The Oregon House Rules Committee holds a hearing and a work session on HB 2588, the National Popular Vote, on the afternoon of February 20. Here is a story about the hearing. John Koza, the chief force behind the idea, will testify. The Oregon bill has 27 co-sponsors in the House (the House only has 60 members) so the bill is very likely to pass, at least in the House.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators — 460 sponsors (in 48 states) and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, Miami Herald, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sacramento Bee, The Tennessean, Fayetteville Observer, Anderson Herald Bulletin, Wichita Falls Times, The Columbian, and other newspapers. The bill has been endorsed by Common Cause, Fair Vote, and numerous other organizations.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in Arkansas (80%), California (70%), Colorado (68%), Connecticut (73%), Delaware (75%), Kentucky (80%), Maine (71%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (73%), Mississippi (77%), Missouri (70%), New Hampshire (69%), Nebraska (74%), Nevada (72%), New Mexico (76%), New York (79%), North Carolina (74%), Ohio (70%), Pennsylvania (78%), Rhode Island (74%), Vermont (75%), Virginia (74%), Washington (77%), and Wisconsin (71%).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
76% OF OREGON VOTERS SUPPORT A NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT IN DECEMBER 2008 POLL
A survey of 800 Oregon voters conducted on December 16-17, 2008 showed 76% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
Support was 82% among Democrats, 70% among Republicans, and 72% among independents.
By age, support was 67% among 18-29 year olds, 68% among 30-45 year olds, 82% among 46-65 year olds, and 76% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 81% among women and 71% among men.
By race, support was 87% among whites (representing 89% of respondents), 59% among African-Americans (representing 3% of respondents), and 80% among Hispanics (representing 2% of respondents), and 69% among Others (representing 6% of respondents).
see NationalPopularVote.com
It is the bill that would be “identical” in form, not the candidates on the ballot in each state, or the manner in which the election is conducted, or even voter qualifications. I don’t know whether Susan recognizes this very important distinction.
It would only apply to the general election. It would not apply to the primaries. In 2008, Barack Obama did not have the most “popular votes” in the Democrat primaries. Is there any state that has popular election of governors, and partisan primaries to determine the nominees where the candidate with the most votes did not become the nominee?
The agreement would not require a majority vote. Compare the difference in senatorial elections between Georgia and Minnesota. Georgia was conclusively settled months ago. When will Minnesota be decided.
The agreement would not provide for uniform standards of conducting the election, conducting a common canvass, or a procedure for conducting a national recount. We could have an election where Congress would reject the electoral votes from all the compact states in January.
(I guess I’ll add my usual questions/comments on the issue here, too — since they haven’t been answered yet that I’ve seen.)
Are we really that hungry for more Floridas? Or more “majority fraud” (where one party controls enough of the government/structure in a state, or a major metropolitan area, that it can give a major boost to its ticket’s vote totals without fear of reprisal)?
Or, to consider another potential problem . . . what would happen if the national vote were close enough that recounts in one or more states might swing the total decision, but the votes in *those* states *weren’t* close enough to require (or even permit) a recount under their laws? Does it make a difference if the states you want recounted aren’t even participants in this compact? How much control/interest/interference could voters from state A (or states A, B, and C for that matter) have over/in/against the results of state D (or D, E, and F) and voters there?
I may be in a minority here, but I don’t see the Electoral College as worthless. If nothing else, it is a small force for consensus . . . putting a small premium (two votes per state) on winning a lot of different states, rather than running up the score in contests you’re sure to win. (Shades of the BCS!) And it gives individual voters, or small groups of voters, *more* voting power — more of an actual chance for their votes to be decisive. (Or at least so it is mathematically argued by Professor Natapoff — and, if you think about it, how likely is it that your one vote or your small group’s votes will make the difference among 100 million plus?)
Jim, you think Congress would reject a national popular vote winner when 70% of Americans prefer a national popular vote system to the current Electoral College system and the election had been run with everyone thinking the national popular vote winner would win? I don’t think.
The NPV proposal has been meticulously thought through. See http://www.everyvoteequal.com
#5, You could have an election like 1960, where the “popular vote” was very close, and the winner would hinge on the definition of a “popular vote”, particularly in Alabama. Throw in fraudulent votes cast by the Chicago, rhymes with Blago, machine and you could have a repeat of 1876.
The NPV plan has no provision for a national canvassing of votes or recount, the whole controversy would be dumped in the lap of Congress when they count the electoral votes.
The 1880 election was as close as 1,898 votes (0.02%) or 1 in 5000 votes. Since no one was trying to determine a “popular vote” winner it is unlikely the returns were closely examined from states where either candidate piled up 60%+ victories. It would have been trivial to conjure up a few 1000 more votes. But only two states were within 2% (California was close enough to have an electoral college split).
At a congressional election held the same day (AL-4) Charles Shelley apparently defeated James Q Smith by a convincing 9,301 to 6,650. Smith contested the election and was awarded the seat in Congress (he had died by then, so the seat was declared vacant). The revised vote total was 8,704 to 11,507 (4,857 additional votes for Smith, and 597 less votes for Shelley in just one congressional race.
Or if James Weaver had been on the ballot in all states the election might not have been close at all.
So in 1880, we really don’t have a way to know the “popular vote” winner was. The NPV plan has no mechanism for resolving such cases.
The NPV plan has no provision to ensure that the voters in every state would have an opportunity to vote for the same candidates.
1824 was essentially an intra-party race (remember that John C Calhoun received but one less electoral vote than Jackson and Adams combined). The Connecticut electors cast their electoral votes for Adams AND Jackson. In 2008, the “popular vote” for this same party’s nominee for President did not receive the most “popular votes”. Where is the upset with that?
The NPV plan has no provision to ensure that the candidates that appear on the general election ballot have the popular support of the party adherents.
It was common for States to provide for majority election of presidential electors. In 1845, when Congress established the uniform date for appointing presidential electors, they deliberately enabled States to have a mechanism for dealing with non-majority elections. This was utilized by Massachusetts in 1848 (the first election under the uniform election date), and in 1860 by Georgia.
The NPV plan has no provision to ensure that the candidate who is elected president has received a majority of the popular vote.
#5 “The NPV proposal has been meticulously thought through.”
Is it evidence of “meticulous thinking” that the NPV has a provision for a member state naming electors for a presidential slate that it had determined for whatever reason to not permit its own citizens to cast their “popular votes” for?
For example, the State of Hawaii is being sued for keeping Ralph Nader off the 2004 ballot. Hawaii is actively defending their action in the federal courts, “mumbly, mumbly, serves rational state purpose, crowded ballots, more legal mumbly, mumbly.” And yet Hawaii has signed on to a compact that would require them to cast its electoral votes for Ralph Nader were he to receive the most popular votes.
A rational thinker would conclude that an election to determine a “national popular vote winner” would require the same candidates be on the ballot nationally. One would hope that at the barest minimum that the member states would agree to a common set of candidates. After all they are required to employee a short ballot.
The pamphlet that you referred to claims that a short ballot is essential to determining the national popular vote. And yet rather addressing the problem of states that did not employee a short ballot, it simply redefines a “popular vote”.
Why doesn’t the pamphlet mention the 1880 election?
The 5 largest metropolitan areas in the US contain over 20% of the nation’s population. These 5 cities alone would become the kingmakers. The top 20 metropolitan areas contain over 40%. This bill is just an end run around the Federal Compact that makes America into a nation.
An overlooked fact under the National Popular Vote f a s c i s t – s o c i a l i s t takeover plan,
IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE FOR A CANDIDATE TO BE ELECTED EVEN THOUGH THAT CANDIDATE ACTUALLY DID NOT WIN THE MOST VOTES IN ANY STATE.
Under NPV, a candidate who carries the 40 bigest cities, but does not win the largest number of votes in any state, could still be elected President, even though prior to the application of the NPV reallocation of votes, that candidate would be entitled to ZERO Electoral Votes.
That’s right folks.
Under NPV, a candidate who has actually earned ZERO electoral votes could be elected President, after the computation determines that all the Electoral Votes earned by some other candidate should be flipped to the NPV candidate.
A candidate who has carried the overwhelming majority of states and Electoral Votes could have enough states Electoral Votes flipped to the NPV candidate to give the Presidency to someone who won NO states and just carried the biggest cities.
DO THE MATH!
There are thousands of possible scenarios under which this could happen.
Say NO to this evil, illogical, ill-considered numb-headed plan!
This is nothing more than an effort to abolish the Electoral College and perhaps put the presidential election in the hands of the four or five largest cities. This would be the final potential nail in the proverbial coffin for states’ rights.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground†states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground†states. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.
Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).
Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York’s use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming–both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.
The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive†in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.
The National Popular Vote bill already has been approved by a total of seven state legislative chambers in small states, including one house in Maine and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by Hawaii.
Most of the medium-small states (with five or six electoral votes) are similarly non-competitive in presidential elections (and therefore similarly disadvantaged). In fact, of the 22 medium-smallest states (those with three, four, five, or six electoral votes), only New Hampshire (with four electoral votes), New Mexico (five electoral votes), and Nevada (five electoral votes) have been battleground states in recent elections.
Because so few of the 22 small and medium-small states are closely divided battleground states in presidential elections, the current system actually shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states. The New York Times reported early in 2008 (May 11, 2008) that both major political parties were already in agreement that there would be at most 14 battleground states in 2008 (involving only 166 of the 538 electoral votes). In other words, three-quarters of the states were to be ignored under the current system in the 2008 election. Michigan (17 electoral votes), Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21), and Florida (27) contain over half of the electoral votes that will matter in 2008 (85 of the 166 electoral votes). There are only three battleground states among the 22 small and medium-small states (i.e., New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Nevada). These three states contain only 14 of the 166 electoral votes. Anyone concerned about the relative power of big states and small states should realize that the current system shifts power from voters in the small and medium-small states to voters in a handful of big states.
The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States and that a candidate would win the Presidency if 100% of the voters in these 11 states voted for one candidate. However, if anyone is concerned about the this theoretical possibility, it should be pointed out that, under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in these same 11 states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
Of course, the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely act in concert on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states include five “red†states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six “blue†states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
Moreover, the notion that any candidate could win 100% of the vote in one group of states and 0% in another group of states is far-fetched. Indeed, among the 11 most populous states, the highest levels of popular support were found in the following seven non-battleground states:
â— Texas (62% Republican),
â— New York (59% Democratic),
â— Georgia (58% Republican),
â— North Carolina (56% Republican),
â— Illinois (55% Democratic),
â— California (55% Democratic), and
â— New Jersey (53% Democratic).
In addition, the margins generated by the nation’s largest states are hardly overwhelming in relation to the 122,000,000 votes cast nationally. Among the 11 most populous states, the highest margins were the following seven non-battleground states:
◠Texas — 1,691,267 Republican
◠New York — 1,192,436 Democratic
◠Georgia — 544,634 Republican
◠North Carolina — 426,778 Republican
◠Illinois — 513,342 Democratic
◠California — 1,023,560 Democratic
◠New Jersey — 211,826 Democratic
To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 votes for Bush in 2004.
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
the U.S. Constitution does not require that the election laws of all 50 states are identical in virtually every respect. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons “within its jurisdiction.†The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a “person†in another state who is not “within its [the first state’s] jurisdiction.†State election laws are not identical now nor is there anything in the National Popular Vote compact that would force them to become identical. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II) as well as congressional elections (article I). The fact is that the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution permits states to conduct elections in varied ways.
The National Popular Vote bill does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
It is important to note that neither the current system nor the National Popular Vote compact permits any state to get involved in judging the election returns of other states. Existing federal law (the “safe harbor†provision in section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code) specifies that a state’s “final determination†of its presidential election returns is “conclusive†(if done in a timely manner and in accordance with laws that existed prior to Election Day).
The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and requires each state to treat as “conclusive†each other state’s “final determination†of its vote for President. No state has any power to examine or judge the presidential election returns of any other state under the National Popular Vote compact.
The U.S. Constitution, existing federal statutes, and independent state statutes guarantee “finality†in presidential elections long before the inauguration day in January. These constitutional provisions, statutes, and precedents apply equally to a presidential election conducted under the National Popular Vote legislation and an election conducted under the current system.
The U.S. Constitution (Article II, section 1, clause 4) provides:
“The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.†[Spelling as per original]
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote approach, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination†prior to the common nationwide date for the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their “final determination†six days before the Electoral College meets (the so-called “safe harbor†date established by section 5 of title 3 of the United States Code).
In addition, in almost all states, state statutes already impose independent (typically earlier) deadlines for finalizing the count for the presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that state election officials and the state judiciary must conduct counts and recounts in presidential elections within the confines of existing state election laws.
It may be argued that the schedule established by the U.S. Constitution may sometimes rush the count (and possibly even create injustice). However, there can be no argument that this schedule exists in the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and state statutes; that this schedule guarantees “finality†prior to the meeting of the Electoral College in mid-December. This existing constitutional schedule would govern the National Popular Vote compact in exactly the same way that it governs elections under the current system.
Current federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the “canvas”) in what is called a “Certificate of Ascertainment.” You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site at http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2004/certificates_of_ascertainment.html
Under the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than a plurality of the popular votes in order to receive all of the state’s electoral votes.
Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation’s 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
Under the current system, there are 51 separate vote pools in every presidential election. Thus, our nation’s 55 presidential elections have really been 2,084 separate elections. This is the reason why there have been five seriously disputed counts in the nation’s 55 presidential elections. The 51 separate pools regularly create artificial crises in elections in which the vote is not at all close on a nationwide basis, but close in particular states.
A recount is not an unimaginable horror or logistical impossibility. A recount is a recognized contingency that is occasionally required (about once in 332 elections). All states routinely make arrangements for a recount in advance of every election. The personnel and resources necessary to conduct a recount are indigenous to each state. A state’s ability to conduct a recount inside its own borders is unrelated to whether or not a recount may be occurring in another state.
If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.
The potential for political fraud and mischief is not uniquely associated with either the current system or a national popular vote. In fact, the current system magnifies the incentive for fraud and mischief in closely divided battleground states because all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state.
Under the current system, the national outcome can be affected by mischief in one of the closely divided battleground states (e.g., by overzealously or selectively purging voter rolls or by placing insufficient or defective voting equipment into the other party’s precincts). The accidental use of the butterfly ballot by a Democratic election official in one county in Florida cost Gore an estimated 6,000 votes ― far more than the 537 popular votes that Gore needed to carry Florida and win the White House. However, even an accident involving 6,000 votes would have been a mere footnote if a nationwide count were used (where Gore’s margin was 537,179). In the 7,645 statewide elections during the 26-year period from 1980 to 2006, the average change in the 23 recounts was a mere 274 votes.
Senator Birch Bayh (D–Indiana) summed up the concerns about possible fraud in a nationwide popular election for President in a Senate speech by saying in 1979, “one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes.”