Popular vote should determine election’s winner
I respond to the Sunday letter "Electoral College assures every state's voters count" from Mark E. Fohl. He described the elimination of the Electoral College as "cockamamie," arguing that Ohio votes would not matter. Wrong! With the national popular vote determining the winner, every vote across the country would count equally, no matter where a voter lives.
With the Electoral College, small-state voters have more power per capita than the large states (Wyoming has 573,720 people and has three electors, or one elector per every 191,240 people, while California has 39,776,850 people and 55 electors, or 1 elector per every 723,215 people. In other words, a Wyoming voter has 3.78 times the power of a California voter in the Electoral College.
If the 2016 (as well as 2000) results were reversed, with the Republicans winning the popular vote and losing the White House, they would be crying bloody murder. (By the way, that scenario almost happened in 2004 if John Kerry would have flipped 60,000 votes in Ohio. He would have become president with a deficit of 3 million votes.)
The person with the most votes should be the winner, regardless of party. Jonathan Stern, Reynoldsburg
Don't throw Methodists, Southern Baptists under bus
In his Saturday letter "Methodist Church risks infamous place in history," J. Eric Peters managed to condemn simultaneously the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention in one fell swoop. If he had bothered to assess the facts about the UMC, he would have learned that the American delegation to the recent international conference in St. Louis supported the liberal/progressive motion relating to gay clergy and gay weddings in Methodist churches, but the conservative representatives from Africa, Asia and Russia blocked a vote on it.
This issue is not resolved, and a favorable result will be reached, hopefully as soon as next year. We Methodists have a couple of centuries under our collective belt, and we will not occupy an infamous place in history at the end of the day.
As Peters acknowledged, the SBC has apologized for its role in parts of our shared ignominious past in race relations. My father-in-law was a deacon in a Southern Baptist church during the civil rights era when many so-called white churches feared blacks would attempt to integrate their congregations. The church elders asked him what he would do if blacks sought to attend worship, and he responded, "I will seat them."
Dean Smith, then basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, jeopardized his position by joining his Baptist minister and a black man in a successful effort to integrate a local restaurant.
Both of these men displayed unusual moral courage for the time. Writing uninformed, dismissive letters to the editor does not.
Richard Lupton, Westerville
Portman less than vigilant in fighting opioid crisis
Sen. Rob Portman has publicly fashioned himself as the champion of fighting the opioid crisis. When asked about funding President Trump's border wall, Friday's Dispatch reported: "Portman had suggested alternative solutions to pay for the wall, such as using money designated to fight drugs or organized crime."
It's quite clear he has been doing lip service to fighting the drug epidemic to gain publicity. But in reality, the brick-and-mortar folly of his party's leader is more important than saving the lives of our citizens.
Pat Groseck, Grandview Heights