John Koza discusses the history of the national popular vote movement, and the recent momentum that has seen three states join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in the past few weeks.
Delaware Votes to Join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The Delaware legislature has voted to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The Compact now goes to Governor John Carney (D), who has pledged to sign it.
Once states with 270 votes join the Compact, all member states have pledged to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This will ensure that no one can become president without winning the most votes. It also means that candidates will no longer be able to campaign only in swing states while ignoring the majority of Americans. Every vote will matter equally, and the president will have to govern in the interest of all Americans instead of special interests in a tiny fraction of states.
Thirteen other states, most recently New Mexico and Colorado, and the District of Columbia have already passed the Compact, totaling 186 votes. Delaware has three electoral votes, bringing the total to 189, or 70% of the votes needed.
No Matter Where you Live, Your Vote Should Count
Here is Representative Seth Moulton on the national popular vote:
People often defend the electoral college by arguing that without it, presidential candidates would pay attention to only a few states. But that’s already the case because of the electoral college: Two-thirds of general-election presidential campaign events in 2016 were held in just six states, and 94 percent were held in just 12 states. In a winner-take-all-electoral-votes system, candidates campaign only in the states that are a toss-up.
But if we abolish the electoral college — either through a constitutional amendment or a national popular-vote compact— presidential candidates could earn votes anywhere, making them far more likely to campaign everywhere. Then, no matter where you live or how your neighbors vote, your vote would matter. As it should.
New Mexico Votes to Join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The New Mexico Senate has joined the state’s House in voting to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The Compact now goes to Governor Michelle Grisham (D) for her approval.
Once states with 270 votes join the Compact, all member states have pledged to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, ensuring that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president. This will mean that candidates will be forced to campaign for all votes everywhere, and not just in a few swing states. All votes will matter equally, no matter where a person lives.
Twelve other states, most recently Colorado, and the District of Columbia have already passed the Compact, totaling 181 votes. New Mexico has five electoral votes, bringing the total to 186.
The Problems with the Electoral College--And How To Fix Them
Here is a primer explaining how the Electoral College hurts American voters, and how states can fix it:
The Biggest Threat to Democracy is up to the States to Fix
The Democratic House has passed a massive election reform bill, HR 1:
The sweeping bill is aimed at getting money out of politics and increasing transparency around donors, cracking down on lobbying, and expanding voting rights for Americans by implementing provisions like automatic voter registration.
This bill would go a long way to restoring the voting rights of U.S. citizens. However, it will probably never even get a vote in the Senate. And HR 1 does not even address the reason that most Americans’ votes don’t count in the presidential election: the Electoral College. Unless you happen to live in a swing state, your vote is either taken for granted or ignored.
But there is some good news. States have the power to allocate their electoral votes in any way they chose. If the states pass a law that pledges their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, candidates will campaign for every vote everywhere and every vote will count equally.
What most people want
This chart shows that no presidential candidate could win the national popular vote by opposing immigration.
If the national popular vote mattered to choosing the president, there’s no doubt that the boiling divisive controversy over immigration would simmer down to the point of debating the necessary compromises over (a) who can stay, (b) who can come in, and (c) how to expel or keep out those who cannot stay or come in.
How would candidates campaign everywhere?
If the national popular vote mattered, then obviously in the general election the major candidates would have an incentive to campaign everywhere for every likely voter for their party.
To envision how they would conduct their campaigns we can look to the primaries where the nominees are selected and to commercial retail. In both cases—whether a person is selling a personality coupled with policy promises (the primaries) or a company is selling computer chips or potato chips (retail)—we know that the goal is close the sale to as many people as possible.
The first step is designing the product. A candidate, like a chip (hardware or chewy-ware, if that's an acceptable neologism), would have to suit the preferences of most people. To win a national popular vote a candidate would have to reflect the majority preferences on immigration (it's good); battling climate change (it's necessary); early child care subsidized by the government (important); better publicly funded infrastructure including high voltage power, high speed trains, and repaired roads (critical); limits on rounds per magazine in automatic weapons (of course); and a host of other topics.
Second, the candidate like the retailer has to build a brand. The means of branding would be to reach a national audience. That would lead to advertising on television content that huge audiences watch, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. Currently 95% of all political advertising in the general election goes to local television in less than 10 states. We see in the critical early primaries, like Iowa, this same pattern within one state. But to build a national brand more than 5% would have to go to national advertising, such as on network shows. National branding would have to align with product-market fit; namely, the candidates' branding would have to appeal to the preferences of most people, instead of suiting niche audiences in a handful of states.
Third, just as Amazon delivers anything to anyone anywhere, candidates would deliver their messages to everyone. They would poll everyone in every town, which is feasible in the post-landline polling age we are now in. Their parties would offer to mail information, send out ballot applications virtually or by street mail, to everyone. The postal service would make more money; mail carriers would be part of the expansion of democracy to every precinct in the country. Social media advertising would go up in the aggregate, and would reach every demographic segment. It's important to note that the Internet does not care where you live. So using virtual mechanisms to reach everyone would certainly be part of national campaigning to win the national popular vote.
Fourth, television matters hugely, but in the current crabbed, confined system of competing only for swing votes in swing states, television advertising money in the general election goes to a handful of television stations. If the national vote mattered, middle and small sized television markets all over the country would get injections of political advertising.
Fifth, perhaps most interesting, local newspapers every four years would get a much needed injection of advertising. The cost of reaching their readers is relatively low and they offer a good way to present a candidacy. Newspapers in Mississippi and Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina, and all the other areas currently in the land of ignored for the presidential candidates would not only get political advertising but they also would get interviews with candidates. They would have to hire reporters! That alone would reverse at least in part the sad trend of the last two decades of shrinking local news coverage.
Sixth, in big cities television advertising is too expensive. So in the top 10 media markets, social media would be used to reach voters in very large part.
Overall the amount of money spent would go up, but the amount spent per person would go down. This would be a relief for the badgered and beleaguered voters in the swing states who justifiably feel they are bothered way too much by advertising in presidential elections.
ICYWTK
Someone asked me the other day what I most disliked about the Electoral College system (that any state law can change). Huge is the fact that the system virtually forces the candidates to ignore the views of the vast majority of Americans. But here's the whole list of what disturbs your correspondent.
1. Makes the views of most Americans irrelevant to presidential candidates. The Electoral College system creates swing states—they are accidents of demography, states where the balance of right and left leaning voters by happenstance is roughly equal. Most state populations tilt one way or the other. These are the ignored states, because the candidates know who will win the plurality. But more than 80% of Americans live in the land of the ignored. There strong majorities support more government action on infrastructure, shift to clean power, limitations of the size of magazines in assault weapons, the well-off paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the middle to lower income households, more government support of higher education so college doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and immigration reform to give clarity to millions of people about whether they can or cannot ever become citizens. The Electoral College system motivates the candidates to appeal to the views of the few and ignore the wishes of the many.
2. Bad for Black Americans. The framers of the Constitution designed the Electoral College to make sure that no abolitionist could become president. When Lincoln got elected in 1860, and the civil war ensued, in the aftermath the former Confederate states in the south adapted the system to make sure that all electors from their state represented white supremacists and no former slaves could ever send an elector to choose the president. To this very day that same system suppresses the relevance of African American votes in almost every election. This is why Barack Obama got zero electors from South Carolina to Texas—right across the heartland of the old Confederacy.
3. Unfair to women. The Electoral College is biased against women. More women vote than men. Women turned out a bigger majority for their preferred candidate than men did for theirs. But somehow the choice of males got elected in 2016 and 2000. Why? The Electoral College made the election turn not on the views of the whole country but only on the skinny margins of a handful of states where the views of women were felt a little less strongly than in the whole country.
4. Treats legal immigrants as second class citizens. The Electoral College is biased against immigrant citizens even to the second generation. Most immigrants live in just five states—the states that are portals to the country. In all these five except Florida the candidates of both parties take the election results for granted, and so they ignore the wishes of immigrants. And in Florida the immigrants who matter most matter are Spanish speakers not from Mexico. No candidate could campaign about a wall or rail against immigration except for the unfairness of the Electoral College.
5. Throws shade on workers. The Electoral College is biased against workers who hold jobs located mostly in the 40 states that are taken for granted. Loggers and longshoremen for example are ignored while coal miners get lots of attention. Why? Coal miners live in swing states. The others don't. This unfairness exists only because every vote does not matter—hardly any votes matter except those in swing states.
Delaware Senate Passes Popular Vote Bill with Bipartisan Support
The Delaware Senate has passed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact 14-7, with all Democrats and two Republicans backing the bill. The bill now moves to the Delaware House, with a vote likely next week.
If presidential candidates have to compete for the popular vote to win, every vote will count. Whether you live in state that's big or small, red or blue, all votes will be counted the same.
Delaware and Maine Consider the National Popular Vote
Legislative committees in Delaware and Maine have referred the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact for a full vote. If Delaware and Maine both pass the legislation, the Compact will have 188 votes. Once states with 270 total electoral votes join the Compact, the states agree to pledge all of their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, guaranteeing that person will become the president.
FiveThirtyEight Takes a Look at the Popular Vote Movement
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is gaining momentum and getting attention. Political forecasting website FiveThirtyEight notes that with the addition of Colorado, the first state to join the compact that is not solidly blue, the Compact has reached a huge milestone and is two-thirds of the way to the 270 votes needed to guarantee the president would have to win the popular vote.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast also covered the national popular vote movement, and discussed the ways that the Electoral College system distorts the way candidates campaign.
In reality, the problem goes much further than campaign stops or advertising money. The Electoral College system also warps the way that presidents seeking re-election govern—and the consequences are very real.
Prominent Republicans Come out in Favor of the National Popular Vote
Michael Steele, former Chair of the Republican National Committee, and Saul Anuzis, former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party, are urging their fellow Republicans to support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in Delaware. They note that:
Over the seven presidential elections since 1988, exactly 1,013,308 Delawareans have trekked to the polls to cast their popular votes for the Republican ticket. Yet their efforts have not produced one single GOP electoral vote. Because in election after election, Delaware delivered the majority of its popular vote – and under the “winner-take-all” system, all of its electoral votes – to the Democrat ticket.
…
Delaware Republicans need to be politically relevant again in every presidential election. A vote in Delaware should count as much toward electing a president as a vote in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, or any other state.
A system that makes candidates from both parties compete for all votes everywhere is the best thing for our country. It’s true that in recent elections, Republicans have been the beneficiaries of the Electoral College system. But as Steele and Anuzis recognize, the next election could very easily go the other way.
The New Plan to Make Every Vote Count
Majority Rules
Except when it comes to the presidency it doesn't. You cannot expect people to run for president, or presidents to govern, according to the popular will when they do not get elected by winning the national vote and cannot get re-elected by pleasing most of the people most of the time.
Maryland is considering a bill that allocates all its electors to the national vote winner if a Republican-leaning state does the same. This reaching across the aisle via legislation is a great way to produce the reform in the rules of running that can let the majority fairly, subject to constitutional protection of individual rights, get the policies and politics that are best for most people.
Can anyone think of any good reason not to applaud Maryland's leadership? And why wouldn't Republican Governor Larry Hogan want to sign, in fact want to champion this bill?
How to Win the Presidency by Losing
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement that he is considering running for president as an independent did not go well. A CNN poll showed that only 13% of Americans have a favorable opinion of him.
However, thanks to the intricacies of the Electoral College, Schultz could end up becoming the president even if only a small percentage of the people vote for him. As Hugh Hewitt explains in the Washington Post, the 12th Amendment states that the House of Representatives will choose the president if no candidate gets 270 or more electoral votes. If Schultz wins even one state, he could end up as a compromise candidate despite getting the fewest actual votes.
This scenario may be unlikely, but it demonstrates the very real problem of third-party candidates acting as spoilers who can thwart the will of the majority in our presidential elections.
Free Advice
Huge credit to National Popular Vote, Inc., the non-profit that has pushed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact slowly but steadily for more than a decade, marching through states one by one. With the addition of Colorado’s nine electoral votes, the Compact is now two-thirds of the way to its goal—a fantastic achievement.
So where do we go from here?
Based on public statements from its leaders, NPV Inc. does not think that it is likely that it will be able to achieve its reform in time for the 2020 election. But why wait? It's a good idea that is long overdue.
Democratic governors hold office in 14 states that have not passed the Compact: in descending order of electors, PA 20, MI 16, NC 15, VA 13, MN 10, WI 10, LA 8, OR 7, KS 6, NV 6, NM 5, ME 4, DE 3, MT 3. Assuming that as with other states that enacted the Compact, a Democratic governor would sign, then in all these state legislatures NPV Inc. should find legislators who will introduce and advocate for the Compact. Is NPV Inc. pushing hard for legislation in all of those states?
So far, only blue states have joined the Compact. It would be terrific, arguably vital, to include Republican-leaning states in this reform. One way is the ingenious idea initiated by Maryland state senator Bill Ferguson. Maryland would award its electors to the national popular vote winner if a Republican-voting state with the same or more electors took the same action, effective for 2020, even if the Compact is not in effect by then. Maryland still would stay bound to the Compact, but this move would put to the Republican governor of the state, Larry Hogan, a pro-democracy initiative that presumably he would support. He then could find a Republican governor in a Republican-leaning state who would join him in creating a prize of electors available to the candidate who wins the national vote.
Possibly neither major party candidate would think the prize big enough to campaign nationally. But the idea alone is worthwhile because it would be the first linkage of the national vote to an award of electors in the history of the United States. Perhaps more important, the Ferguson bill offers a Republican-leaning state a way to join hands with a Democratic-leaning state to move toward this reform. Although some of the representatives of NPV Inc. have been quoted in ways that suggest they don't expect Republican allies, it should be obvious that the goal of having the national vote pick the president ought to be discussed, debated, and embraced by most Americans in all states. Indeed, some prominent Republicans have recently come forward in support of reform because it’s the right thing for the country, regardless of party. Republicans should be part of such an important step forward for democracy.
Compact Making Progress
As this article says, the national popular vote movement is continuing to move forward step by step. But this reform is not fast enough, for all the reasons stated in the article. It is not healthy for the country to have still another election where the winner of the national popular vote is not necessarily going to be the president, or to have only "blue states" banding together to seek reform. Most Americans in most states favor the national vote winner getting to be president.
Wait - Why Don’t All Votes Count?
Here’s a primer on how we elect our presidents—and why most people’s votes are systematically thrown away.
Maryland Bill Could Bring Us Closer to Choosing the President by Popular Vote
Maryland Senator Bill Ferguson has introduced a bill, SB 582, that “he hopes will speed up the move to a national popular vote if other states also adopt the idea.” Under SB 582, Maryland’s 10 Electoral College votes would go to the winner of the national popular vote if a state that voted for the Republican candidate in the last election also pledges at least as many electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
The bill’s supporters hope that red and blue states will work together to pair up their votes to make it less and less likely that a president could be elected without winning the popular vote. As Senator Ferguson explained:
This is about expediting Maryland moving toward the popular vote. It breaks the political logjam through a pairing strategy. All of those states that sign up for the pairing strategy will send their votes to the winner of the popular vote.
The Maryland bill is a complementary effort to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. As attorney Jonathan Blake stated in his testimony in favor of the bill:
The Compact’s objective is to guarantee, after the Compact becomes effective, that the winner of the national popular vote become president, whereas SB 582 seeks to improve the chances that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president during the period until the Compact becomes effective.