All you fuming Democrats trying to nurse your wounded pride by huffing and puffing about Clinton's having received the most votes nationally:

Why didn't you follow the advice of Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush's public relations spokesman when he said, following the similar complaints after Bush's electoral college victory over Al Gore, who received 500,000 more votes nationally:

“People who don't like it can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

Exactly. Or have you and the candidate you so passionately espoused acted publicly all along with your best efforts to change the electoral college system to one guaranteeing victory to a presidential candidate whose received the most votes nationwide?

Certainly Hillary Clinton has never spent any time or resources – including the millions given to the Clinton Foundation – to convince fellow Americans to adopt the simple way they can elect their president by a majority of the country's votes. Could this be because she has always assumed that the power structure as it is would everlastingly be her best friend, nestling, as she has always done, among the ranks of hedge-fund managers, Saudi princes and others whose money has heretofore guaranteed political success?

How amazing that her powerful friends and power-directed strategies have now left her political career In shreds.

So how about you?

Were you among the 70% of Californians who demanded that this state join the National Popular Vote coalition – passed twice by both state houses and twice vetoed by the scurrilous then-governor Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger? Were you among those who applauded when a Democratic governor signed into law California's participation in this coalition?

I hope you are not asking, “What coalition?” I hope you are fully aware that the only hope to reverse, or ameliorate, the results of the 2016 presidential election in 2020 is for enough states to join National Popular Vote.

The US Constitution mandates that each state will determine how its electors are selected and how they will vote in a presidential election.

National Popular Vote is a compact between states that specifies when, and only when, the states who sign on to the compact comprise a total of 270 electoral votes – the number needed to elect – then all signatories will cast all their electoral votes for the candidate who has received a majority of votes nationally.

Simple, clean and constitutionally valid. No convention needed. No constitutional amendment required.

All houses of a state legislature must pass a resolution, signed by the state governor, to join National Popular Vote.

This compact has been enacted into law in 11 states (including California) with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more.

The bill has passed one chamber in 12 additional states with 96 electoral votes. Most recently, the bill was passed by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House, 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, 57–4 in Republican-controlled New York Senate, and 37–21 in Democratic-controlled Oregon House.

So if you think that by 2020 the majority of Americans will have realized the horror of their current choice for president, and you realize you have no hope from a Republican-dominated Congress and you want your president to be elected by a majority national vote, then get on the horn and convince your relatives and friends in those other states to demand from their legislatures passage of the National Popular Vote.

If you are reading this as a student from out-of-state, when you go home find out if your state has joined National Popular Vote. If it has not, form a group to pressure your state legislators into making this state law. Your have four years. Get going!

To learn more go to www.nationalpopularvote.com

And if you can risk a passionate TV advocacy of this coalition by yours truly, including much information, go to http://sb-justbetweenus.com/william-smithers-national-popular-vote/

William Smithers
Santa Barbara