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(March 3, 2021)
Rep. Dianne Herrin
To my valued constituents,I have decided after some deliberation to co-sponsor House Bill No. 270, and support Pennsylvania’s membership in the National Popular Vote Compact. I believe this is a necessary step on the way to ensuring a national election system that fairly and truly represents all Americans. As Americans, we hold the principle of one person, one vote to be one of our highest ideals of governance, and it is time we once again take a meaningful and confident step in the direction of realizing this ideal, just as we did with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and before then with passage of the 19th amendment. For too long, our presidential elections have been decided by a system that systematically disenfranchises intra-state minorities and determines a national election, in which all Americans should have an equal voice, on a state-by-state basis, in which the voices of political minorities within a state count for nothing. However, I recognize that some constituents will disagree and contend that the electoral college is a just system. So, I will try to address some of the arguments here. The first argument often proposed for the electoral college is that it empowers small states that would otherwise be overlooked by presidential candidates. However, if this was the aim of the current electoral system, it has failed miserably. Small states are still by and large overlooked by presidential candidates, who often focus their efforts... Read more