OP-Ed: Democrats praise democracy while they plot to destroy it

By J. Kennerly Davis

On April 21st, Virginia Democrats narrowly won a statewide special election on their scheme to radically gerrymander Virginia’s 11 congressional districts and erase all but one GOP district in a state that gave President Donald Trump 46% of the vote in 2024. The process followed by the Democrats to call the special election clearly violated the Virginia Constitution. Litigation pending before the Virginia Supreme Court should result in the nullification of the special election and put an end to the Democrats’ scheme.

Whatever the outcome of that litigation, the Democrats’ gerrymandering stands as a stark reminder that leftist Democrats are prepared to violate any law that stands in the way of their relentless quest for dominating political power.

The lawlessness of the Left was also on display in Virginia recently when Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed legislation passed by her fellow Democrats to bypass the Electoral College and award the state’s 13 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in future presidential elections, regardless of the results of the election in Virginia.

The Democrat legislation makes Virginia a member of the so-called National Popular Vote Compact, an interstate agreement that the Left has pushed for years in an effort to circumvent the clear requirement in the U.S. Constitution that a state’s electoral votes be awarded to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in that particular state.

Leftist supporters of the compact argue that it is simply more democratic to add every person’s vote cast in a presidential election to one national total and award the office to the candidate who comes out on top in that count. This, they say, will eliminate the possibility of “undemocratic” election results when the Electoral College vote produces a president supported by a minority of American voters.

In fact, these self-proclaimed defenders of democracy are attempting to nullify a key component of the constitutional system that defines and defends our American democracy. There is no fundamental disconnect between the Electoral College vote and the popular vote. Throughout our history, the Electoral College has been won by the candidate who also received the majority of the popular vote 90% of the time. This was the case in 2024, when Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris. More importantly, Democrats fail to acknowledge that the Electoral College is an integral part of our federal system of constitutional democracy.

In 1787, delegates from the 13 states met in Philadelphia to address the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation and, they hoped “to form a more perfect union.” Through that summer, the delegates painstakingly negotiated, drafted, and finally agreed to the Constitution that launched our experiment in republican self-government under the rule of law.

The 13 states had widely divergent political and economic interests. Some, like Virginia and New York, were large, populous, and politically popular. Some, like Rhode Island and Delaware, were much smaller and less powerful. The smaller states feared that their interests would be neglected by a new government dominated by the likes of Virginia and New York.

Delegates negotiated several provisions designed to address the concerns of the smaller states and keep the constitutional endeavor on track. Because of the significant powers given to the executive branch, it was especially important to the smaller states that the mechanism used to elect the president be designed to protect their interests. The mechanism finally agreed to is the Electoral College, detailed in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

By this mechanism, the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in a state is awarded a number of electoral votes equal to the U.S. senators and representatives from that state. Thus, no matter how small a state’s population, it has at least three electoral votes. The candidate who wins the popular vote in enough states to secure a simple majority – currently 270 – of all the U.S. senators and representatives wins the presidency.

By combining elements of democracy and federalism in this way, the Electoral College forces candidates to moderate their views to appeal to a broadly based coalition of states, regions, interests, and voters. This is just what the Framers had in mind; diffused elections that encourage compromise and foster stability. But leftist Democrats have other ideas. They see this and other constitutional provisions as structural impediments to their acquisition of ever greater political power; impediments to be circumvented.

If the national popular vote determined the outcome of a presidential election, then Democrat candidates could easily swamp their Republican opponents in every contest by focusing exclusively on coastal urban strongholds of progressive radicalism and supportive election administration. For example, New York City has a population greater than 39 states. Los Angeles County has a population greater than 40 states. The Democrat compact is designed to disenfranchise voters in most of the country.

The Democrat scheme to nullify the Electoral College is clearly unlawful. The compact itself will be nullified whenever its constitutionality is litigated. For now, the governor and her Democrat legislators have dramatically demonstrated, with their gerrymandering and their compact, that they have only contempt for the Virginia and U.S. Constitutions they have sworn to uphold. Virginians and all Americans should take note and scorn them.

J. Kennerly Davis served as deputy attorney general for Virginia