Lest We Forget: November 7, 2000 and the US Presidential Election

I'm grateful to the Ricochet member who--on another thread--drew my attention to this Public Service Announcement by a bunch of self-serving soi-disant celebrities, just eight years ago. As they say, "everything old is new again." Thank you:

I'm still not exactly sure what they're advocating for. And I live in a place where Alexander Hamilton's portrait is still regularly hung upside down as a sign of contempt for his part in the Whiskey Rebellion. Lady, I don't know your place in the video, or why you are there. Maybe you know more about monetary policy than I do. But I doubt it, especially when it comes to totting up my own monthly bills versus your own.

Still, let's move past all that, and go back a little more than a decade before this video was cut:

On this day, almost a quarter-century ago, the US presidential election was stymied at a statistical tie with no clear winner emerging in the Electoral College. Most at issue was the outcome in the state of Florida, which went from side to side, depending on who was counting and one's opinion of "hanging chads," and which was complicated by the media's (supposedly inadvertent) calling the state for Al Gore before all the polls had closed in the "panhandle," much of which is in a different time zone than the rest of Florida, and in which some residents were still setting off to vote after being told their candidate had already lost.

Weeks of acrimony ensued, and the case was referred to the United States Supreme Court which--on December 12--ruled that the umpteenth statewide recount could not be fairly or properly completed by the deadline to certify Florida's vote, thereby awarding the state of Florida, and its Electoral College vote, to George W. Bush. As a result, Bush prevailed for the presidency in the closest Electoral College result in history--a total of 271 Electoral College votes to 266 for Gore.

The meltdown on the Democrat side (Gore-Lieberman) was epic. "Selected, not Elected!!" they shrieked. "Not My President!!" they cried.

The case has become a benchmark for the "unfairness" of US presidential elections ever since, at the same time as the fact that the seven or so Florida recounts--each time--showed Bush as winning Florida, even by just a small margin.

The fact that Bush ended up winning the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote by a total of about 500,000 spawned something called the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact," which leverages the fact that the states can determine, as they see fit, the way their Electoral College votes are assigned to a particular candidate. And since they were wont to deny the legitimacy of Bush's election in 2000 because he lost the popular vote, several states saw it as advantageous to propose that the winner of the national popular vote—who the state legislators always assumed would be one of "them," even if not necessarily the same person who won the Electoral College majority—should receive a state's Electoral College votes, no matter for which presidential candidate the majority of citizens in that particular state had actually voted.

Fast forward to 2024:

Here's the Electoral College map at some point yesterday, complete with the assignments of Electoral College votes based on the individual states:

And here's the current (almost) status of the signatories of the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact," together with a graphical depiction of those states that have already signed the compact into law (missing is only Virginia, which voted the Compact ideal into law after this image was created):

For those having difficulty getting both maps on the screen at the same time, here's a side-by-side comparison, if it helps:

Please overlay the "blue" (Democrat--Harris win) states and the "green" (we commit to giving all our electors to the winner of the national popular vote) states as you will. Don't forget to include Virginia, which is "blue" on the one map, but not (yet) green (although it should be) on the other. Notice anything?

The only reason the signatories of the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" were not mandated by state law, this time around, to assign their state Electoral College vote to the winner of the national popular vote (Donald Trump) is that the Electoral College total number of votes for those states who've approved the compact hasn't yet reached or exceeded 270, the number required for triggering mandatory adherence. Right now, the total is at 218 or so, with more than enough states engaged in the process and in the pipeline to reach the magic number to trigger the compact requirement without too much effort; and without a constitutional amendment to overturn the Electoral College--something that most people rightly perceive as a bridge too far.

Those who do not understand that the purpose of the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" is simply to do an end-run around the Constitution--and to grant extraordinary and extra-legal rights to the adherents of one political party, the ones who live in a very small-footprint region of the country--are simply deluding themselves in much the same way as those who've been manipulated into believing that circumventing the filibuster will somehow improve their chances.

It's my fervent hope that the "careful what you wish for" legacy of the 2024 election may cause them to rethink their hasty conclusion. After all, if the National Popular Vote Compact were in effect, and if the states that have already signed onto it had to do what they'd actually promised, Donald Trump would win this Electoral College tally with over 500 votes. Luckily (or unluckily) for them, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2024. So their machinations for this year wouldn't alter the outcome either way.

But that won't always be the case.

PS: This is the best argument I can make to my friends who--on the one hand and no matter how right-thinking they may be otherwise--say, "Well, I live in a blue (Democrat) state, so however I vote doesn't matter, because Harris will win my state." Trust me: The "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" people are coming for you and your state (perhaps they already have). Your state's election results won't matter. But your contribution to the national popular vote--one way or the other--just might tip the outcome in several other states whose voters have been--essentially--disenfranchised but for your vote.

And it's the best argument I can make to my friends on the other side, who live in irremediably blue states like New York State, where Harris just won the state vote by eleven percentage points. What? Irrespective of your views as a New Yorker, and no matter how you voted as an individual, and no matter what your neighbors think, you're happy to give all your state's Electoral College votes to Donald Trump because he won so much of the vote elsewhere in the country that you're happy to fold your vote in with theirs?

What?

Wake up, you nitwits.