California passes anti-democracy plan

AP reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Monday that would award all of California's 55 Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, a move intended to ensure that the winner of the popular vote becomes president.

The movement by a group called National Popular Vote aims to prevent a repeat of 2000, when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but Republican George W. Bush won the electoral vote and the presidency.

California is the eighth state to sign on, giving the effort 132 of the 270 electoral votes it needs to take effect.

No, the plan makes it less likely that we elect a President without winning a majority vote. Gore did not win the popular vote in 2000. He only got 49% of the vote.

This plan is anti-democratic. Democracy is

The doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

A minority of the states are trying to bypass the US Constitution and rewrite the rules for how we elect a President.

No one won the popular vote in 1948, 1960, 1968, 1992, 1996, and 2000. If this NPV plan had been in effect in 1960, then Richard Nixon might have been elected President. There is no consensus on who won a plurality of the popular vote that year.

The plan makes a majority vote winner less likely because it encourages third-party voters. Under the current system, the futility of third-party voting was demonstrated by Ross Perot. He got many millions of popular votes, but no electoral votes.