There is an effort underway to do an end run around the idiotic Electoral College.

The Electoral College, for those who have forgotten their civics class or for those who don’t live in this country, is that antiquated system designed by the country’s founders who felt the people were not to be trusted to pick their chief executive, so they delegated the responsibility to a group of electors to be chosen by each state.

In practice most of the time the Electoral College has gone for the the candidate who received the majority of the popular vote, but in a few elections, that was not the case. In recent years that was how we ended up with Junior Bush rather than Al Gore in the 2000 election, and with the current piece of shit rather than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Sadly, in the 2024 election the majority of those who showed up at the polls did cast their ballots for the current piece of shit, including the majority of Catholic voters and practically all the evangelical voters, so we can’t blame the current administration on the Electoral College but on Christians. (I wonder how those Catholic voters feel now that the asshole that they voted for has gotten into a contretemps with their pope? I know that I’m feeling a bit of schadenfreude.)

Meanwhile, the National Popular Vote Compact has been making headway. Wikipedia states it

is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, regardless of which ticket won more votes in their individual state/district. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.

Happily, it is entirely constitutional. If states with 270 electoral votes sign on to it, then it will take effect, and Virginia has just signed on, bringing the total to 222.

In the following map the green states are those that have already signed on, legislation is pending in the yellow, and nothing is happening in the gray.

There is a possibility that after the fall elections my state of Pennsylvania will have a Democratic trifecta and will pass the measure, which would bring the total to 241. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, here’s a parody video from Stephen Colbert: