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Letter: Electoral College makes our elections vulnerable

(Carolyn Kaster | The Associated Press) Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, left, joined by former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, right, speaks before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election security on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 21, 2018.

An Associated Press article published in The Tribune (March 22) covered the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing dealing with the need to protect the 2018 elections from foreign interference.

NPR covered the same hearing but emphasized the 2020 general election, citing current Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen, a Republican, and former Secretary Jeh C. Johnson, a Democrat.

“Swing states, and even individual precincts within those states, present a significant point of vulnerability when it comes to the threat of election interference because of their potential to impact the result in a presidential race,” NPR reported.

“The reality is: Given our Electoral College … national elections are decided in this country in a few precincts, in a few key swing states,” said Johnson. “The outcome, therefore, may dance on the head of a pin.”

Decentralization, Nielsen continued, “makes it difficult to have a nationwide effect [with election interference] but also makes it perhaps of greater threat at a local level. If it’s a swing state or swing area, that can, in turn, have a national effect.”

Under the current winner-take-all system, battleground states are easy targets. A battleground nation of 140 million voters strong? Not so much. Go to www.nationalpopularvote.com to learn more. It’s more than halfway there.

Bunnie Keen, Salt Lake City