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I was so happy to see Amy Fried’s OpEd in the Jan. 31 edition of the Bangor Daily News. For more than 70 years, I would count myself in that 65 percent of Americans who think that the popular vote should elect the president. The electoral system made sense in the time of George Washington when the voters did not know who would be considered for president. So they elected people they knew and trusted to have good judgment to select a president. Now that we know the candidates and have no idea who the electors are, the system makes no sense.
I had given up hope of amending the Constitution because that would require a number of politicians of the party that benefited from the system to vote to change it, and that won’t happen; because, in the game of politics winning is more important than doing the right thing.
Fried’s OpEd tells of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and it gives me hope for change. Thank you, Amy.
Fred Otto
Orono
