The Day's Editorial Board gets it wrong in their May 8 editorial, “Connecticut making a mistake joining the popular vote scheme.”

The editorial board calls it disenfranchisement if, in 2004, Connecticut's electoral votes would have gone to Bush, the winner of the national vote, despite Kerry winning the Connecticut vote by 10.4 percent. But, the votes of Connecticut residents would have been counted in determining the winner of the national vote, making their voices heard loud and clear, i.e. no disenfranchisement.

It only means that a majority of Connecticut voters voted for the candidate who lost, which by the way is exactly what happened in the 2004 election. Why take solace that Connecticut's electoral votes went to the candidate who won the Connecticut vote? What's important is who becomes president.

In 2016 Clinton won Connecticut by about 225,000 votes. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, you could add an additional 200,000 Republican or Democratic votes and it would have had zero bearing on the outcome of the election. Our 7 electoral votes would go to the same candidate either way. That sounds like disenfranchisement to me. It’s precisely why we are a spectator state and ignored by presidential campaigns.

The editorial goes on to posit that by joining the NPV compact, Connecticut would be giving away the voting power advantage it has by virtue of it being a small state. But, the compact doesn't eliminate the electoral college, it simply changes the way electors vote. We retain our voting power advantage but choose to use it to elect presidents based on the national popular vote, relying on the authority explicitly given to our state legislature by the Constitution. More importantly, voting power is irrelevant when you live in a spectator state and your vote doesn't matter.

The editorial goes on to list purported problems with the compact; recounts, states exiting the compact, winning the presidency with a plurality and constitutional prohibitions on interstate agreements. But this legislation has been around for more than 10 years and all these alleged issues have been addressed. It's disappointing to see them repeated. Recycling debunked myths does nothing to further political discourse. I suggest taking a look at the “Answering Myths” section on the website www.nationalpopularvote.com.

The editorial is correct that the compact was born out of frustration that recently presidents have been elected while winning fewer votes than their opponents. But, you really can't fault Bush or Trump for not winning the national popular vote. They didn't have to. Both campaigned in and won Florida, Ohio, and other swing states, giving them a majority of the electoral college as per the rules at the time.

There's no reason to believe that they wouldn't have won the national popular vote if their campaigns had to win it. And therein lies the best reason to join the compact. Because, then, presidential campaigns would have to campaign differently!

With a national popular vote, Republican candidates would be incentivized to narrow the gap in California, the same way that Democratic candidates would be incentivized to narrow the gap in Texas. Campaigns of both parties would need to campaign everywhere in the country including in Connecticut. Joining the compact solves the biggest problem that currently exists in our electoral system, i.e. that only votes in swing states matter. I'm delighted that this legislation was passed by the Connecticut General Assembly.

Paul Honig of Harwinton is a member of the NPVct Working Group, the citizens movement to have CT join the National Popular Vote Compact.