April 10, 2024 - Epoch Times
09:32
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| Last week, the state legislature of Maine became the 17th in the nation to pass a bill which will effectively eliminate the Electoral College. | |
| Because you see, unbeknownst to most people, there is a serious effort in this country to make presidential elections a simple majority popular vote. | |
| And even though most people have never heard about this effort, well, it's actually already 76% complete, meaning that the Electoral College is truly at risk of getting completely scrapped in the next few years. | |
| This effort, it's officially called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, otherwise known as the NPVIC. | |
| And what it basically is, it's an agreement between the states that join to give their collective electoral votes to whichever candidate happens to win the popular vote at the national level. | |
| Let me briefly explain. | |
| Up on your screen is a map of the electoral college votes by state. | |
| This is the most recent map based on the 2020 census results. | |
| Every state has Electoral College votes equal to the number of representatives that they have in Congress at the federal level. | |
| And so, for instance, the state of Texas, they have two senators, as well as 38 members of the House, and therefore they have 40 votes total in the Electoral College. | |
| Now, the way that the Electoral College has evolved over the last 250 years is kind of a long story, but relevant to our discussion today, it's worth highlighting that every individual state gets to decide how they apportion their votes, meaning that the state legislatures in each state They get to decide how they divvy out their electoral college votes. | |
| And so, at this moment, the way that it works in practice is that whichever candidate wins a plurality of votes in a given state, meaning whoever wins the popular vote in a state, they get that state's electoral college votes. | |
| This is the way it works for every state except for two. | |
| Nebraska and Maine, they actually split up their electoral college votes based on congressional districts. | |
| And they can do this, again, because states can decide how to divvy up their votes. | |
| The electoral college system itself was established by Article 2 of the U.S. | |
| Constitution, but states retained the ability to run their own elections and to decide how they apportioned their electoral college votes. | |
| It's an aspect of our federalist system. | |
| And so, opponents of the electoral college system have used this as a sort of loophole to try and destroy it. | |
| Because you see, if you wanted to get rid of the Electoral College system in the normal way, you would have to amend the U.S. | |
| Constitution, which is realistically not possible. | |
| There is not enough support to get rid of the Electoral College by passing an actual amendment to the U.S. | |
| Constitution. | |
| And so, instead, what opponents of the Electoral College system have been doing is that they've been working to get rid of it using the backdoor, by having individual states sign up for something known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or the NPVIC. | |
| And the NPVIC is an agreement between states to give their collective electoral college votes to whichever candidate happens to win the national popular vote. | |
| Quote, a California millionaire named John Koza is trying to undo the electoral college. | |
| He is leading and funding the national popular vote campaign. | |
| Their plan is to get state governments to ignore how their own citizens vote in presidential elections and instead get them to cast their electoral votes based on the national popular vote. | |
| If it works, this will be like getting rid of the Electoral College, but without actually amending the Constitution. | |
| NPV only takes effect if it is joined by enough states that they control 270 electoral votes, which would then control the outcome of all future presidential elections. | |
| If that happens, and if the courts do not strike it down, big cities will gain more political power at the expense of everyone else. | |
| And so, what's been happening in this country since about 2006 is that state legislatures in blue states, they've been passing these NPVIC laws. | |
| At the moment, 16 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have successfully passed the NPVIC laws, which are now on the books. | |
| For your reference, the states are as follows. | |
| You have Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington State, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, and then also Washington, D.C. | |
| In total, this block represents 205 electoral college votes, which is 76% of the necessary total. | |
| And so, because they have not reached that 270 threshold, these NPVIC laws, they are on the books in those states, but they're dormant. | |
| They haven't yet gone into effect. | |
| However, if and when enough states join this compact to add up to 270 votes, the laws will be triggered, And overnight, the Electoral College will effectively be eliminated. | |
| Because at the very moment when this National Popular Vote Compact has 270 votes total, the states that have signed on will automatically shift the way that their system works to give their Electoral College votes to whoever happens to win the National Popular Vote. | |
| And so, the moment that happens, the US president will suddenly be decided by a simple majority vote. | |
| Whoever is able to win the masters in big cities will be able to win the presidency, while the people living in the rural countryside will essentially become serfs, unable to affect policy at the national level moving forward. | |
| But here's the thing. | |
| While we're not there quite yet, looking across the whole country, it's actually feasible that within the next few years, probably within the next 4, 5, maybe 6 years, enough states might join the compact to activate the change. | |
| That's because right now, the NPVIC is missing only 65 electoral college votes. | |
| However, at the same time, you have 11 states that have NPVIC bills working through their state legislatures. | |
| And these 11 states, they together represent 101 electoral college votes. | |
| And here's the status generally of these 11 states. | |
| Just last week, over in Maine, the NPVIC bill passed both the state senate as well as the state assembly, and is now sitting on the governor's desk awaiting signature. | |
| The governor there has three more days to either sign the bill or to veto it. | |
| However, if she doesn't do anything, it'll automatically become law without her signature in three days. | |
| Then you have Nevada, where the NPVIC bill also passed both the state senate as well as the state house. | |
| However, over in Nevada, this type of bill actually does not need to be signed by the governor. | |
| Instead, because this bill amends the state constitution, it must pass the legislature again in the year 2025, and then afterwards, there must be a statewide vote in order for it to be enacted. | |
| And this whole process, it might take about two years. | |
| And then in the other nine states that you can see up on your screen, they all have NPVIC bills going through the committee process in the state senate, the state assembly, or both. | |
| And so we'll have to wait and see how this process plays itself out in those states. | |
| But until then, you really do have to admire this type of a scheme. | |
| Objectively speaking, it is incredibly smart, using a backdoor way to get rid of the electoral college by just having enough states join a bloc to add up to 270 votes and then agree to give those votes to whoever wins the popular vote. | |
| In terms of a strategy, it is quite literally brilliant. | |
| Although, obviously, the end result will be something that the framers of this country wished would never happen. | |
| The obliteration of the Electoral College alongside a shift towards a direct democracy. | |
| Something, again, that the founding fathers feared. | |
| Although, I'd love to know your thoughts on this issue. | |
| Do you think that moving America towards having a popular vote is a good idea? | |
| Or do you think that it runs the real risk of majority rule that completely strips away the rights of the minority? | |
| I'd love to know your thoughts. | |
| Please leave them in the comments section below. | |
| I'll be reading them tonight as well as later into the week. | |
| Alright, just to pause here for a super quick moment, listen, it's obvious that the financial system is not looking too great. | |
| After being pumped up with trillions of virtually free government dollars for many, many years now, well, the stock bubble might actually burst in the near future. | |
| And in that process, unfortunately, it could take away the nest egg of anyone who happens to be exposed to it. | |
| And so, consider taking this opportunity to diversify into something which is beyond the grasp of Washington D.C. | |
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| And then lastly, if you enjoyed today's content and you're thinking to yourself, man, I love this episode, I just wish Roman would put out more episodes every single week, Well, you're in luck, because I do. | |
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| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epic Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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