To fix the Electoral College, there’s only one realistic option

David Goldfischer advocated for a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College in order to replace it with a national popular vote. I wish him luck. Over the history of our country, there have been at least 700 proposed amendments to modify or abolish the Electoral College — more than any other subject of constitutional reform. In today’s polarized society, successfully amending the Constitution seems more unlikely than ever.

The good news is the U.S. Constitution allows us to achieve the same beneficial result (namely that the candidate with the most votes for president should win the White House and that every vote should count equally) without a constitutional amendment. During the past legislative session, Colorado joined with 15 other states and the District of Columbia to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and added Colorado’s nine Electoral College votes to the 270 needed to make a national popular vote for the presidency a reality. To date, 196 Electoral College votes have been pledged to the presidential candidate who earns the highest national popular vote.

The national popular vote compact does not “get rid of” the Electoral College. It is a constitutionally allowed, state-based solution that works within the exact language of the Constitution to eliminate the worst side effects of the winnertake-all system of allocating electors that is currently used by 48 states and the District of Columbia. Those harmful side effects include the fact that five of 45 U.S. presidents have not won a popular vote mandate of the American people and the artificial elevation of a select few battleground states while ignoring the rest of the country. What is the “so what” of this? The simple answer is that in a healthy democracy, every vote should matter, and matter equally. Instead, we have votes in Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania that matter a lot more than votes in Colorado, Texas, Wyoming and California.

The Colorado General Assembly and Gov. Jared Polis got it right when they passed the National Popular Vote bill. We should be a battleground country, where every American’s vote for president matters, and matters equally, regardless of their address. Send letters of 250 words or fewer to openforum@denverpost.com or 5990 Washington St., Denver, CO, 80216. Please include full name, city and phone number. Contact information is for our purposes only; we will not share it with anyone else. You can reach us by telephone at 303-954-1201.