No sooner had the 2016 election results been certified than a geyser of protests gushed from the Democratic Party and their vanquished candidate. Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points but lost in the electoral college. "Unfair," squawked her disciples.
In the months since the crushing defeat, the Democratic Party has operated a below the radar campaign to tamper with the rules for electing future presidents. Some 12, mostly blue states, have already linked hands in an effort to institute a National Popular Interstate Compact.
Legislatures in theses states have agreed to commit their delegates to casting their ballots in the electoral college for the candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote. The inference is that even if a Republican garners the most votes, the "blue" delegates will back that candidate.
In reality, that is an unimaginable outcome. Therefore, it is a mostly symbolic effort. Abolishing the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, a cumbersome process which would likely drone on for years and requires ratification by three-fourths of the states (38).
The prospects for such an amendment are dim based on the current political landscape. However, it won't stop the Democrats from building momentum for abolition. The compact is a stalking horse the party has chosen to spark a national discussion that will lead to a consensus for change.
On the face of it, electing a president by popular votes sounds empirically logical. After all, senators, governors, legislators, mayors win office by collecting the most votes. There is no intermediary such as an electoral college. However, these are local or statewide elections, not national contests.
The framers of the constitution knew the risk to democracy of a popularly elected president. They fretted at the time that a handful of states or large cities would effectively elect the president by the sheer size of their population. Their concerns are even more legitimate 231 years later.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote by a 2.86 million margin. However, Trump captured 2,623 counties versus 489 for Clinton. Trump won more states: 30 to 20. Clinton's popular edge was built largely on Los Angeles County and the New York City boroughs.
In Los Angeles, Clinton won by 1.2 million votes. In New York City boroughs, her margin was identical: 1.2 million. The single state of California voted three-to-one for Clinton, giving her a 4.3 million cushion in the popular vote. California's size would allow it to influence every popular vote.
In the states Trump won, his margin averaged 56 percent of the votes cast. Had Trump just taken 40 percent of the vote in California and New York, he would have captured the popular vote title. This illustrates the inflated power a few states could have in electing the president.
An analysis of the 2016 race, makes it clear that without the electoral college, the contest would never be a national election. By examining the vote totals, a candidate's path to victory in a popular vote would be narrowed to 14 states, which accounted for 65 percent of the ballots cast.
By winning 58 percent of the votes in those states, a candidate would almost assure a popular vote victory. The other 36 states would be reduced to a footnote for practical purposes. Should a relative handful of states pick the next president? Your answer depends on where you live.
The 14 states are California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington. For some perspective, California had twice as many voters as the 14 smallest states combined.
Those advocates for scrapping the electoral college argue the popular vote would improve public policy. In their view, today's election methodology incentivizes the president-elect to cater to swing states at the expense of a broad national approach. That contention is folly in the extreme.
A popular vote election would mean that the Oval Office occupant would zero in on the wishes of 14 states, many of which just happen to be controlled by Democrats. Who cares what Alaska or Maine or Wyoming want in the way of public policy? The same political inducements would remain.
Others argue, although hopefully not seriously, that every vote would count if the election was decided by a popular tally. Not really. If a candidate received one of every two votes in California, it would be worth a lot more than one of every two votes in Idaho. Population size matters.
A bit of historical perspective sheds some light on the controversy. In all the presidential elections in America, only four times has a candidate won the popular vote and lost the election. It happened three times before 1900: 1824, 1876 and 1888. It has occurred only twice since then: 2000 and 2016.
Coincidentally both recent instances involved Democrats. Al Gore lost in the electoral college but tallied 540,000 more votes than George Bush in 2000. Perhaps, that explains why Democrats are motivated to champion rewriting the constitution to benefit their party.
Those delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were a lot smarter and more fair minded than today's political charlatans. Their plan for presidential elections preserved the leverage of every state to decide who lives in the White House. It was genius. It should be left alone.
The National Popular Vote bill is 70% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
ReplyDeleteIt simply requires enacting states with 270 electoral votes to award their electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes.
All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
Candidates, as in other elections, would allocate their time, money, polling, organizing, and ad buys roughly in proportion to the population
Every vote, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
No more distorting, crude, and divisive and red and blue state maps of predictable outcomes, that don’t represent any minority party voters within each state.
No more handful of 'battleground' states (where the two major political parties happen to have similar levels of support) where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 38+ predictable winner states that have just been 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
We can limit the power and influence of a few battleground states in order to better serve our nation.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
Since 2006, the bill has passed 39 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 271 electoral votes.
The bill has been enacted by 15 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 189 electoral votes – 70% of the way to guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate with the most popular votes in the country
NationalPopularVote
Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
ReplyDeleteAlmost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored after the conventions.
Our presidential selection system has cut out 4 of every 5 people living in America from the decision. Presidential elections shrink the sphere of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.
The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.
George Soros’ PAC as of Feb. 21, 2019 will invest $100 million in four 2020 swing states - Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
A Trump supporting America First Action super PAC, as of May 9, 2019 is preparing to pour $250 Million into 6 states with expensive media markets and high numbers of electoral votes -- Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia, none of which has fewer than 15 electoral votes. The group’s leaders believe a Trump victory is virtually guaranteed in 2020 if he wins all six.
Rasmussen Reports, 2/28/19 – believes only 46 electoral votes are in the Toss-up category- four states — Arizona, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, plus one congressional district, Nebraska’s Second (Omaha). The omissions that readers may find most surprising are Florida and Michigan. Much of the electoral map is easy to allocate far in advance: About 70% of the total electoral votes come from states and districts that have voted for the same party in at least the last five presidential elections.
The Cook Political Report, as of Jan. 10, 2019, believes “There are just five toss up states, representing 86 electoral votes: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
The Columbus Dispatch, as of Jan. 9, 2019, believes there will be “just seven states [with 105 electoral votes, where the winner is not predictable already] to allocate. Trump will be 66 electoral votes shy of re-election and the Democratic ticket will need 41 electoral votes to win back the presidency. The seven states are Arizona (11), Florida (29), Michigan (16), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10).”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
"The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,"
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.
Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.
In the 2016 general election campaign
Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).
Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country's population).
In the 2012 general election campaign
38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.
More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
In the 2008 campaign, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).
In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Anyone who supports the current presidential election system, believing it is what the Founders intended and that it is in the Constitution, is mistaken. The current presidential election system does not function, at all, the way that the Founders thought that it would.
ReplyDeleteSupporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers would endorse the current electoral system where 38+ states and voters now are completely politically irrelevant.
10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant now.
Policies important to the citizens of the 38 non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
“Battleground” states receive 7% more presidentially controlled grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.
The Founders created the Electoral College, but 48 states eventually enacted state winner-take-all laws.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation's first election, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors by appointment by the legislature or by the governor and his cabinet, the people had no vote for President in most states, and in states where there was a popular vote, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1880s after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state. The Founders had been dead for decades
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.
States have the responsibility and constitutional power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond. Now, 38 states, of all sizes, and their voters, because they vote predictably, are politically irrelevant in presidential elections.
Trump, April 26, 2018 on “Fox & Friends”
ReplyDelete“I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign.”
“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”
Trump, October 12, 2017 in Sean Hannity interview
“I would rather have a popular vote. “
Trump, November 13, 2016, on “60 Minutes”
“ I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play.”
In 2012, the night Romney lost, Trump tweeted.
"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. . . . The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.
Past presidential candidates with a public record of support, before November 2016, for the National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes: Bob Barr (Libertarian- GA), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN).
Newt Gingrich summarized his support for the National Popular Vote bill by saying: “No one should become president of the United States without speaking to the needs and hopes of Americans in all 50 states. … America would be better served with a presidential election process that treated citizens across the country equally. The National Popular Vote bill accomplishes this in a manner consistent with the Constitution and with our fundamental democratic principles.”
Eight former national chairs of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have endorsed the bill
In 2017, Saul Anuzis and Michael Steele, the former chairmen of the Michigan and national Republican parties, wrote that the National Popular Vote bill was “an idea whose time has come”.
On March 7, 2019, the Delaware Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill in a bi-partisan 14-7 vote
In 2018, the National Popular Vote bill in the Michigan Senate was sponsored by a bipartisan group of 25 of the 38 Michigan senators, including 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
The bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).
In 2016 the Arizona House of Representatives passed the bill 40-16-4.
Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives sponsored the bill.
In January 2016, two-thirds of the Arizona Senate sponsored the bill.
In 2014, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill by a 28–18 margin.
In 2009, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed the bill
Because of statewide winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .
ReplyDelete2 of the 3 most recent presidents entered office without winning the most national popular votes.
5 of our 45 Presidents have come into office without having won the most popular votes nationwide.
A recent study warns that 1 out of every 3 presidential elections where the popular vote margin is within 3% will feature a mismatch between the popular vote and the electoral college.
There are several scenarios in which a candidate could win the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It could reduce turnout more, as more voters realize their votes do not matter.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) and (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states),a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. It has occurred in 5 of the nation's 58 (9%) presidential elections.
The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a difference of a few thousand voters in one, two, or three states would have elected the second-place candidate in 5 of the 16 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 8 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections since 1988.
537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
A difference of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
In 2012, a shift of 214,733 popular votes in four states would have elected Mitt Romney, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of 4,966,945 votes.
Less than 80,000 votes in 3 states determined the 2016 election, where there was a lead of over 2,8oo,ooo popular votes nationwide.
After the 2012 election, Nate Silver calculated that "Mitt Romney may have had to win the national popular vote by three percentage points on Tuesday to be assured of winning the Electoral College."
According to Tony Fabrizio, pollster for the Trump campaign, the president’s narrow victory was due to 5 counties in 2 states (not CA or NY).
Of COURSE every vote would count if the election was decided by a popular tally. One person, one vote.
ReplyDeleteIf you add up all the runner-up votes and all the surplus votes cast for president, then about 60% of all votes cast for president under the current system do not matter at all.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, in every state, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire or Florida. The National Popular Vote bill would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don't matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to presidential candidates.
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
With statewide winner-take-all laws, a presidential candidate could lose despite winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 smaller states.
ReplyDeleteWith the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation's votes!
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political candidate. In 2016, among the 11 largest states: 7 voted Republican(Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) and 4 voted Democratic (California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey). The big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
With National Popular Vote, it's not the size of any given state, it's the size of their "margin" that will matter. Under a national popular vote, the margin of your loss within a state matters as much as the size of your win.
In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% R), 1,691,267
* New York (59% D), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% R), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% R), 426,778
* California (55% D), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% D), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% D), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective,
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Pennsylvania and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn't be about winning a handful of battleground states.
ReplyDeleteFourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.
Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 5 jurisdictions.
Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.
State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).
In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.
The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.
Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.
Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.
California and New York state together would not dominate the choice of President under National Popular Vote because there is an equally populous group of Republican states (with 58 million people) that gave Trump a similar percentage of their vote (60%) and a similar popular-vote margin (6 million).
ReplyDeleteIn 2016, New York state and California Democrats together cast 9.7% of the total national popular vote.
California & New York state account for 16.7% of the voting-eligible population
Alone, they could not determine the presidency, much less “rule the country.”
In total New York state and California cast 16% of the total national popular vote
In total, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania cast 18% of the total national popular vote.
Trump won those states.
The vote margin in California and New York wouldn't have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 60 million votes she received in other states.
In 2004, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
New York state and California together cast 15.7% of the national popular vote in 2012.
About 62% Democratic in CA, and 64% in NY.
New York and California have 15.6% of Electoral College votes. Now that proportion is all reliably Democratic.
Under a popular-vote system CA and NY would have less weight than under the current system because their popular votes would be diluted among candidates.
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States.
ReplyDeleteVoters in the biggest cities in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.
16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.
The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats
[The] difference between a democracy and a republic [is] the delegation of the government, the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest."
ReplyDeleteIn a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."- Madison
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.
Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy. It is not rule by referendum.
We would not be doing away with the Electoral College, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, etc. etc. etc.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes