Four years ago when Barack Obama won re-election by a huge popular and electoral vote, Donald Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for democracy.” He recently blared over and over that the election was rigged. Would President-elect Trump care to reconsider those comments?

Not likely. However, if ever there was a time for electoral reform, it is now. Mainers have spoken for ranked-choice voting because it makes sense. Doesn’t it make equal sense to overturn this political contrivance called the Electoral College? Our forefathers were concerned that many people couldn’t read and lacked knowledge on national matters, hence presidential elections should be in the hands of more informed, more capable citizens, called electors. It may have had some merit then, but no longer.

The less honorable reason was to give slave-holding states a leg up over the more populous North. Is it any wonder that Virginians held the presidency 32 out of next 36 years? Five times in the history of the Electoral College a presidential candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election. More recently, Al Gore won some 540,000 more votes then G.W. Bush, and now Hillary Clinton lost with somewhere around 2 million more votes — and counting — than Donald Trump.

The Electoral College leaves many voters feeling disenfranchised, undermines the democratic principal of one person, one vote, and subverts the will of the voting majority. Most Americans when asked want to do away with the Electoral College. We have the popular vote for our state officials. Isn’t it time we had the same for the presidency? Inertia is no excuse for business as usual.

George Hite

Sidney