would run rampant, orders of magnitude worse than they are now, and with the quiet blessing of the Democrat powers-that-be (all in the name of “social justice,” don’t you know), in places like Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, Washington DC, and elsewhere if the National Popular Vote takes effect.
POINT 2: WITH NPV, ACTIVISTS AND FRAUDSTERS WILL DECIDE FUTURE ELECTIONS
In a system of self-governance, there is hardly anything more precious than the integrity of the vote. Only people eligible to vote should be voting, and they should be doing so only once. We are already on the fast track to the total breakdown of these United States, and the states are being rendered increasingly meaningless against the power of Washington. The states are supposed to form a check on each other and on Washington (for this reason, the repeal of the 17th Amendment is also warranted). I submit that the loss of the American system of self-governance, with its various checks and balances and its aspiration toward liberty and justice for all, would be a loss not only to the American peoples, but also to the world.
You have a voice. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have died in the perennial battle to secure and preserve your liberty and right to self-governance as a citizen of these United States. Tyrants on the left want to take that right away. They are doing so not in your interest but in their own. Don’t let them get away with it.
Please let your delegates, senators, and governor know that you will not stand for them throwing away your vote and your state’s sovereignty.
Especially if you live in Virginia.