Two years ago, the Arizona House of Representatives voted to eliminate the Electoral College.

It’s a great idea.

Long overdue.

The House passed a bill that would have given all of Arizona’s 11 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote no matter who wins the in-state vote. Both Democrats and Republicans voted for it.

Twelve states already have passed similar laws, with a combined number of 165 electoral votes. When enough states pass such bills to equal 270 electoral votes it would guarantee that the popular vote winner would win the presidency.

How to make every vote count

The website for National Popular Vote, which is pushing the interstate compact, says in part: “The bill ensures that every vote, in every state, will matter in every presidential election.”

Exactly.

The proposal passed in the Arizona House by a 40-16 margin, crossing political lines, but then-Senate President Andy Biggs would not let the bill come to a vote in the Senate.

Maybe J.D. Mesnard, who introduced the bill back in 2016 and who now is in the Senate, will give it another go.

He said in 2016, "Our presidential elections have come down to 10 battleground states. Arizona is so decidedly Republican that neither Democrats nor Republicans find it necessary or beneficial to campaign here. Arizona's issues are ignored because Arizona voters don't matter."

Trump wanted to abolish it, until ...

Every vote, Republican or Democrat or anything else, should matter.

Before he ran for president, Donald Trump loved the idea of abolishing the Electoral College.

For a time during the 2012 presidential election it appeared as if Republican Mitt Romney might win the popular vote but lose in the electoral college.

That didn’t happen. President Obama beat Romney by roughly 2.5 million in the popular vote. When it looked like Romney might get more votes, however, then citizen Trump tweeted:

And:

And:

The Washington Post also catalogued a number of tweets that Trump later deleted, which included:

“He [Obama] lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”

And:

“The phoney [sic] electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”

And:

“More votes equals a loss…revolution!” (Nov. 7)

... he needed the Electoral College

Somehow, that very strong view changed for Trump after Hillary Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes than he did in the presidential election but lost to him in the electoral college.

After that happened Trump tweeted:

Actually, the Electoral College came into effect in the 1800s under the influence of southern states like Virginia, which demanded that their slaves – who could not vote – be counted among their population.

Not as individuals, exactly. The proposal to create the Electoral College included the “three-fifths compromise,” by which each slave was counted as three-fifths of a person, instead of a whole. Imagine that. It was enough to prop up the electoral college numbers for slave states like Virginia and tilt the presidency their way.

How to make Arizona relevant

In other words, the Electoral College is an arcane, racist conceit.

Not only that, but the notion that smaller states come into play by way of the Electoral College is a joke. It’s the so-called battleground states that come into play while other states are ignored.

The only way to stage a free and fair national presidential election is to have every vote in every state matter. Then every state would be a battleground.

The Arizona House recognized that in 2016.

Maybe this year the entire Legislature will do so.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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