From a Free & Equal Elections Foundation email blast:
Dear Free and Equal Supporter,
The Voting Methods & Election Integrity Symposium will take place at Infinity Park Cherry Creek Room in Glendale, CO on Saturday, November 15th from 9AM-4PM. The event is hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation and co-sponsored by organizations such as Fair Elections for Colorado, FairVote, and Ballot Access News.
In order to find meaningful reforms to voting and electoral systems, the symposium will explore voting methods such as approval voting, instant runoff, proportional representation, and more, as well as issues of election integrity, such as closed-source electronic voting machines, the Electoral College, gerrymandering, Top Two primary systems, and more. Many Americans are discouraged from voting for their candidate of choice for many reasons, one of which is the current system of single-winner plurality voting, as well as concerns over the integrity of the elections themselves. Our goal is to directly challenge the electoral status quo by empowering voters and candidates alike.
Many amazing panelists are lining up to help propose solutions for our voting and elections systems, including FairVote’s Rob Richie (via Skype), Aaron Hamlin of the Center for Election Science, Bill Redpath of the Libertarian Party, and Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News and advisory board member of Free and Equal.
The event will be livestreamed on the Free and Equal Network.
The event was recently teased in an article on alternative voting systems in The Huffington Post.
Join Free and Equal to help further our cause! Click here to donate to support this event and future symposiums that bring honest leaders and artists together to come up with solutions for the issues of the day.
The details are as follows:
•Who: Rob Richie (FairVote, via Skype), Richard Winger (Ballot Access News, Free and Equal), Bill Redpath (Libertarian Party), Aaron Hamlin (Center for Election Science).
•What: Voting Methods & Election Integrity Symposium
•Where: Infinity Park Events Center (Cherry Creek Room), 4400 E Kentucky Ave, Glendale, CO
•When: November 15th – Voting Methods Panel from 9-12PM, Lunch 12-1PM, Election Integrity Panel from 1-4PM.
•Why: To share experienced knowledge of voting methods and foster a progressive approach to voting and electoral systems.
With gratitude,
The Free and Equal Team
See the link in my prior comment for a different side of the story.
Not sure why you keep referring to the winner take all method, which I am not in favor of, nor does anything in your post address that paper’s full argument. There are also other arguments for why NPV is unconstitutional and hopefully one of them will prevail with the Supreme Court.
Prior to arriving at the eventual wording of section 1 of Article II, the 1787 Constitutional Convention debated the method of choosing the President on 22 separate days and took 30 (mostly contradictory) votes on the matter.
The methods that were rejected included:
? electing presidential electors by districts,
? having state legislatures choose the President,
? having Governors choose the President,
? nationwide direct election, and
? having Congress choose the President.
The Constitutional Convention never agreed on any particular method for choosing the President.
Section 1 of article II of the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit, require, encourage, or discourage the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
The wording “as the Legislature … may direct” permits the states to exercise their power to choose the manner of appointing their presidential electors in any way they see fit—subject only to the implicit limitation on all grants of power in the Constitution, namely that the states not violate any specific restriction on state action contained elsewhere in the Constitution.
Section 1 of Article II contains only one restriction on state choices on the manner of appointing their presidential electors, namely that no state may appoint a member of Congress or federal appointees as presidential elector.
If Williams is correct in asserting that it is unconstitutional for a state to use a method of choosing presidential electors that was rejected by the Constitutional Convention, then George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were all elected unconstitutionally. Indeed, a majority of the presidential electors in the nation’s first nine presidential elections (1789–1820) were chosen using methods rejected by the Constitutional Convention.
if Williams is correct in asserting that section 1 of Article II precludes states from using a method of choosing presidential electors that was rejected by the Constitutional Convention, Maine and Nebraska’s current district method would be unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s 1892 law specifying that the voters elect the state’s presidential electors by congressional district in McPherson v. Blacker.
On July 24, 1787, the Constitutional Convention rejected selection of the President by state legislatures. Nonetheless, in 1789, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Georgia chose to appoint their presidential electors in the state legislature. In the nine presidential elections between 1789 and 1820, the legislatures of a total of 15 states (including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana, Alabama, and Missouri) appointed their state’s presidential electors on one or more occasions.
On June 15, 1787, the Constitutional Convention voted against selection of the President by state Governors. Nonetheless, New Jersey’s presidential electors were appointed by the Governor and his Council in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789. In 1792, Vermont combined two methods that were rejected by the Constitutional Convention. Its presidential electors were appointed by a “Grand Committee” consisting of the Governor and his Council along with the state House of Representatives (the only house Vermont had at the time).
In summary, the course of conduct of the Founding Generation immediately after ratification of the Constitution indicates that no one interpreted section 1 of Article II as precluding the states from using methods of choosing presidential electors that were rejected at some point during the Constitutional Convention.
Williams has also echoed the non-use argument made by (losing) attorney Baker in the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker by saying that the states are limited today to choices of methods for appointing presidential electors that have been used in the past. Curiously, while remaking Baker’s non-use argument, Williams concedes that the Constitution does not actually “express” the limitation for which he is arguing.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the non-use argument in its ruling in McPherson v. Blacker:
“The question before us is not one of policy, but of power …. The prescription of the written law cannot be overthrown because the states have laterally exercised, in a particular way, a power which they might have exercised in some other way.”
If it were the case that the states were precluded from using any method of awarding electoral votes that was not specifically “imagined” by the Founders, then the winner-take-all method would itself be unconstitutional. No historian, or anyone else of whom National Popular Vote is aware, has ever argued that the Founders expected, or wanted, 100% of a state’s presidential electors to vote slavishly, in lockstep, for a choice for President made by an extra-constitutional meeting (namely, a political party’s national nominating caucus or convention).
The winner-take-all rule was never debated or voted upon by the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers.
It was used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (and was abandoned by all three by 1800).
The Founders were dead for decades by the time the winner-take-all rule came into widespread use.
It was not until the 11th presidential election (1828) that the winner-take-all rule was used by a majority of the states.
There is virtually unanimous agreement among historians that the Founding Fathers intended that the Electoral College would operate as a deliberative body and did not anticipate the emergence of political parties.
See: Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan For Electing The President By National Popular Vote
“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 National Popular Vote 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 – professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.
Others disagree, for example: http://www.law2.byu.edu/lawreview/articles/1360684250_3.williams.fin.pdf
Here’s hoping our view rather than yours will prevail when it gets to the Supreme Court.
National Popular Vote is an exercise of power by the states that is explicitly granted by the Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution says “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 normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law.
Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation’s first election in 1789. However, now, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.
In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all method (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all method is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.
In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state.
In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
Massachusetts, as an example of one state’s multiple methods using state legislation:
? In 1789, Massachusetts had a two-step system in which the voters cast ballots indicating their preference for presidential elector by district, and the legislature chose from the top two vote-getters in each district (with the legislature choosing the state’s remaining two electors).
? In 1792, the voters were allowed to choose presidential electors in four multi-member regional districts (with the legislature choosing the state’s remaining two electors).
? In 1796, the voters elected presidential electors by congressional districts (with the legislature choosing only the state’s remaining two electors).
? In 1800, the legislature took back the power to pick all of the state’s presidential electors (entirely excluding the voters).
? In 1804, the voters were allowed to elect 17 presidential electors by district and two on a statewide basis.
? In 1808, the legislature decided to pick the electors itself.
? In 1812, the voters elected six presidential electors from one district, five electors from another district, four electors from another, three electors from each of two districts, and one elector from a sixth district.
? In 1816, Massachusetts again returned to state legislative choice.
? In 1820, the voters were allowed to elect 13 presidential electors by district and two on a statewide basis.
? Then, in 1824, Massachusetts adopted its 10th method of awarding electoral votes, namely the statewide winner-take-all rule that is in effect today.
? Finally, in 2010, Massachusetts changed its method of appointing its presidential electors by enacting the National Popular Vote interstate compact. This change will go into effect when states possessing a majority of the electoral votes (270 out of 538) enact the same compact.
None of these 11 changes required an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These changes were accomplished using the Constitution’s built-in method for changing the method of electing the President, namely section 1 of Article II. That constitutional provision gives Massachusetts (and all the other states) exclusive and plenary power to choose the manner of awarding their electoral votes.
Maine (since passing a state law in 1969) and Nebraska (since passing a state law in 1991)use a congressional district winner method.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
It’s no secret that he is Nathan Norman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is Vernon either, although I don’t have proof of that yet.
You were the first one to point that out. So, if you say so, I guess that could be what it stands for.
Now scoot, you are stinking up the joint!
Yeah..it does help in this hobby of ours if you enjoy having your legs and hands tied behind you.
In some ways we have already won.
Actually the LP could be a great place to network and find other people who are interested in other liberty tactics well outside of electoral politics.
And many people discover the movement and those other tactics after first being introduced to it by the LP and its candidates.
“Matt Cholko
November 8, 2014 at 12:59 am
I certainly believe that Libertarian political activism is a good thing. Absolutely. Definitely. But, it is also absolutely, definitely, playing on a uneven field with both legs and one hand tied behind our backs. And that sucks.”
This is all the more reason why libertarians ought to use electoral politics to promote tactics to achieve more liberty which are outside of electoral politics, such as jury nullification, alternative currencies, tax avoidance, home schooling, gun ownership (the more gun owners there are, the harder it will be for the government to confiscate them all), and establishing Libertarian Zones ( https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/07/andy-jacobs-the-libertarian-zone/ ).
I certainly believe that Libertarian political activism is a good thing. Absolutely. Definitely. But, it is also absolutely, definitely, playing on a uneven field with both legs and one hand tied behind our backs. And that sucks.
CLC is a gay slur that people used to use to make fun of my initials. It stands for cock loving chav. Can we get beyond these childish things?
“CLC”
I would not be surprised it is the same person who play the roles of “Vernon” and “Nathan Norman” and etc….
“CLC”
You figured it out, too?
CLC
The Libertarian Party will win. I can feel it.
We’re having more of an impact than is readily apparent. Regardless of how the system is rigged, every bit of activism you do has ripple effects that reach people in ways most of which you don’t even know.
I enjoy most of my Libertarian political activism. But, at the end of the day, the system is rigged against us, and I sometimes feel stupid participating in it. I may join the ranks of non-voters.
Didn’t we already go over this? You are attempting an end run around the amendment process, which you pretty much admitted in the last round. Hopefully the court catches that and puts a stop to it. And I am not sure why you are explaining to me that winner take all per state is not in the constitution, since I already said I am not for winner take all but by proportional allocation within each state.
National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the exclusive authority to decide how to appoint their state’s electors.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates. In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.
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.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting National Popular Vote would not need an amendment. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states:
“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 Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
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 winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all method– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
Try doing a *random* survey and see how many people that really is, how many even know about it or how many have it as their reason. I’ve heard all kinds of pushback from people but that hasn’t been one.
Hardly. It’s a huge amount of work to get just a few issues on the ballot. And it’s far less corrupt and cronyized than the legislative process, and tends to yield better results in practice.
I don’t know what mob you are talking about. Compare the results of initiatives nationwide
http://www.libertyunbound.com/node/1327 with what types of politicians we have elected to legislatures and what types of legislation they have given us (and failed to give us).
Voting for legislators is problematic because you have limited choices, people are afraid to “waste” their vote (or in some states can’t even get on the ballot), the choices are aggregate so don’t necessarily reflect how people feel about particular issues, and may be based on things like how likeable the legislator is, how much they have for advertising (or how favored they are by unions and the media in case of election finance reform) etc. Lobbying is heavily tilted towards those with funds, regardless of whether the bribes are legal or illegal. Initiatives are far better than the legislative process; if I had to get rid of one or the other it would be legislators.
Great, so you want to get rid of the states and the senate I guess. And how does that put power in the hand of individuals? It puts it into the hands of mass media, massive corporations that can afford to lobby and advertise at the national level, large national associations e.g. megachurches and unions, in short every institution that is big enough to have influence at the federal level along with the federal bureaucracy itself. The choices remain as stilted and tilted as they are with state legislators, but even more removed from the power of rank and file individuals to have any influence over, as they become even more insignificant to and removed from their alleged representatives. What are the chances you can get your congressman to listen to you and care what you have to say? And finance reform only addresses one of those many issues while making the others worse.
If you want individual to have power, start by devolving it to as local a level as possible and then to individuals. And deagregate our input or vote on government policies as much as possible – ie more initiatives, less legislation.
“I’d be willing to bet money that the majority of Americans do not know that a close election between a ‘third party’ or independent candidate and the Democrat and Republican candidates could lead to Congress selecting the President.”
I didn’t even know this was in question. Andy Levy on The Independents recently brought this up as the reason he will never vote in a presidential election, because the electoral college prevents a third party from ever emerging. I’ve heard the same thing time and again. I’m shocked to hear so many on here dismiss this as not a big issue. To me and many others it’s one of the main issues.
“I support initiative and referendum in every state”
Initiatives & referendums are mob rule. Elected legislators have the right to enact policy, the mob does not. I am for direct election of legislators because it takes power away from government and puts it in the hands of the people, but ballot referendums take it one step further and breed chaos.
“It removes the last vestige of a voice for the states in the presidential election”
That’s the point. It takes power away from the states and puts it into the hands of individuals. Fuck the states. One person, one vote.
Yes, so you want to make an end run around that. Hopefully the supreme court won’t allow it.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states).
There have been 22,991 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 17 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome. The electors are and will be dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
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 Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution permit states to conduct elections in varied ways. The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and preserves state control of elections.
With National Popular Vote, the candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ Electoral College votes of the enacting states.
The United States would still continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states.
That’s a fig leaf.
It does away with it in everything but name by tying it to the results of the national popular vote, rendering it into a meaningless formality.
With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.
The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.
When states with a combined total of at least 270 Electoral College votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.
With National Popular Vote, citizens would continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. 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).
Alabama, along with 80% of the country, is ignored now.
States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
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 districts and states.
“Opponents remain stuck on a misconception that the plan would “force” states to give their electoral votes to a candidate that may not have won their state, but this misses the point entirely. The National Popular Vote plan changes the Electoral College from an obstruction of the popular will to a ratifier in that it would always elect the candidate who has won the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Rather than states throwing their votes away, the actual voters themselves are empowered, as each and every one of us would have an equal vote for president – something we are sorely lacking under the Electoral College.”
http://www.fairvote.org/connecticut-house-passes-npv/
“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 National Popular Vote 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 – professor and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UC Davis School of Law. Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the Supreme Court of the United States.
In state polls of voters each with a second question that specifically emphasized that their state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state’s winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.
Question 1: “How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current Electoral College system?”
Question 2: “Do you think it more important that a state’s electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?”
Support for a National Popular Vote
South Dakota — 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.
Connecticut — 74% for Question 1, 68% for Question 2,
Utah — 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2
NationalPopularVote
That too. Often intentionally so.
“Most Americans are pretty clueless about what the Constitution says.”
As are most elected officials, unfortunately.
I support initiative and referendum in every state but not national referendum. We need to preserve and expand what remains of state and local control over their own affairs. The people of Alabama don’t necessarily want the people of New York to decide everything here, nor the other way around.
For the same reason I am not a fan of national popular vote. It removes the last vestige of a voice for the states in the presidential election and thus furthers the trend of consolidating all power at the federal level (or higher). Why do we even have two houses of congress anymore, or even a congress at all for that matter? Extending the logic behind the national popular vote we should have an imperial presidency and executive branch exercising unlimited authority. Perhaps, to ease things in, we could have a unicameral congress elected at large without regard to states. No thank you!
Duh.
We have actual history and data and common sense.
We know how candidates conduct campaigns when running for other offices in elections in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire jurisdiction. In campaigns for Governor, U.S. Senator, mayor, and state legislator, candidates pay attention to their entire constituency.
National Popular Vote ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
The Founding Fathers left the choice of method of awarding electoral votes 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.”
There is a prohibitive practical impediment associated with the adoption of a proportional method on a piecemeal basis by individual states, namely the political disadvantage suffered by the states dividing their electoral vote in a political environment in which most other states retain the winner-take-all rule.
A proportional system that requires even a 9% share of the popular vote in order to win one electoral vote is fundamentally out of sync with the small-percentage vote shifts that are involved in real-world presidential campaigns.
If a current battleground state, like Colorado, were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
If states were to ever start adopting the whole-number proportional approach on a piecemeal basis, each additional state adopting the approach would increase the influence of the remaining states and thereby would decrease the incentive of the remaining states to adopt it. Thus, a state-by-state process of adopting the whole-number proportional approach would quickly bring itself to a halt, leaving the states that adopted it with only minimal influence in presidential elections.
Of course, candidates now campaign in non-major media markets. And with National Popular Vote they will campaign in non-major media markets. They get more bang for their buck in non-major media markets. The cost per impression of television advertising (by far the costliest component of presidential campaigns) is generally higher—not lower—in major metropolitan media markets. In most cases, small states offer presidential candidates the attraction of considerably lower per-impression media costs.
Based on 488 quotations from television stations in media markets of various sizes for 30-second prime-time television ads for the weeks of October 15 and 22, 2012, compiled by Ainsley-Shea (a Minneapolis public relations firm) in July 2012, the average cost per impression was:
? 4.235 cents for the 1st–5th markets,
? 4.099 cents for the 26th–30th markets, and
? 3.892 cents for the 101st–105th markets.
The average cost for New York City was $51.90 per 1,000 impressions—5.190 cents per impression.
The average cost for the nation’s No. 101 media market—Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers, Arkansas was $30.84 per 1,000 impressions—3.084 cents per impression.
In the 2012 campaign, “Much of the heaviest spending has not been in big cities with large and expensive media markets, but in small and medium-size metropolitan areas in states with little individual weight in the Electoral College: Cedar Rapids and Des Moines in Iowa (6 votes); Colorado Springs and Grand Junction in Colorado (9 votes); Norfolk and Richmond in Virginia (13 votes). Since the beginning of April, four-fifths of the ads that favored or opposed a presidential candidate have been in television markets of modest size.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/us/politics/9-swing-states-are-main-focus-of-ad-blitz.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
A nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter 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. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren’t so well liked.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from national advertisers who seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located.
Having the President determined by the Electoral College or Congress does not guarantee to help prevent tyranny of the majority and an overly imperial presidency.
The electors are and will be dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).
“Awarding electoral votes by a proportional . . . method fails to promote majority rule, greater competitiveness or voter equality. Pursued at a state level, [a proportional method] dramatically increase incentives for partisan machinations. If done nationally, . . . .the whole number proportional system sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives.
For states seeking to exercise their responsibility under the U.S. Constitution to choose a method of allocating electoral votes that best serves their state’s interest and that of the national interest, [the proportional method] falls far short of the National Popular Vote plan.”
-FairVote
A vote cast for a splinter candidate frequently produces the politically counter-productive effect of helping the major-party candidate whose views are diametrically opposite of those of the voter
Left to Congress (now with maybe 9% approval rating? and strong ideological partisanship), each state in the House gets only one vote when selecting the president. The popular votes of Americans c/would be irrelevant. The first candidate to win the votes of any 26 states is the new president.
In 2000, for example, if every state had used a proportional method, it would have been a 269-269 tie, the presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide, and it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.
Nader getting electoral votes in 2000, would still have ended with Bush as President, which would not have pleased Nader or Gore voters.
Most American voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it would be wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
Both the proportional method and congressional method do not guarantee the candidate with the most popular votes in the country would win.
If the voters support a demagogue, there is no reason to think that the Electoral College or Congress would save the voters from themselves.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the voters to ensure that no demagogue becomes President of the United States.
Jed Ziggler said: “Americans don’t vote for third party candidates because it will create a situation where congress picks the president.”
I’d be willing to bet money that the majority of Americans do not know that a close election between a “third party” or independent candidate and the Democrat and Republican candidates could lead to Congress selecting the President.
Most Americans are pretty clueless about what the Constitution says.
Congress has very rarely selected the president, this seems to be a highly exaggerated boogeyman which few people I have ever talked to or heard from in any way care about. As for senators, they were picked by legislatures until 1913. Government was a lot smaller then and growing at a much less rapid rate.
Per wikipedia “Critics of the Seventeenth Amendment claim that by altering the way senators are elected, the states lost any representation they had in the federal government and that, in addition to violating the unamendable state suffrage clause of Article V, this led to the gradual “slide into ignominy” of state legislatures, as well as an overextension of federal power and the rise of special interest groups to fill the power vacuum previously occupied by state legislatures.”
Really? Why?
So the influence of incumbency, celebrity, etc, is less corrupting?
It would only entrench it further.
And the purpose of parties is to enact policy. Whether that’s directly or indirectly is of secondary importance at best.
Well, I very much disagree with your view of elections. Government already has too much power, I shudder to think of congress selecting the president, and state legislatures selecting Senators. That’s just what we need, government giving itself a handjob. The founders got this wrong, and it’s led to the mess we have today, slowly but surely.
I do agree we mustn’t have tyranny of the majority, which is why we need a Constitution (a stronger one, in my opinion) that protects minority rights. I also am dead set against ballot referendums. However, elections are a sacred process which must be completely democratic in nature, and free of the corrupting influence of money.
“It’s to change policy, whether by winning elections or influencing the big two. If all you care about are direct partisan wins you will be very frustrated and that certainly won’t end with the NPV, only get worse.”
The purpose of parties is to win elections. The job of elected officials is to shape policy within the confines of the constitution. Yes, I am quite frustrated, but also hopeful, because I know NPV will help end the dominance of corporate parties.
I’d prefer a system that doesn’t reward residual conglomeration. Our policies are attracting more people than those of the NYC area, but I don’t expect us to catch up any time soon. And supposing some places are growing faster, say Phoenix, perhaps because America is getting older and older people like living in that climate, and because it’s closer to Mexico so it’s a natural place for immigrants from that direction to settle, and because they are close to California and California’s policies are driving some people their way….so what?
Not everyone likes to live in or near a major megacity. Some people purposely live in smaller metro areas. Some people are just stuck in them. I don’t see any reason major metro areas should be rewarded for being congested blobs where people spend hours a day sitting in traffic or riding transit systems.
There are many benchmarks on the way to winning and electoral votes is one of them. We are further from winning without it. The LP probably would have never taken off but for the electoral college.
No, very few people have that as their reason.
Getting money out of politics would just give the advantage to incumbents, the media, celebrities, and those like unions and churches that can mobilize a lot of campaign labor in lieu of money. I’d rather get politics out of money instead.
It’s to change policy, whether by winning elections or influencing the big two. If all you care about are direct partisan wins you will be very frustrated and that certainly won’t end with the NPV, only get worse.
Actually Senate was supposed to be a by a vote of state legislators. It probably should have stayed that way.
There’s no direct election now by popular vote of anyone from more than one state at the same time, and I’d rather keep it that way.
“With NPV we are still ignored due to not being part of any major media market.”
I doubt for long. The rise of the internet & social media will eventually tear these walls away. Regardless, large cities, states, and major media markets should be rewarded for being so. If Alabama wants more influence, they should enact policies that will bring people, businesses, and media to the state.
“And while it would take 11% plus a hair to get an Alabama electoral vote, just 2% in CA or 3% in TX puts an alt candidacy on the electoral map. Nader would have actually had electoral votes in 2000. Sounds like the way to go to me. ”
Do we want an electoral vote here & there, or do we want to win? Americans don’t vote for third party candidates because it will create a situation where congress picks the president. We will never have a viable third party in the United States until we A) get money out of politics and B) end the electoral college.
You seem to believe the purpose of a third party is to influence the other two. I believe the purpose of any party is to win elections.
“It’s that way by design to help prevent tyranny of the majority and an overly imperial presidency to some extent. ”
And yet every other election & ballot referendum in this country is by popular vote. I trust the people to select the president far more than congress.
Nope, Right now a state like Alabama is ignored because everyone knows we will go Republican in the presidentials, and if there’s any chance we could go Democrat they are having such a huge sweep nationally that we can still be ignored. With NPV we are still ignored due to not being part of any major media market. No such problem with proportional representation within each state.
And while it would take 11% plus a hair to get an Alabama electoral vote, just 2% in CA or 3% in TX puts an alt candidacy on the electoral map. Nader would have actually had electoral votes in 2000. Sounds like the way to go to me.
It’s that way by design to help prevent tyranny of the majority and an overly imperial presidency to some extent.
They would have to have enough money to remain competitive in the major media markets at the same time.
Proportional allocation of electors is pointless, as it still holds the possibility of there not being an electoral vote majority, thus allowing Congress to pick the president. That is the absurdity of the electoral college.
I agree with Toto. Pass National Popular Vote. Let all the people choose the President.
“Just a few major media markets would be enough to win. The rest of the country would be ignored if you are not near one of these big city media markets.”
Then a candidate will emerge who will campaign in non-major media markets, and possibly win the presidency from people voting for the one candidate who didn’t ignore them.
Besides, the really important thing about the electoral college is keeping open the possibility of an alt party or independent candidate winning an electoral vote. Proportional within each state makes that possible, even without relying on faithless electors.
The national popular vote idiocy commplete eliminate the possibility.
I couldn’t care less about Democrats and Republicans, they are equally bad and whichever one wins most of us (by far) lose.
The only value voting has, other than on initiatives and referenda, is to advance candidates running outside the duopoly.
Proportional representation within each state does that. NPV works in the opposite direction. And that is really the bottom line, period.
The relevant data is media markets, not city limits.
So what? Doesn’t help smaller media markets any.
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.
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.
In the 2012 campaign, “Much of the heaviest spending has not been in big cities with large and expensive media markets, but in small and medium-size metropolitan areas in states with little individual weight in the Electoral College: Cedar Rapids and Des Moines in Iowa (6 votes); Colorado Springs and Grand Junction in Colorado (9 votes); Norfolk and Richmond in Virginia (13 votes). Since the beginning of April, four-fifths of the ads that favored or opposed a presidential candidate have been in television markets of modest size.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/us/politics/9-swing-states-are-main-focus-of-ad-blitz.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
The indefensible reality is that more than 99% of campaign attention (ad spending and visits) 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.
Where you live determines how much, if at all, your vote matters.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later 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.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. 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.
10 of the original 13 states are ignored now.
Four out of five Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising. They decided the election.
Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).
None of the 10 most rural states mattered, as usual.
About 80% of the country was ignored –including 24 of the 27 lowest population and medium-small states, and 13 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX.
It was more obscene than the 2008 campaign, when candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).
In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
80% of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That’s more than 85 million voters, more than 240 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
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 ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
Just a few major media markets would be enough to win. The rest of the country would be ignored if you are not near one of these big city media markets.
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. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
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 always 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 of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter 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. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
With National Popular Vote, when every voter 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 Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t poll, organize, buy ads, and visit just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.
With a national popular vote, every voter everywhere will be equally important politically. When every voter is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
Candidates would have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as waitress mom voters in Ohio.
With National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Wining states or (gerrymandered) districts would not be the goal. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in the current handful of swing states.
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.
We want electoral votes for alt parties and independents (like the LP got in 1972, putting us on the map) and we want candidates to campaign in more than just biggest cities, which is what would happen under national popular vote.
Although the whole-number proportional approach might initially seem to offer the possibility of making every voter in every state relevant, it would not do this in practice.
It would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote;
It would not improve upon the current situation in which four out of five states and four out of five voters in the United States are ignored by presidential campaigns, but instead, would create a very small set of states in which only one electoral vote is in play (while making most states politically irrelevant), and
It would not make every vote equal.
Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin.
The political reality is that campaign strategies in ordinary elections are based on trying to change a reasonably achievable small percentage of the votes—1%, 2%, or 3%. As a matter of practical politics, only one electoral vote would be in play in almost all states. A system that requires even a 9% share of the popular vote in order to win one electoral vote is fundamentally out of sync with the small-percentage vote shifts that are involved in real-world presidential campaigns.
If a current battleground state, like Colorado, were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
If states were to ever start adopting the whole-number proportional approach on a piecemeal basis, each additional state adopting the approach would increase the influence of the remaining states and thereby would decrease the incentive of the remaining states to adopt it. Thus, a state-by-state process of adopting the whole-number proportional approach would quickly bring itself to a halt, leaving the states that adopted it with only minimal influence in presidential elections.
The proportional method also could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide.
If the whole-number proportional approach had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide. Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation. The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every voter equal.
It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach, which would require a constitutional amendment, does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person’s vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.
Proportional allocation of electoral votes within each state is much better.
Certain to be discussed is the National Popular Vote bill. It challenges the electoral status quo and fosters a progressive approach to voting and electoral systems.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In virtually every of the 39 states surveyed, overall support has been in the 70-80% range or higher. – in recent or past closely divided battleground states, in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote