When I was young, back in the late ’40s and early ’50s, I believed that democracy meant that whatever or whomever got the most votes won. So if 12 kids wanted vanilla and eight wanted chocolate, vanilla won. When the same 20 kids voted for most popular, the kid with at least 11 votes won: one-half of 20 plus 1. I believe it should be the same when our country, the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, vote for president. The candidate with 50% of the votes plus one or more should be the winner and become our president.

These days things get terribly convoluted with electoral votes and gerrymandered congressional districts and all kinds of games are played which enable us to “elect” presidents with fewer than half of us voting for him/her.

The National Popular Vote movement will change that. It will enable the candidate winning the majority of votes to become the president.

In United States history, five presidential elections were won by a minority of votes.

I support the National Popular Vote to assure that the majority of we the people choose the president.
In our own Legislature, there was a public hearing on Jan. 8 on L.D. 1578 in the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. Voice your opinion! See the League of Women Voters website, www.lwvme.org, for more information.

 

Priscilla Jenkins

Winthrop

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