Barack Obama has run as a change candidate.
Before John McCain's conversion to a doctrinaire Bush clone,McCain called himself a "maverick".
Obama and McCain have a chance to bring maverick change today by agreeing to bring true democracy to our presidential elections for the first time in our nation's history.
As we all remember, George Bush 43 was elected president in 2000 even though he lost the popular vote by more than half a million votes. In 2004, Bush won the popular vote by a reported 3 million vote margin -- but almost lost the election. Ohio's electoral votes went to Bush based on a 118,775 vote margin. According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., 160,000 Kerry votes were lost due to various illegal vote fraud and suppression tactics. But for this illegal activity, the winner of the popular vote by a nearly 3 million vote margin would have lost the election.
The message is clear: Our nation runs an unacceptably enormous risk of electing a president who lost the popular vote.
There is a movement afoot to solve this problem. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ is promoting an agreement between various states where all of their electoral votes would be given to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome in any particular state. To avoid "unliateral disarmament" (where for example, blue states agree to give their votes to the nationwide winner, but red states do not, creating a situation where the republican wins if he wins the popular vote or the majority of electoral votes), the agreement only takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral votes (270) have signed on.
Many states are reluctant to enter into this agreement. It is understandible, given that even a state with three electoral votes will see more campaign spending and attention than California, with its 55 electoral votes. But how about a trial run?
If Barack Obama asks the big blue states to get on board with a trial run for true electoral change, and if John McCain asks the big red states to get on board with a trial run for a maverick trial of true democratic elections, we can have a guarantee that our next president will have the support of a majority of the voters in this nation.
If John McCain or Barack Obama wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote by a margin in the millions, this nation will enter an era of civil unrest unprecedented in modern times. Imagine the fury over an unpopular war, costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives, extended for four years based on an anachronistic electoral vote system that ignores the popular vote. Imagine the fury over ending that war when a majority of voters cast their lot with the candidate who promised to continue and expand it.
Florida in 2000 was decided by a vote margin in the hundreds. Five states in 2000 were decided by a margin of under one half of one percent. Three states in 2004 were decided by less than one percent, and Ohio's result will be forever questioned. It would be a constitutional crisis, a constitutional disaster, if we wake up on November 5 to the headline "Ohio, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico results too close to call; Candidates challenging voting irregularities in those states." Florida was only settled in 2000 when the Supreme Court stepped in. The potential for a disaster with multiple states in the "Florida posture" is too big to ignore at any time. We must not ignore it at this especially sensitive time, while the nation is at war, fighting terrorism, and struggling for its economic footing.
We need not decide today to scrap the electoral college permanently. But we should at least put in place an interstate compact that assures us that for this election, at this enormonus inflection point in American history, our votes will not be overturned by the electoral college system -- and that a close call in a few states would not cause a crisis if the national results are even slightly decisive.
** Disclaimer: The opinions in this post are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Obama campaign.
