There has NEVER been any citizen that has cast a popular vote for the Office of President

5/7/2021

IT's IMPORTANT THAT YOU BE AWARE that there has never been any Federal provision for ANY national popular vote!

It was considered at least 4 times in various forms at the Constitutional Convention and resoundingly rejected!

A strong supporter of our Electoral College and opponent of the dangerous National Popular Vote Interstate Compact scheme, Senator Mike Lee, R-Wyoming, recently said that, "our Founders would not have been surprised that Presidents would be elected who did not get the most popular votes."

Senator Lee is one of the Good Guys in this battle, but his comment is a bit misleading and here is why - What the Founders would have been shocked over is that anyone was seriously measuring a Presidential election success by using a "national popular vote"!

In the 1820 re-election of James Monroe, for example, out of the 24 States, NINE (9) held no popular election of State Electors at all! And no one of note has ever complained of the legitimacy of Monroe!.

The Founders did not BAN the States from using a popular vote in-State to choose their own Electors, but it wasn't until 1880 that every State had even taken that step! And yet again, NO ONE has ever complained about the legitimacy of ANY of the Presidents elected from 1788 through 1876.

The Founders simply assigned the responsibility of electing the President of the Federation to the Members of the Federation - our STATES. And, then, by a MAJORITY of those State Votes cast, not a Plurality ("the MOST votes").

States have asked THEIR voters to decide to choose the STATE's Electors, but never the President.

That has never been changed! And for great reason - it would end the Federation!

BECAUSE all popular voting is done In-State and for the STATE's Electors and not the President, ALL popular votes cast ARE, in fact, treated and counted EQUALLY! They have been for many decades - certainly for all but perhaps the oldest 5% of the voting public today who vote!

No President elected before 1880 has ever had their Presidency's legitimacy challenged on the grounds that the entire population did not participate.

A national popular vote has never been a legitimate metric in the Federal election of the President. Not one presidential candidate has EVER received a single popular vote from ANY citizen.

We certainly should not legitimize the idea today

- Opinion by John.

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John Crawford has been a lifelong Constitutional Conservative. He graduated from Michigan State University in Business Administration and worked on his MBA at Western Michigan University. He has been very active in grassroots politics and in volunteer community service organizations his entire career.
John has been a small business owner for many years, employing up to 20 people at one time, and has served as the full-time CEO of a local Chamber of Commerce for 13 years. He has served on over a half-dozen Non-Profit Boards of Directors for more than 23 years.
He is a strong advocate for the Founding Fathers of the United States, a defender of the Constitution and the Electoral College and opposes efforts to dismantle this and other vital Checks and Balances designed into the American Federation of States.

Opinion
by John