Posted on 02/15/2014 6:14:40 AM PST by LD Jackson
Here in Oklahoma, we like to call ourselves the reddest of red states. But even here, the insanity is encroaching and hard to keep at bay. That is why it is ever so important to keep a watchful eye over those who represent us, both on the national and state level.
The President and Vice President of the United States are elected by a process known as the Electoral College. I'm not going to bore you with a long and complicated explanation of why that is the case, so here is my simple and condensed version. The United States is made up of 50 states (I told you this was simple) that are populated. The Electoral College is formed by electors that are chosen by the individual states, to equal the number of the member of Congress, plus three additional electors for the District of Columbia. The states are free to choose and allocate those electors as they see fit. This gives both the people of the states, and the states themselves, sway over who is elected President and Vice President. This prevents the smaller, or less populated, states from being overwhelmed by states that have many more residents and losing their national influence.
As a side note, this was also why the states were supposed to elect the members of the United States Senate, instead of the people. We have since changed that, via the 17th Amendment. The debate over how smart that move was is for another time and place.
The Electoral College has served us well since its creation. Only three times has it failed to produce the same results as the national popular vote, with the latest being in 2000 and the Bush/Gore fight over the White House. Because of that, there has been a growing voice for doing away with the Electoral College completely, or simply tying its results to the results of the national popular vote. And yes, that voice has found movement even here in Oklahoma. So it was on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, that the Oklahoma State Senate voted 28-18 in favor of Senate Bill 906, binding Oklahoma's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the winner of the vote in our state. Details of the election, as well as more commentary, can be found at Muskogee Politico. The measure still has to pass through the Oklahoma House of Representatives and go to Governor Mary Fallin for her signature.
I am trying to contact my State Representative, John Bennett, to see how he stands on this issue. I am hopeful he will be against it and will help defeat it in the House. If it clears that hurdle, I am hopeful the Governor will see fit to veto it into the trash bin, where it belongs. Oklahoma does not need to tie its electoral votes to the national popular vote. If enough states do this, it would effectively do away with the system of national elections designed by the Founding Fathers and implemented by the Electoral College. This would lessen our influence over national affairs and delegate us to being subject to the whim and fancy of the more populated states. I would ask our State Representatives, State Senators, and Governor Mary Fallin, is this what they want, disguised as what some people are calling reform?
One other thing about our system of government. I have seen statements saying it is time to abolish the Electoral College because it is an outdated system that violates democratic principles. Even some websites that explain the Electoral College and the reasoning behind its creation call our country the "oldest continuously functioning democracy" in the world. A word of note to anyone who makes either of those statements. The United States of America is not a democracy, with good reason. The last thing the Founding Fathers wanted was mob rule in America. That is why they created a representative republic for our system of government. Again, not a democracy. There is a big difference between the two and I believe the Electoral College is part of that difference. Are we going to throw it away, all in the name of democracy? Something our founders never intended to happen? I don't think that's a good idea and I am hopeful enough of our leaders feel the same to stop this movement in its tracks in Oklahoma.
Under NPV rural states will never even be visited by a candidate, everyone will focus on the population centers. If Oklahoma does this it won't matter how its people vote, their EV's will go to someone else.
Dominated by Kalipornia and other big lefty states, Voting will become very meaningless.
We are a Republic, not a democracy
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states. Oklahoma is not a battleground state. 80% of the states and voters are ignored now.
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 [the then] 18 battleground states.”
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] 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.”
None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
Support for a national popular vote in rural states: VT–75%, ME–77%, WV–81%, MS–77%, SD–75%, AR–80%, MT–72%, KY–80%, NH–69%, IA–75%,SC–71%, NC–74%, TN–83%, WY–69%, OK–81%, AK–70%, ID–77%, WI–71%, MO–70%, and NE–74%.
In 2012, 24 of the nation’s 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions.- including not a single dollar in presidential campaign ad money after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee on April 11. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.
NationalPopularVote
With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation’s votes!
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree 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.
In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” 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 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.
16% of Americans live in rural areas.
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 (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.
Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
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 big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.
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 Vermont or Oklahoma, or for a Republican to try it in Oklahoma or Vermont.
The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. Candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
An NPV is exactly the kind of thing the founders warned against. They knew what they were talking about.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, will not reach out to about 80% of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
Now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don’t matter to candidates.
In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states.
In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country.
If presidential campaigns now did not ignore more than 200,000,000 of 300,000,000 Americans, one would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80% of the country that is currently ignored by presidential campaigns.
Why is this "indenfensible?" It is perfectly rational, and a good thing.
What this really means is that the people in most of the states have settled opinions on the matter of the president. Why do you see this as a bad thing?
You make it sound like each election has to be a sports event where the score starts at 0-0. Why?
The fact of those 10 so-called "swing states" is that their demographics keep changing, while the other states have not changed so much. Also, the swing states are the 10 that they are because of the way the other 40 states have settled on their preferences. If one or two of those states change, then the mix of swing states will change.
Where you live should not determine how much, if at all, your vote matters.
Who says it is not "determining" how much it matters? Again, if I live in a state of like-minded people whose minds are made up, how is that not still a determination? Just because it doessn't change from election to election doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
There is no incentive for them to bother to care about the majority of states where they are hopelessly behind or safely ahead to win.
Again, why is this a bad thing to you? Are you trying to force some kind of "cage match" year after year, wher the candidates must duke it out with a population that has already made up its mind? It seems like you want to deny the people their right to a settled opinion.
You want a system where the settled opinions of people in 40 states are overturned by the opinions of the people in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
-PJ
I agree that the states have always had the ability to choose how their electoral college votes are determined. I dispute the contention that the National Party Vote scheme "protects" the Electoral College.
To me, what the NPV scheme does is make a state's Electoral College votes no longer decided by the people of its own state, but rather, their vote is now determined by the people of other states.
"Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election" was not the intent of the Electoral College, since the votes in the Electoral College are not evenly distributed. The NPV scheme is intended to redistribute the Electoral College votes, essentially, as you said, to even them out.
This does not "protect" the Electoral College, it destroys it.
-PJ
Let me also take another tack on this comment.
Where you live determines how much weight your state has in the Electoral College, because the Electoral College is not an equal suffrage body like the Senate, which also represents the States (not the People).
"Your vote" is a concept that is decided by each state's legislature for how their Electoral College votes are determined. All but two states use a winner-take-all based on that state's popular vote, and two states use congressional district apportionment with the state winner getting the Senate votes. However, a state could choose to not base it on popular votes at all, and instead award the states's Electoral Vote by legislative vote where the people have no vote.
So there is no foundational concept that it must be that "your vote matters." It's the States' votes to decide, not the People's votes.
-PJ
The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate. That is not what the Founders intended.
The National Popular Vote bill “preserves” the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
The bottom line is that there is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents states from making the decision now that winning the national popular vote is required to win the presidency.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government.
I did not say National Popular Vote is intended to redistribute the Electoral College votes, essentially,to even them out.
The National Popular Vote bill is meant to guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
National Popular Vote is a nonpartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all fifty states.
The Founders warned against pure democracy.
The Republic is not in any danger from National Popular Vote.
National Popular Vote has NOTHING TO DO with pure democracy. Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution— “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The Founders were dead for decades before the winner-take-all rule became prevalent.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government.
Yes you did.
You said, "Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
You can't have "every vote... politically relevant and equal" and still have an unevenly distributed Electoral College. Today, the popular votes in the smaller states have more Electoral College weight than the popular votes in the larger states. "Equalizing" the votes "everywhere" rebalances the weighting in the Electoral College.
Equal votes everywhere, and preserving the Electoral College, are mutually exclusive goals.
The rest of your post is just copy/paste of things you already posted to me several times now in this thread.
-PJ
Every “Popular” vote, everywhere would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election.
Electoral Votes would remain distributed as they are now.
This statement is ridiculous on its face. Elsewhere in your purloined tomes, you argue, as a point in favor of this scheme, that each vote would count the same, no matter by whom cast and wherever cast. Let's examine this statement.
If the popular vote is organized so that each vote is the same, then the Electoral College is rendered moot. What is the purpose of retaining an institution that serves no purpose?
If the states signing up for this scheme must cast their votes for the winner of the national popular contest in lieu of voting for the winner of their Sovereign State, then the states must surrender some portion of their sovereignty. The will of the people of the state must defer to the will of the nation. The founders established the Electoral College so that the States, not the people had the power to elect the President. This key element of the Republican framework is abandoned by this scheme.
Your scheme permits each State to control its own election. This is of little solace for a State that must cast its Electoral Votes based on an outcome of 49 other elections over which the State has no control. In an era where a voter is defined by whatever the Democrats deem it to be, this strikes me as folly. Non-citizens are today voting in large numbers, the dead continue to vote as they have for the long history of the Republic. Many voters have learned out how to vote multiple times abetted by partisan parties willing to subvert the electoral process to their own end. Why would we want to amplify the results of this behavior?
A State adopting this scheme is putting their Sovereignty as risk with no guarantee that all other states will do the same. Provisions that protect somewhat against this outcome are weak and problematic without a Constitutional Amendment.
Fully adopted, this scheme effectively ends forever the possibility that a third party candidate could win. This scheme perpetuated the current two party scheme with the same parties assured of dominance as far as the eye can see. A regionally based 3d party would never stand a chance. Should we grow weary of the Republican Party, our chances of supplanting them with another more closely conforming to our own philosphy seem to be slim to none.
Failure to gain a majority in the Electoral College throws the election into the House. How are Electoral votes apportioned by states if a candidate falls short of a majority? Must the states vote for the winner of a plurality in order to force a majority Electoral College vote? Would such a candidate be perceived to be a legitimate winner? I think not.
The genius of the founders in apportioning the powers of all of the entities forming the Republic is that they were wise and learned men. Nothing that I have read from you today suggests that anyone currently a party to this scheme has the slightest idea of what they are doing. The Constitution, as originally framed designated the House as the voice of the people through popular vote and gave them the power of the purse, the most important power in a government. They gave the Senate as the representatives of the States, giving equal voice to each State regardless of geography, population, or economic power. For selection of the President they respected the voice of the people through apportionment of Electors based on population, and honored State sovereignty by giving each State two additional Electors. The States were free to choose the manner of selecting Electors and the instructions given them.
Of course, things have changed, the 17th Amendment being the most egregious, but the popular notion that life will be better if everything is subjected to a popular vote. This silly scheme is advanced by the Left because it gives them the best chance for long term power. It is supported by others because they are clueless.
. These words, sentences,and thoughts are all mine and represent my thinking. No Google cut and paste for me.
Tell me that's not a rebalancing of Electoral Votes between the states?
-PJ
In states that do not enact the Electoral College, they will continue to award electoral votes as they choose.
No enacting state would be surrendering some portion of their sovereignty. Choosing how to award their electoral votes is a “plenary” and “exclusive” right of each state.
The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
States are using their responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
With National Popular Vote, we continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states.
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).
Under the current system, the electoral votes from all 50 states are comingled and simply added together, irrespective of the fact that the electoral-vote outcome from each state was affected by differences in state policies, including voter registration, ex-felon voting, hours of voting, amount and nature of advance voting, and voter identification requirements.
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.” They list the electors and the number of votes cast for each. The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes reported in the Certificates 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.
Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote compact, all of the people of the United States are impacted by the different election policies of the states. Everyone in the United States is affected by the division of electoral votes generated by each state. The procedures governing presidential elections in a closely divided battleground state (e.g., Florida and Ohio) can affect, and indeed have affected, the ultimate outcome of national elections.
For example, the 2000 Certificate of Ascertainment (required by federal law) from the state of Florida reported 2,912,790 popular votes for George W. Bush and 2,912,253 popular vote for Al Gore, and also reported 25 electoral votes for George W. Bush and 0 electoral votes for Al Gore. That 25–0 division of the electoral votes from Florida determined the outcome of the national election just as a particular division of the popular vote from a particular state might decisively affect the national outcome in some future election under the National Popular Vote compact.
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.
Any attempt by a state to pull out of the compact in violation of its terms would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and would be void. Such an attempt would also violate existing federal law. Compliance would be enforced by Federal court action.
There has never been a court decision allowing a state to withdraw from an interstate compact without following the procedure for withdrawal specified by the compact. Indeed, courts have consistently rebuffed the occasional (sometimes creative) attempts by states to evade their obligations under interstate compacts.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system discriminates against third-party candidates with broad-based support, while rewarding regional third-party candidates. In 1948, Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace both got about 1.1 million popular votes, but Thurmond got 39 electoral votes (because his vote was concentrated in southern states), whereas Henry Wallace got none. Similarly, George Wallace got 46 electoral votes with 13% of the votes in 1968, while Ross Perot got 0 electoral votes with 19% of the national popular vote in 1992.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country
With the current system of electing the President, none of the states requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state’s or district’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.
If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no massive proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote.
Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.— including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912 and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).
Americans do not view the absence of run-offs in the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time.
And, FYI, with the current system, it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation’s votes.
The statewide winner-take-all rule (used by 48 of the 50 states) is not in the Constitution. It was not the Founders’ choice (having been used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789). It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention, and it was not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. The Founders were dead for decades before the winner-take-all rule became prevalent.
National Popular Vote is based on the fact that the States are free to choose the manner of selecting Electors.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).
“The bottom line is that the electors from those states who cast their ballot for the nationwide vote winner are completely accountable (to the extent that independent agents are ever accountable to anyone) to the people of those states. The NPV states aren’t delegating their Electoral College votes to voters outside the state; they have made a policy choice about the substantive intelligible criteria (i.e., national popularity) that they want to use to make their selection of electors. There is nothing in Article II (or elsewhere in the Constitution) that prevents them from making the decision that, in the Twenty-First Century, national voter popularity is a (or perhaps the) crucial factor in worthiness for the office of the President.” - Vikram David Amar
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.
In May 2011, Jason Cabel Roe, a lifelong conservative activist and professional political consultant wrote in National Popular Vote is Good for Republicans: “I strongly support National Popular Vote. It is good for Republicans, it is good for conservatives . . . , and it is good for America. National Popular Vote is not a grand conspiracy hatched by the Left to manipulate the election outcome.
It is a bipartisan effort of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to allow every state – and every voter – to have a say in the selection of our President, and not just the 15 Battle Ground States [that then existed in 2011].
National Popular Vote is not a change that can be easily explained, nor the ramifications thought through in sound bites. It takes a keen political mind to understand just how much it can help . . . Republicans. . . . Opponents either have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea or don’t fully understand it. . . . We believe that the more exposure and discussion the reform has the more support that will build for it.”
The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former Congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).
Supporters include former Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN), Governor Jim Edgar (R–IL), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA)
Saul Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party for five years and a former candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, supports the National Popular Vote plan as the fairest way to make sure every vote matters, and also as a way to help Conservative Republican candidates. This is not a partisan issue and the NPV plan would not help either party over the other.
Rich Bolen, a Constitutional scholar, attorney at law, and Republican Party Chairman for Lexington County, South Carolina, wrote:”A Conservative Case for National Popular Vote: Why I support a state-based plan to reform the Electoral College.”
Some other supporters who wrote forewords to “Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote “ http://www.every-vote-equal.com/ include:
Laura Brod served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2003 to 2010 and was the ranking Republican member of the Tax Committee. She was the Minnesota Public Sector Chair for ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and active in the Council of State Governments.
James Brulte served as Republican Leader of the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1996, California State Senator from 1996 to 2004, and Senate Republican leader from 2000 to 2004.
Ray Haynes served as the National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 2000. He served in the California State Senate from 1994 to 2002 and was elected to the Assembly in 1992 and 2002
Dean Murray was a member of the New York State Assembly. He was a Tea Party organizer before being elected to the Assembly as a Republican, Conservative Party member in February 2010. He was described by Fox News as the first Tea Party candidate elected to office in the United States.
Thomas L. Pearce served as a Michigan State Representative from 2005–2010 and was appointed Dean of the Republican Caucus. He has led several faith-based initiatives in Lansing.
Repeating your nemonics ad infinitum. I’m done.
Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaigns.
Winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaigns and to presidents once in office.
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.
80% of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That’s more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win. They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected. Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.
The number and population of battleground states is shrinking.
Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to the handful of ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
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 [in the then] 18 battleground states.” [only 10 in 2012]
Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] 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.”
The winner-take-all rule adversely affects governance. Sitting Presidents (whether contemplating their own re-election or the election of their preferred successor) pay inordinate attention to the interests of “battleground” states.
# “Battleground” states receive over 7% more grants than other states.
# “Battleground” states receive 5% more grant dollars.
# A “battleground” state can expect to receive twice as many presidential disaster declarations as an uncompetitive state.
# The locations of Superfund enforcement actions also reflect a state’s battleground status.
# Federal exemptions from the No Child Left Behind law have been characterized as “‘no swing state left behind.”
The effect of the current winner-take-all system on governance is discussed at length in Presidential Pork by Dr. John Hudak of the Brookings Institution.
538 electors will still be apportioned to, and have votes for each state and the District of Columbia, equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled, while the Twenty-third Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three. In total, there are and will be 538 electors, corresponding to the 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 senators, and the three additional electors from the District of Columbia.
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