Nearly three million voters were victims of an outdated Electoral College system that fails to give all Americans an equal vote for president. The people spoke, but they weren't heard.
We need to change the Electoral College system, either directly through a constitutional amendment, a route nearly impossible to achieve; or indirectly, by changing the way electors cast their ballots.
Twice in the last 16 years, the candidate who received the most votes was denied the presidency. Previously, it happened just twice in two centuries. While the 2000 election was a controversial squeaker, this year's popular vote was not close. Hillary Clinton received 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump, or 48 percent to 46 percent. That's not a landslide, but it's a solid margin.
There's no question Trump legitimately won the election with the system now in place. And electors made the right call Monday to respect the rules of today's road. Had they denied Trump the presidency, they would have created chaos.
But that doesn't mean we can't talk about a better way to ensure every American's vote counts equally.
It almost happened in 1969, with bipartisan support. The Bayh-Celler Amendment, which would have abolished the Electoral College, passed the U.S. House 339-70, but died on a Senate filibuster. In 2009, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson tried to reignite the effort, but it died in committee.
Voters in rural states mightily hold on to the Electoral College because it helps level their power with large urban areas. But if more Americans choose to live in cities, why should their vote count for less?
Clinton won California by more than 4 million votes, for example. Why should that matter less than Trump winning swing states like Michigan by 10,704 votes, and Wisconsin by 22,177 votes? As the New York Times points out, a vote in Wyoming, the nation's least populated state, is worth 3.6 times a vote in California, the most populated state.
The Electoral College system, which Trump once called "dangerous for democracy," allows just 538 people to directly vote for president. States are awarded elector votes based on congressional representation, a system embedded in the Constitution. To change the structure would take a constitutional amendment and that requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate, plus ratification by three-fourths of the 50 states. Forget about it.
But there is another possibility — the National Popular Vote Interstate Pact, an agreement among a group of states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote. The bill has already passed in 11 states representing 165 electoral votes. To take effect, it would need to pass in states representing 270 electoral votes.
In Florida, former state Sen. Tony Hill pushed such a bill in 2009 and 2011, citing a Public Policy Poll that showed 78 percent of Florida voters preferred the president be elected by popular vote. Neither bill went anywhere.
It's not as though our nation has never changed how elections work. Until 1913, U.S. senators were elected not by popular election, but by state legislatures. It took a constitutional amendment to allow citizens to directly vote for their senators.
The Electoral College was devised in a much different era by imperfect Founding Fathers. It gave influence to Southern states whose populations were dominated by slaves who couldn't vote. Slaves were counted as three-fifths a person, so the Southern states received more electoral votes and a larger voice than they would have received in a direct popular system.
The road to improving our presidential election system via a constitutional amendment is prohibitive because rural politicians would stand in the way. Even then, it would take a lot of liberals moving to those states to cast the votes needed for passage.
But the National Popular Vote Interstate Pact is a worthy end-around that merits serious consideration.
Our democracy is based on the principle of one person, one vote.
It's time to rethink the Electoral College before more voters are left without a voice.