AT LAST, FALL COLOR IS BUSTING OUT IN SMITHFIELD!

At the end of a tough week for the nation, here's an uplifting sight --- in a yard beside Wellons Street last Sunday as the afternoon sun filtered through golden leaves. Too bad this week's rains knocked down many of the town's colorful leaves.

Wingate Lassiter

As part of the postmortem for our state and national elections, I'd like to advocate a couple of basic changes in how we choose our President and members of Congress from North Carolina.

First of all, the current Electoral College system for choosing a President, though grounded in the worthwhile Constitutional protection of states' rights, appears to be overdue for reform.

The winner-take-all formula that gives all of a state's electoral votes to one candidate --- whether that candidate carries the state by a single vote or a million votes --- on two occasions over the past 20 years has skewed the outcome away from electing a President favored by a majority of the nation's voters. And it came close to happening again this year.

Two of our 50 states have adopted a sensible solution that keeps the Electoral College intact while more accurately reflecting the people's preferences. Maine and Nebraska assign most of their electoral votes according to the outcome in each of its Congressional districts.

If that system had been in place nationwide, it might not have changed the outcomes of elections in 2000 and 2016, when George W. Bush and Donald Trump won the Presidency despite trailing their opponents in the nationwide popular vote. But wouldn't we feel better about it if we had a district-based Electoral College system that comes much closer to making each and every vote count?

Can we not fix our redistricting process?

The other worrisome aspect of our current system, especially here in North Carolina, is the gerrymandering of those Congressional districts in favor of the political party in control of the state's legislature following the decennial U.S. Census. That's going to take place again after the 2020 Census numbers are certified, and once more it's going to be North Carolina's Republican legislators who'll be drawing those maps.

Following the 2010 Census, the state's Congressional districts sent 10 Republicans and only three Democrats to represent us in the U.S. House --- a troublesome result for a "purple state" that produces narrow partisan margins in statewide elections.

Because of successful legal challenges to the initial redistricting map after 2010, North Carolina's Congressional delegation is more evenly split now --- with eight Republicans and five Democrats just elected. In an ideal world, statistically speaking, that split ought to be seven Republicans and six Democrats based on how Tar Heels voted in last week's statewide elections for President and U.S. Senator.

Other states have nonpartisan commissions and other politically neutral mechanisms to come up with district election maps based more on science than politics. Such fairness boosts public confidence in the workings of our democracy, and makes less likely the seemingly endless lawsuits challenging the gerrymanders.