Stoneham - Our country has certainly witnessed its share of highly contested presidential elections. One, in particular, really stands out. Surely everyone knows the story by now. A prominent democratic frontrunner closes out election night with a narrow lead in both the popular and electoral vote categories. Even though the fate of several electoral votes remains undetermined, the leader sees no reason to believe that he will not be crowned the president-elect in the morning. Then, almost as if by some miracle, the disputed votes are awarded to his republican challenger, granting the opponent a majority in the Electoral College and the keys to the Oval Office. The democrat�s name? No, it wasn�t Al Gore, but New Yorker Samuel Tilden, who lost the election of 1876 to Rutherford B. Hayes.

While Bush vs. Gore remains fresh in the memories of many Americans, it was not the first time in our nation�s history that a candidate had won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Actually, the candidate who placed second in the overall national tally has been elected four times. Just 12 years after the Tilden-Hayes contest, history repeated itself with sitting President Grover Cleveland losing to Benjamin Harrison, even though the incumbent maintained a 100,000 vote lead in the national tally. And, during the crazy election of 1824, Andrew Jackson (the electoral and popular vote leader) lost to native son John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives, after neither candidate garnered the necessary majority of electoral votes to claim victory.

In each case, the �electoral� anomaly was a by-product of the nation�s well-entrenched system for electing its president�the Electoral College. As you may know, we do not directly vote for the office of president and vice president on Election Day. We actually vote for who we would like our state�s presidential electors to vote for on our behalf. In Massachusetts, like the vast majority of states, the electors are instructed by state law to vote for whoever wins the most votes statewide.

Ever since Bush vs. Gore highlighted the potential shortcomings of the country�s electoral process, many people have been crying out to abolish the Electoral College in favor of the direct popular election of the president. And, it�s not just sour democrats leading the charge. Disenfranchised voters, who do not live in the so-called �battleground states,� are complaining that our current system provides no real incentive for them to head to the polls on Election Day. It is a sentiment shared by many voters here in the commonwealth, a state that has a national reputation of going �blue� every four years.

While abolishing the Electoral College would require the lengthy and difficult process of amending the constitution, proponents have devised legislation within the college framework that would still provide for a nationwide popular election of the president. The U.S. Constitution actually allows state legislatures to select presidential electors in any way that they see fit. The plan exploits this fact by establishing an interstate compact that would award the presidential electors from participating states to whoever wins the national popular vote on election night. It would take effect only when enabling legislation has been enacted by states collectively possessing a majority of the electoral votes, or 270 of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs every four years. Also, states could withdraw from the agreement at any time except during a six-month window between July 20 of an election year and inauguration day.

Identical legislation for the compact was introduced in 47 states, including Massachusetts, for the first time this year. It has already been passed by several state legislative houses and is currently in full effect in Maryland. While the Massachusetts State Legislature has not yet voted on the issue, the interstate compact did appear before the Joint Committee on Election Laws last week, during a public hearing at the State House. Proponents argued that a national popular vote would give all votes cast in the country equal weight, bring candidates to our state, and give voters in all states, regardless of party affiliation, an incentive to vote in presidential elections. On the other hand, those opposed maintained that such an electoral reform would merely shift the candidate�s focus from battleground states to densely populated urban centers on the coast, and neglect the more rural areas of the country in our nation�s heartland. They also pointed out that our current system, even with its flaws, has largely worked just as our founding fathers intended.

Indeed, our current system has worked for the most part, but there is no doubt that the Electoral College leaves the door open for irregularities and questionable outcomes. For example, despite President George Bush�s 3.5 million vote lead in the popular vote, a shift in just a handful of votes in several states would have actually handed John Kerry the electoral victory in 2004. Moreover, a popular vote method could have potentially vaulted Richard Nixon into office over John F. Kennedy in 1960. That election came down to roughly one vote in every precinct across the U.S.! Whether or not we should enter into a new interstate compact in response to these anomalies remains an important question throughout the country. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts Legislature (this representative in particular) certainly welcomes a spirited, stimulating and substantive debate on the subject.