Free Republic

Maine's lawmakers passed a bill that would give the state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the national popular vote, taking a step toward becoming the 15th state to enact such a law. The Maine Senate voted 19-16 Tuesday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would give all committed states' electoral votes to the winning popular vote candidate should the group accrue the 270 votes necessary for a majority. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia have all...

Nevada could joins 14 other states and Washington, D.C. to award its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote during a presidential election. The Assembly passed AB186 in a narrow vote of 23-17. "I think it's going to increase voter participation," Assem. Tyrone Thompson, D-North Las Vegas said. "This is where we would know that people really will fell like that vote counts even more. It's just that more reason to go to the polls and to make sure that your voice is your vote." Nevada has six electoral votes, which go to the candidate who gets...

There is no shortage of issues upon which Republicans and Democrats can respectfully disagree. We’re silly people sometimes though, and respect seems to come at quite a cost. There are a handful of issues, however, on which Democrats are so profoundly and dangerously wrong that I find myself incapable of empathy. Beto O’Rourke, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and more have come out for eliminating the Electoral College. This is an unequivocal deal-breaker for me. It seems one of the only Democrats with any sense is the anti-establishment progressive, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who...

Ronald Reagan was reportedly fond of referencing the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Monahan’s admonition, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”Today, that would most particularly include opponents of the growing drive to enact the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would award 270 electoral votes and the presidency to the candidate who wins the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.Of all the myths conjured up by naysayers to try and torpedo the compact, perhaps the most egregious portray the measure as either unconstitutional or an effort to eliminate...

An effort led by Democrats to scrap or bypass the Electoral College and shift presidential elections to contests decided by the national popular vote has almost no chance of succeeding, guaranteeing Democrats will again have to defeat Trump in the Electoral College they lost in 2016 while winning more votes nationally. The Electoral College places the power to elect presidents in the hands of individual states and is enshrined in the Constitution.

Offer for an option in the spirit of bipartisan compromise... short, but not necessarily sweet. If the Democrat nominee (as in 2016), wins the popular votes but loses the Electoral College, we count the popular vote (Democrat elected POTUS). But… if the Democrat loses the popular vote, but wins the Electoral College, we count the Electoral vote (Democrat elected POTUS). However... if by chance, the Democrat candidate loses both the popular vote and the Electoral vote… we melt down and scream “Democracy has failed” and demand endless investigations of the GOP winner... throughout their term(s). Justa humble suggestion.

Colorado is the latest state to pass a bill which would change the way presidential candidates win office. The state joins 11 others after passing a bill to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the compact, the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide would be be awarded the electoral college votes from participating states, even if the candidate lost in that state. In order for the bills in states which have passed laws recognizing the agreement, a total of 270 electoral votes from participating states is needed. Colorado has joined California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Maine, Maryland,...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) will sign a measure to award his state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, moving a countrywide coalition one step closer to circumventing the Electoral College. In an interview Sunday, Polis called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” of the nation’s past, one he wants to see relegated to the dustbin of history. “I’ve long supported electing the president by who gets the most votes,” Polis told The Hill. “It’s a way to move towards direct election of the president.” Colorado will become the 12th state to join the national popular...

Electoral College advocates see a window of opportunity to eliminate America’s unique presidential election system. They are seizing the moment, working to implement change before anyone realizes what happened. They even think they can do it without a constitutional amendment. National Popular Vote (NPV) is a California-based effort that has been running under the radar. Its proponents ask state legislatures to agree to an interstate compact. By the terms of that simple contract, each participating state would agree to allocate its entire slate of electors to the winner of the national popular vote. This is a change from the current...

SANTA FE, N.M. — Democratic New Mexico legislators in Santa Fe haven’t given up bringing their state into a movement to elect future U.S. presidents by popular vote. Four lawmakers have introduced a bill to place New Mexico into an inter-state compact that requires Electoral College voters to cast ballots for the national popular vote winner. States representing 270 electoral votes must join for the compact to function.

When Donald Trump surprised the world by winning the 2016 election, liberals clung to the idea that his victory was illegitimate because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. According to a psychologist who supported Clinton in 2016, however, Google's bias in Clinton's favor may remove even that symbolic victory from her. Almost all of Clinton's popular vote margin could be attributed to Google bias, making her win "negligible." Dr. Robert Epstein, a psychologist who earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, actually reported this finding last year, but he explains how it works in the upcoming film "The Creepy Line." Epstein made...

It's not what you don't know that can hurt you; it's what you think you know that just ain’t so that will kill you. Time has taught me that this piece of “country” wisdom is as important as any in the pursuit of public policy. Ignorance based on false facts is deadly in public policy. Take the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact as an example. The National Popular Vote plan is an interstate compact in which the compacting states agree to award their electoral votes to the person who gets the most votes in all 50 states. It is based...

Connecticut’s legislature has passed a bill that would give the state’s Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. The state Senate voted 21-14 on Saturday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which includes 10 states and the District of Columbia. The state House passed the measure last week, 77 to 73.

Among the recent garbled effusions from today’s temporary president — cheer up; they are all temporary — was one that concerned something about which he might not have thought as deeply as the subject merits. During an episode of government of, by, and for “Fox & Friends,” he said: He won the 2016 election “easily” but wishes the electoral vote system were replaced by direct election of presidents by popular vote. He favors this “because” — if you were expecting him to offer reasons drawn from political philosophy or constitutional theory, grow up — “to me, it’s much easier to...

President Trump on Thursday argued that he'd rather see the presidential election be determined based on the popular vote than the current Electoral College system, claiming it would be "much easier to win." "They also like to always talk about [the] Electoral College. Well, it's an election based on the Electoral College. I would rather have a popular election, but it's a totally different campaign," Trump said during an interview with "Fox & Friends." "It's as though you're running — if you're a runner you're practicing for the 100-yard dash as opposed to the one mile," he continued. "The Electoral...

Republicans are hesitant to switch from our winner-take-all state laws allocating electors to the electoral college to using the National Popular Vote. The National Popular Vote Plan would award all of a state’s electors to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states. There is a fear that such a move will benefit Democrats, since Democrats won the popular vote even though they lost the elections in 2000 and 2016. But the truth is, Republicans are likely going to lose their ability to win the necessary swing state of Florida in the future, and they can...

Yeah, not to get your blood pressures to spike over the weekend, but some on the feminist Left just need to accept that 2016 happened and they lost. It doesn’t matter that Hillary Clinton got more popular votes either; that’s not how you win the presidency. We all know this. Now, as we enter the 2018 midterm season, we still have some who just can’t stand that Trump won, that he’s president, and that Hillary Clinton will never be president—ever. Enter Gloria Steinem who says she doesn’t think Trump is president because he lost by 10 million votes. No,...

In 1824, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams were both members of the same political party. But in every other election with a discrepancy between the electoral and popular votes, the losing candidate has been the Democrat. Odd coincidence? Or is the Electoral College biased against the Democratic Party? Democratic President Barack Obama seemed to imply just that in a December 2016 press conference: “The Electoral College is a vestige,” he told reporters. “It’s a carry-over. … [T]here are some structures in our political system, as envisioned by the Founders, that sometimes are going to disadvantage Democrats.” It’s a funny...

A former foreign policy adviser to President Obama is warning there could be trouble if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chides President Trump over the fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. "God save us if Kim Jong Un makes a comment about Hillary's popular vote victory," Ben Rhodes wrote on Twitter Friday. Trump and North Korea's leader have been locked for months in a war of words and threats that has prompted concern among foreign leaders who fear Washington and Pyongyang may be hurtling toward a confrontation. Trump said last month...

plurality of Republicans say President Donald Trump received more of the popular vote in 2016 than his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to a new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll, 47 percent of Republican voters said Trump outpaced Clinton — despite her nearly 2.9 million-vote advantage after all the states certified their election results.