On April 18, the Oregon House passed HB 3077, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The bill had passed the House Rules Committee on April 17. The vote in the House was 38-21. Democrats supported the bill 31-2. Republicans mostly opposed it, but their votes were not overwhelmingly against the bill; Republicans opposed it 19-7.
The Oregon Senate also has a bill for the National Popular Vote Plan, SB 624, but it hasn’t moved so far.
Well, I asked my Rep. to support it and he was one of the two Democrats to vote against it. I guess he doesn’t want my vote ever again.
Excellent news!
Below is something from a piece recently written by Paul J. De Muniz, a retired chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/04/a_national_popular_vote_would.html. It addresses the very poor argument for our current EC scheme, that being that it somehow “protects” the rights of small states. It doesn’t.
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Three compelling reasons Oregonians should award their electoral votes to the winner of the National Popular Vote:
Campaign visits. With the winner-take-all system currently in place, Oregon, along with 40 other states, was completely ignored in the 2012 presidential election. As noted, Oregon had zero campaign visits to Ohio’s 73. Florida had 40 visits, and Virginia had 36. The most important election in the world is focused on a few states where the outcome is not obvious, while the rest of the country is ignored.
Campaign spending. In 2012, Oregon residents donated at least $10.5 million to the Obama and Romney campaigns. That money went straight from the pockets of Oregonians to swing states to talk about issues important to those states, not Oregon.
Governing after the campaign. The issue isn’t just important on the electoral side, but also on the governance side. National policies shouldn’t be targeted just to battleground states — steel tariffs for Pennsylvania, for instance, and Medicare Part D drug benefits for Florida. Important issues facing Oregonians, such as Pacific Rim trade, natural resources and our high-tech industry, go largely ignored.
First Oregon produces Rogue Dead Guy Ale. And now the pas NPV.
I knew I really liked Oregon.
No uniform definition of Elector-Voter in the NPV scheme from Hell.
How many children, aliens (earth and non-earth), cats and dogs (representing Mother Nature’s critters) will be voting for Prez/VP in the usual suspect States IF the NPV scheme from Hell somehow takes effect ???
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
The closest popular-vote election in American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election–and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which system offers vote suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?
U.S. Constitution – Article II, Section 1, Clause 2:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
“The U.S. Constitution contains very few provisions relating to the qualifications of Electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 provides that no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. As a historical matter, the 14th Amendment provides that State officials who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to its enemies are disqualified from serving as Electors. This prohibition relates to the post-Civil War era.”
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html
# 6 LOTS of EVIL dangerous ANTI-Democracy stuff in the nearly dead USA Const — Senate, Electoral College, Prez Veto, etc. etc.
Result – the pending Civil WAR II between the leftwing LOOTERS versus the rightwing LOOTERS.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — before it is too late.
#2 Congress should expand the time window for choosing electors. Remember that Barack Obama in a visit to Oregon in May 2012 noted that he had visited 57 states.
16 regional elections, every two weeks spread out over 8 months, March to November, would directly address Justice De Muniz’s concerns in a way that the NPV scheme would not.
It would result in the candidates actually visiting every region of the country, and likely every State. Oregonian donors would likely be solicited before and after their election, ensuring that much of the money will be spent in Oregon.
#5 Susan Mvymvy,
Weren’t 1876 and 1880 the closest electoral and popular vote elections, respectively?
Nixon won the popular vote in 1960 by around 200,000 votes, vs. as few as 2,000 in 1880.
In 1876 Harrison only won by one electoral vote – according to the good folks in Macomb, Illinois, not even a majority.
The closest popular-vote election in American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
A candidate has won the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide in 4 of the nation’s 57 (1 in 14 = 7%) presidential elections. The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore’s lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
8 –
How many times did Barack Obama or Mitt Romney visit Oregon during the general election when they were both courting the general electorate for EC votes rather than courting the votes of their party members for their respective nomination? In the primary season there are votes party votes available and worth contesting in all fifty states. In the general election, there are only votes EC votes worth contesting in a handful of states.
(BTW…the answer to my rhetorical is zero).
1876 is a very fine example, BTW, of how the winner-take-all state-by-state EC system, can encourage electoral fraud. When the supporters of Harrison realized four states were close enough to contest, they did so…using such “democratic” methods as bribery, threats, extortion, violence, and some claim, even murder. And that’s how Harrison got to his “one vote” EC victory, even though his opponent Tilden had a gotten a greater number of popular votes.
What a fab system, eh?
Thanks, Jimbo, for citing one of the best examples in our history to support 5’s argument.
#10 Susan Mvymvy, the closest popular vote was in 1880.
Are you paid to disseminate misinformation, or do you do it for free?
#11 If the period of the general election were extended, then candidates would likely personally campaign in each of the States, particularly if a State switched to proportional allocation of electors.
Do you really think under your NPV scheme that the candidates will travel to Oregon during the campaign to discuss the spotted owl? Who? They will simply run some TV ads.
What are you referring to with regard to Harrison and 1876? Do you really think that Sam Tilden received 68% of the vote in Mississippi and amassing a 59,000 vote plurality?
Why do your fellow NPV schemers ignore the election of 1880?
The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of campaign attention was showered on voters in just ten states in 2012- and that in today’s political climate, the swing states have become increasingly fewer and fixed.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”
Even in the recent handful of states where a presidential vote matters to the candidates, the value of a vote is different.
Where you live should not determine how much, if at all, your vote matters.
A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every vote is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren’t so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Oregon or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Oregon.
Oregon is among the 80% of states and voters left out of presidential campaigns, under the current system because of the state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes. Candidates have no incentive to even run any TV ads or pay any attention to voters who do not live in closely divided battleground states.
In 20008, only $2,754 was spent on ads in Oregon (with 7 electoral votes) after the conventions, while $2,924,839 was spent in New Hampshire (with 4 electoral votes), and $29,249,985 was spent on ads in Florida.
Those costs are not typos.
Under a national popular vote, every voter would be politically relevant. Every person’s vote in every state would matter in every presidential election.
The current winner-take-all system encourages the wholesale dismissal of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of over 200,000,000 Americans. Issues which are vital to states like Montana and Oregon are routinely disregarded. Under the current system, they do not matter. Issues which are vital to states like Ohio and Florida are overemphasized. Under the current system, they do matter. It is difficult to imagine that the Founding Fathers intended the disenfranchisement of so many states and the empowerment of so few in their quest to form a more perfect union.
Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin.
If the proportional approach were implemented by a state, on its own, it would have to allocate its electoral votes in whole numbers. If a current battleground state were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
The proportional method also could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
If the whole-number proportional approach, the only proportional option available to an individual state on its own, had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide. Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation. The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.
It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach, which would require a constitutional amendment, does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person’s vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.
13 –
More simplistic mush.
Do you think the only issues of importance to Oregonians is the spotted owl? Do you think the only issues of importance to Americans nationwide are Iowan corn? Pennsylvanian coal?
This supporter of NPV does not argue, and has never argued, that the reason for electing the president by popular vote is to encourage the candidates to campaign in any particular state, city, farmland or island for that matter. Neither, I think, do most supporters of NPV. We do think it is an unfair effect of the NPV scheme as currently implemented that candidates campaign only in states which are determined to be “in play,” or “battleground” states. Find me an original citation, whether in Madison’s notes to the convention, or in any of the Federalist Papers which would lead us to believe that that was the FF’s intention in crafting the EC. And find me an original citation that would lead us to believe that the FF’s intended their EC system to have the effect of grouping the states into two groups – those which command the attention of the candidates during the general election, and those which do not. Oregonians have a legitimate beef, as do citizens in any of the following states:
HI
AK
WA
ID
MT
ND
SD
KS
OK
NB
TX
UT
WY
AZ
You can fill in the blanks east of the Mississippi.
My interest, as a supporter of NPV, is not who or where the candidates visit. It’s that every voter’s vote should count equally in electing the president. I know you as a Republican toadie have a problem with that concept, but that’s your problem to live with, not mine, and not ours.
Finally, it’s the OPPONENTS of NPV who make the ludicrous claim that somehow the EC system as currently implemented somehow “protects” the “rights” of small states. I cited the article as evidence that the EC system does nothing of the kind, except perhaps to give individual voters in small states a proportionally greater say in the election of the president than those who live in larger states. This is a mathematical reality that even someone with limited intellect can understand.
12 – Who pays YOU? I see your name in this space commenting on NPV much more often than Oldgulph’s. Are you still a consultant for A.L.E.C.?
13 –
Sorry, Jimbo – almost forgot.
1880. By all means. Let’s do a recount. I know getting the count right somehow bothers you, but let’s do a recount by all means. And in future elections, too. Electing a president is not the same as ordering a cheeseburger and fires at MacDonald’s. Immediacy of results is unimportant.
1876 – Do your homework. Actually, I take that back. Stop playing dumb.
#16 Barry,
Let’s see if I can follow your “logic” as meager as it may be. You quote a retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice, not because you agree with him, but rather because it somehow rebuts an argument that no one is making.
18
I can always count on you, Jimbo, to make your most vacuous posts when the thread has dipped down here, three levels deep. As a consequence I feel that only I and Richard Winger are privy to your fundamental idiocy.
But regardless…here, take my hand. Let me walk you across Tautology Street, my empty headed nitwit.
I support NPV.
I have many reasons for supporting NPV.
Where the candidates choose to campaign in the general election is NOT a concern of mine and therefore not a reason for me to support NPV OR oppose the current winner-take-all-implementation of the EC.
Are you with me so far? Is the tiny portion of your tiny brain that is devoted to processing logic throbbing yet?
Now…opponents of NPV make the argument that it would diminish the protection of smaller states’ “rights” or interests. That this is a fact you can’t dispute, unless you are a liar or very selective reader on the subject of NPV. I’m on already record as believing it’s the former.
But…do you follow so far? This is not my argument – it’s the argument of those who oppose NPV. Opponents of NPV argue that if NPV is implemented, the candidates will campaign only in high population areas. The judge responds by saying, in effect, “Hey – Oregon has Portland, and the rest is rural America. So where are the campaign stops if the winner-take-all system works as you say? And where is the evidence that any of the interests of Oregonians are served by this system in the way that you SUPPORTERS of the winner-take-all system say should result?”
The judge’s article addresses that argument – again…not my argument.
So, what is so hard for you to follow here? I can make my arguments FOR a proposition, and I can cite arguments AGAINST those made by others who are AGAINST the proposition. Are you really this dense? Did you churn out students of political science at Regis with as little facility in critical and logical thought as you possess?
Pity the rest of us, then.
Did you do your homework on 1876, by the way, or are you still ignoring the evidence that your precious EC system has resulted in multiple instances of coordinated electoral fraud? Or maybe you care more about gaming the system to elect Republicans than you do about democracy?