National Popular Vote Explained by Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Wait — Some Votes Don’t Count?
National Popular Vote Not a Partisan Question
In a very thoughtful piece, Maine Republican Lance Dutson explains that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, currently under consideration in Maine, should not be a Republican vs. Democrat issue.
Dutson explains that the Compact would not significantly diminish the electoral importance of Maine and other small states because, unless they are also swing states, small states are ignored in political campaigns anyway:
One of the main arguments Republican opponents make about the NPV is that densely-populated areas would see their political influence drown out that of smaller, more rural areas, like Maine. This is a noble concern, however, it’s kind of too late. Maine and other sparsely populated areas are already a minor concern in the grand scheme of our presidential elections.
Jacob Posik of The Maine Heritage Policy Center wrote a good piece recently laying out the argument against NPV. In the piece, Posik noted that, under NPV, Maine’s total share of the national vote total would only be 0.55 percent, and therefore politicians wouldn’t bother paying attention to our state. However, Posik failed to note that, under the current Electoral College system, Maine’s four electoral votes make up only 0.74 percent of the 538 total Electoral College votes nationwide. Under both systems, Maine is merely a blip on the screen of the broader electorate.
The fact is, candidates pay attention to states because they’re competitive, not because of the density of their population. Maine’s 2nd Congressional District got attention during the 2016 presidential election because polling showed the Republican could potentially win the district’s one electoral vote. It didn’t matter that one electoral vote represents only 0.18 percent of the total Electoral College; it only mattered that the electoral vote was up for grabs.
Dutson also explained how the winner-take-all Electoral College effectively disenfranchises many voters, Democrats and Republicans alike:
…The Electoral College doesn’t grant any notable proportional advantage for Republicans in small, rural states, but it does severely marginalize the votes of Republicans in states that are not competitive.
For instance, a Republican hasn’t won New York’s electoral votes since 1984. However, there are more than 2.6 million registered Republicans in New York. Regardless, those Republican votes have not had any impact on the electoral college tabulations in more than 35 years.
The same is true for Democrats in deeply Republican states. There are nearly 50,000 Democrats in Wyoming whose votes are inconsequential to the electoral tabulation in presidential contests because their state hasn’t supported a Democratic candidate since 1964.
Under the NPV system, though, every one of these votes would be tabulated. A Republican in Manhattan or Los Angeles would have their votes added to the national vote total, and voters behind the partisan curtain of the opposing party would no longer be inconsequential to the overall outcome.
The debate over NPV really comes down to the question of a state’s impact on an election versus an individual voter’s impact. When a Democrat moves to Wyoming, is it fair for them to lose their influence over the next presidential election because of their geographic location?
The History of the Electoral College and the Modern Case for Reform
In an excellent piece published in the Minnesota Star Tribune, Mark Bohnhorst, chair of the State Presidential Elections Team at Minnesota Citizens for Clean Elections, combats some of the most pervasive myths about how the Electoral College was designed to work and how it actually works, as well as examining the likely implications of a national popular vote:
The Electoral College was clearly an unholy if necessary compromise with slavery. Even following the Civil War, the Electoral College crisis of 1876 helped perpetuate racial injustice by ending Reconstruction, which led to another century of racial subjugation.
…
[Under the national popular vote], candidates will seek votes wherever the voters are. They will not ignore 100 million voters — urban or rural. They will use technology to reach as many voters as possible as efficiently as possible. That feels like democracy — the kind of democratic republic James Madison would have approved.
Electoral Presidency
Donald Trump is the only president in the history of polling never to have gained the support of a majority of Americans for even a single day.
This sort of presidency is only possible because of the Electoral College system.
Donald Trump deserves full credit for his firm grasp of the essential attribute of this system: it benefits a candidate nothing to do what most people want. All that matters is what turns out the plurality in a few states.
The problem for most Americans is the system. It is constructed so as to create an irresistible pull into the presidency of candidates who ignore the preferences of a majority of Americans.
If you don’t like this, don’t blame Trump. Change the system.
National Popular Vote Passes in Nevada Assembly
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has passed the Nevada Assembly 23-17. The bill will now go to the Nevada Senate.
Nevada has six electoral votes. If it joins the Compact, there will be a total of 195 votes committed from 16 jurisdictions. Once the Compact reaches 270 electoral votes, it will go into effect and all the members will pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, guaranteeing that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president.
A "Flourishing Effort to Advance Democracy"
From The Progressive:
Though billed as a nationwide election, presidential elections are, in reality, decided by, at most, fourteen states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The reason? Virtually all states allocate electoral votes in a winner-take-all format—if a candidate wins the majority of votes in a state, that candidate receives 100 percent of the electoral votes. As such, there is no incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in states dominated by one party, even if millions of supporters live there.
In 2016, 95 percent of candidate appearances and 99 percent of campaign spending went to these swing states. Worse still, these states are unrepresentative of the broader population; they are older and whiter and their economic interests—especially relating to energy production—are anomalous. National priorities are subsequently skewed and federal funds get disproportionately allocated to serve swing state needs.
Despite these facts, Electoral College reform efforts, such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or proportional allocation of electoral votes, are virtually never discussed in the media. Warren, by taking a stand for a democracy solution, broke the silence, sparked a much-needed debate about the Electoral College, and spread the word about a concrete policy solution that Americans could immediately act on.
What does Fixing a Bicycle have to do with Fixing our Destructive Presidential Election System?
To a striking degree, voters of different political persuasions agree that things are going wrong with our government and our political system. Shared national values are fraying as a result. Most voters agree on many of the things that are going wrong—hyper-partisanship, citizen distrust of government, intensive divisiveness, and a conviction that they are not being represented by the system. To be sure, they don't agree on how to reform the system, but fundamentally they do agree that it needs to be reformed.
When I was a kid growing up during World War II, the popular story line was that Americans were good at fixing things. When GIs landed in rural France they endeared themselves to the liberated villagers not only by handing out chocolates but also by repairing their bicycles. To fix a bicycle, one first needs to determine what is wrong with it and then roll up his or her sleeves to make the fix. That was the reputation Americans had, it was legitimately earned, and we were proud of it.
The same was true of our political system from the earliest days of our country. We did what we needed to make things work. Our founders were visionaries, it is true, but they were also practical. Europeans, by contrast, tended to be guided by ideologies and spent considerable time in ideological debate. This approach—from the divine right of kings, to the perfectibility of humankind, to communism's "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," to the empty and cynical slogans of totalitarian states—got them into trouble.
In contrast, American political rallying cries—Teddy Roosevelt's "Square Deal," Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal," and Harry Truman's "Fair Deal"—have been grounded in the practical mentality of the Yankee peddler. In addition to improvisation and practicality, these slogans reflected a commitment to fixing things, making them better.
As a country, we need to fix our political system, and it doesn't matter all that much, beyond certain fundamental values the great majority of Americans share, what collection of beliefs each participant brings to a table where the root causes of our problem are identified and remedies are fashioned by collaborative discussion and reciprocal horse trading.
Making Every Vote Count's leadership has come together from different political perspectives. Like a rapidly growing number of other groups and individuals, which are concerned about the serious problems in our political system, board members of disparate views on many issues are joined in the conviction that a major source of these problems is a very specific segment of our Presidential election system -- how 48 states allocate their electoral college votes under a very unrepresentative winner-take-all system -- not in the Constitution, itself, and that it is fixable. This defect is the equivalent of the broken bicycle chain that prevents it from being used properly.
So, let's put aside ideologies, but not our national values, put our hands into the grease of the malfunctioning bicycle chain and devise and implement the needed fix. That's what our founders did in 1787, when the damaging flaws of the Articles of Confederation had become apparent. The difference here, however, is that we don't have to throw away the old bike. We need to fix only the one defective part of it. In the case of our Presidential election system, an increasing number of commentators, scholars, and public and political figures recognize that the appropriate remedy can and should be implemented at the state level, not at the level of the federal government. We should get on with the job.
Karl Rove’s Weak Defense of the Electoral College
In his editorial, “The Lovely but Unloved Electoral College,” appearing in the April 10, 2019 Wall Street Journal, former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove does not so much defend the Electoral College but attempts to minimize its failings and paints a parade of horribles that he imagines would descend if the system were altered. If anything, much of his defense of the current system is an argument for its alteration.
First, Rove states that there is “zero chance” of abolishing the Electoral College because it would take a constitutional amendment. While he is correct that an amendment is unlikely, he is wrong that there is no other way for the system to change. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote once states with 270 electoral votes join the Compact. Right now, fourteen states plus DC have passed the Compact, totaling 189 votes—70% of the way to becoming effective. There is tremendous momentum behind the Compact, with Oregon likely to be the next state to join with 7 additional electoral votes.
Rove does not argue that it is good that the Electoral College sometimes means a person becomes president despite the fact that more voters preferred another candidate. Instead, he argues that splits between the Electoral College and the national popular vote are a “rare divergence” explained by “extenuating circumstances.”
But these “circumstances” are in fact strong arguments for reform. He argues that the only reason George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 is because the TV networks prematurely called Florida for Gore at 8:02 Eastern time, while many western states were still voting. Rove does not provide a citation for his assertion that “Republicans were more likely to be discouraged and stay home, probably costing George W. Bush several hundred thousand votes and two states, New Mexico and Oregon,” but even if it were true, this is a good reason why the country would do better under the popular vote. If all votes count equally, it will be much more difficult for networks or other actors to interfere with the results, intentionally or otherwise, while votes are still being cast.
Rove also asserts that “Winning GOP candidates may have fallen short in the popular vote in 1876 and 1888 only because the black Republican vote in the South was being extinguished by violence.” What he doesn’t mention is how the Electoral College meant that even if they had been able to vote, the votes of African Americans in the south would not have counted because they could not get a plurality in the states where they lived, a problem that persists to this day.
More important than past elections is the likelihood that the Electoral College will thwart the will of the people in the future. Rove notes that there have only been five Electoral College/popular vote splits out of 58 elections, but fails to note that splits have occurred in two out of the last five elections, and two out of the last three open elections. Our analysis shows that, far from becoming more and more rare, splits will become increasingly likely when the outcome rests on just a few swing states. In close elections, there will be a split in up to 32% of elections, with neither party having a long-term advantage.
Next, Rove suggests that a number of consequences would befall our nation if we switched to a national popular vote: there would be recounts needed in many states, third parties would multiply, and small states would be ignored. But those are all problems that exist in a worse form under the current system than under a popular vote.
A popular vote election involving hundreds of millions of voters would be unlikely to be close enough to need multiple recounts, unlike the winner-take-all Electoral College where the election can turn on a few hundred voters in a single state.
Right now, a third party candidate could theoretically win the election with only 23% of the vote. Under a popular vote, a third party would at least have to get more votes than anyone else. Further, many Americans feel disenchanted with the two major parties and would welcome real third party challenges, perhaps in combination with ranked-choice voting.
Finally, small states, as well as most big and medium-sized states, are already ignored by candidates who instead lavish almost all of their attention on big swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania.
Rove claims that “[t]he Founders knew what they were doing. Abolishing the Electoral College is an awful idea.” But though the Founders were brilliant men, they were not omniscient. They came up with a compromise that reached the necessary votes—and that was constrained by the hard limits on travel and communications at the time—but which they themselves acknowledged was not perfect. More importantly, it bore very little resemblance to the Electoral College as it operates now. It was, according to Hamilton, meant to be a deliberative body of a “small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, [who] will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations” as choosing the president. Of course, the reality is far different.
It is time to work within the confines of the Constitution to allow the people to choose the president. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution allows the states to determine how electors are appointed. If state law in enough jurisdictions directed the electors to pledge their votes to the winner of the national popular vote, campaigns would have to look everywhere for votes instead of focusing on a few swing states. Only then will every vote matter equally.
Oregon Senate Passes National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
On April 9, the Oregon Senate passed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact with bipartisan support. The bill now goes to the Oregon House, where identical bills have been passed four times since 2007. In addition, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has stated she supports the proposal.
If Oregon joins the Compact, it will have 196 of the 270 votes it needs to become effective.
Efforts to Reform our Presidential Selection System Long Predate our Current Polarized Political Climate
Many have criticized advocates of a national popular vote as simply wishing to change the results of a single contentious election. But the problems inherent in the winner-take-all Electoral College have existed long before 2016. Candidates from both parties are practically required to spend all their time, effort, and money on just a few close states while ignoring the majority of the country.
Efforts to reform the system are not new either. As Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wisely wrote all the way back in 2007, when Maryland became the first state to enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
The democratic solution is for legislatures to agree to use their electoral votes to support the winner nationally. …
Opponents of popular election invent scary scenarios to continue subjecting our 21st-century nation to a system invented in the far less democratic 18th century. Most frequently, they warn about having to conduct a nationwide recount in a close election.
But direct election of presidents works just fine in France and in Mexico, which managed to get through a divisive, terribly narrow presidential election last year. Are opponents of the popular vote saying our country is less competent at running elections than France or Mexico?
Here's hoping Maryland sets off a quiet revolution that brings our nation's electoral practice into line with our democratic rhetoric. Individual citizens should have the right to elect their president -- directly.
Think the National Popular Vote Would Always Help Democrats? Not So Fast
Conventional wisdom says that choosing the president by national popular vote would help Democrats and hurt Republicans. But that is not necessarily the case. MEVC’s own analysis shows that under the current, winner-take-all Electoral College system, a split between the winners of the Electoral College and the popular vote will happen about a third of the time in close elections—and neither party is likely to have a long-term advantage.
A growing number of Republicans have recognized that the national popular vote may be the best way to build winning coalitions going forward, and that any apparent benefit the current system has to Republicans may only be temporary. As Susan Crabtree explains in RealClearPolitics:
To [Republicans], the equation is clear: Defending the traditional system puts the GOP in the best position for President Trump to win a second term. But some Republicans wonder if the conventional wisdom is short-sighted. For starters, these contrarians are concerned with how the existing Electoral College dynamic has reduced civic engagement in whole areas of the country, from the deeply red South, rural Plains and mountain West to the millions of essentially disenfranchised Republicans in Democrat-dominated California. Such places are ignored every four years as the two major parties and their respective presidential tickets spend almost all of their time and treasure in roughly a dozen battleground states.
Of more pressing concern, these GOP contrarians also point out that the electoral map that currently favors them is not set in stone.
… Republicans who support shifting to greater reliance on the popular vote argue that in five to 10 years, their candidates may find themselves at a disadvantage even under the current system. That’s because demographics are changing palpably and Republicans might well lose their ability to win the important swing state of Florida, and possibly even the GOP anchor state of Texas.
We should not consider a national popular vote because of any perceived short-term gain to one party over another. Instead, consider the benefits that are lasting. A guarantee that all votes would count equally. A truly national campaign. And a promise that your federal disaster relief won’t be contingent on whether you live in a swing state. Sometimes the Democratic candidate would win; sometimes the Republican. But every voter would have a chance to weigh in on the decision.
The Amendment Process is Too Slow, Unnecessary
In this article the very smart E. J. Dionne suggests that it is time for some constitutional amendments, starting with an amendment to get rid of the Electoral College. A number of senators have also introduced such an amendment, despite publicly acknowledging that such a change would be a long shot.
Dionne does not, however, mention the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
There’s no reason why anyone should wait for the miracle of a constitutional amendment (a super majority in Congress plus three-fourths of the states) to occur before having the national popular vote pick the president. The Compact does the job, and now has 189 votes committed. Oregon will probably pass it next soon. Momentum is building. So why not mention it?
The goal here should be to have candidates compete nationally. The reason we want candidates to compete nationally is that we want parties and presidents to try to respond to the majority will. This is critically important to the survival of the republic. As Dionne notes, “faith in the fairness and representativeness of our system will continue to erode if we make a habit of allowing popular-vote losers to ascend to the Oval Office.”
If the states can band together in a compact, it will produce the same result as an amendment: national campaigns. So smart people ought to think of the practical methods to make this happen.
The worst, most impractical of all methods would be to wait for a constitutional amendment which might occur on approximately the 12th of never. And maybe not then.
A Big Day for the National Popular Vote
Yesterday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, officially bringing the total number of committed electoral votes to 189 from fourteen states and the District of Columbia. Once states with a total of 270 votes join the Compact, all the member states will allocate their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote.
And in Oregon, the Compact passed a Senate Committee and is headed for a vote in the full Senate. The bill has support among Democratic and Republican legislators in Oregon, and seems likely to pass. Oregon has 7 electoral votes.
How to Make Every Vote Count—With or Without a Constitutional Amendment
Today, Senators Brian Schatz, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College.
This is not the first time such an amendment has been introduced. The constitutional amendment process is long and arduous. But there is another way to change the system: states could agree to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Some have criticized the Compact as an end-run around the Constitution. To the contrary, the Constitution specifically gives states the right to allocate their electors as they see fit. Further, as Seth Masket explains for Vox, the states have already moved far away from the original system the founders envisioned:
Indeed, the way that the Electoral College is currently implemented and has been practiced over the past two centuries bears little similarity to the way the founders originally described it. This is no council of elites carefully deliberating over the ideal president; electors, with very few exceptions, simply vote the way their states’ voters did, in many cases risking legal penalty for not doing so. This was an adaptation of the Constitution, not an amendment to it.
Arizona Conservative: The President Should be Chosen by Popular Vote
Columnist Robert Robb explains that the current, winner-take-all Electoral College is not what the Founders envisioned for our system, and how it distorts our elections and policy:
In modern politics, however, the principal effect of the Electoral College is to give all the attention to the handful of swing states that might go either way. Except for fundraising, the rest of the country is ignored once the general election rolls around.
That’s not healthy. And it weakens the extent to which election outcomes are accepted as a legitimate expression of the popular will.
In the modern era, everyone’s vote for the president should carry the same weight and be equally valued and sought by the candidates.
Ohio State Representatives Debate the National Popular Vote
Representative David Leland (D-Columbus) has introduced the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in Ohio, along with co-sponsors Kristin Boggs, Janine R. Boyd, Catherine D. Ingram, Mary Lightbody, Michael Skindell, and Kent Smith. On March 13, 2019, the House Federalism Committee debated the bill. Below is an account of the points Representative Leland made in favor of the bill, and his responses to critics.
New Poll: Voters Prefer the Popular Vote to the Current System
New Hampshire Considers the National Popular Vote
In February 2017, New Hampshire Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan voiced support for replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote system, but lamented that such a change would require a constitutional amendment, “which, as Hassan put it, would be ‘a challenge,’ at the very least.”
However, there is no need to get mired down in the constitutional amendment process when our system already gives states the power to award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has already been passed by jurisdictions equaling 189 electoral votes. Once states with 270 electoral votes enact the Compact, it will go into effect and the person who gets the most votes will become the president.
New Hampshire could be the next state to pass the Compact, which is currently under consideration as House Bill 541. New Hampshire newspaper Concord Monitor has endorsed the Compact because it will make candidates court voters outside of swing states and will make every vote matter across the country:
The Electoral College system leads candidates to ignore states that they consider sure winners or losers and focus on swing states like Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire. It leads presidents, as can be seen by Trump’s 10 visits to Ohio since he took office, to curry favor with swing states while in office and ignore states they don’t believe will support their re-election.
Replacing the Electoral College with a system that rewards the winner of the popular vote would give candidates an incentive to compete in every state. As in other elections, the person who wins the most votes should become president, not the candidate who, with a minority of votes in winner-take-all system, is declared the winner by the Electoral College.
The National Popular Vote compact is a way to restore fairness to the system without amending the Constitution. It would make future presidents more legitimate rather than accidents of an outdated and flawed system.