The Electoral College system creates two distinct problems. First, and most obviously, it allows for the possibility that the candidate receiving fewer overall votes can still technically win an election. This has happened 4 times in American history, in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. The second and perhaps more pernicious problem with the Electoral College system is that it creates a situation in which the only votes that matter, from the perspective of candidates, are those in the few “battleground states” that could go either way. Candidates have little reason to campaign—and people little reason to vote—outside of those states.
The originators of the NPV effort found a way to effectively do away with the Electoral College without the nearly impossible task of changing the constitution. Simply put, the NPV campaign involves convincing states, one state at a time, to change their laws so that they cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote rather than the winner of the particular state.
Here’s a slightly longer way of putting it:
The Constitution gives states the power to decide how to allocate the electors who cast the vote for the president. The National Popular Vote is a campaign to get each state to pass a law entering into a binding agreement to award all their electors to the candidate who wins the national popular vote in all fifty states and Washington, D.C. This provision would only go into effect when states whose electoral votes total a majority of the Electoral College—currently, 270 votes—sign the compact. When that happens, whichever candidate wins the popular vote will automatically garner a majority of the electoral votes. While this arrangement is rather complex, it has the advantage of being fair and utterly nonpartisan—and could take effect as soon as enough large states agree to participate. If that happens, it would force public officials to represent a much broader segment of the populace out of electoral self-interest.That’s from a good piece in the Washington Monthly that explains in greater detail the problems with the current system and this new effort to “dump the Electoral College without changing the constitution”. The most consistent and eloquent advocate of NPV that I know of is Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker, whose posts on the subject I always enjoy and recommend. Four states representing 50 electoral votes have already passed laws binding them to the NPV plan.
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It is encouraging that in less than two years, the National Popular
Vote bill has been signed into law in Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii,
and Illinois-—states possessing 19% of the electoral votes necessary to
bring this law into effect (50 of 270). The bill has passed one-sixth
of the legislative chambers in the U.S.—-one house in Arkansas,
Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in
California, Hawaii, Vermont, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland.
The bill is currently endorsed by 1005 state legislators—440 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 565 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
To be involved in the National Popular Vote bill effort . . .
You can check the status of the bill in your state at
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/statesactivity.php
If it's still in play in your state, let your legislator(s) know what you think.
You can sign up to get email updates -
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/getemailupdates.php
You can tell a friend-
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/tellafriend.php
You can help get the word out and show your support.
Distribute literature at political, civic, or other meeting, convention, or conference.
Post on discussion groups.
Write letters to editors, OpEds, and/or blog.
Up-to-date information and materials are at
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/explanation.php
Sorry, but I really don't care to become disenfranchised by this supposed "National Popular Vote". My home state is North Carolina and let's suppose, for an instant, that NC joins this compact. If the people of NC collectively vote for Candidate A, but Candidate B wins the nationwide popular vote - you are suggesting that the State overrule the people and award ALL of its Electors to Candidate B??!! THAT, sir, is TRUE disenfranchisement!!!
It would be far better if more states chose Maine's approach: award each congressional district's Elector to the candidate that wins that district and the two statewide Electors (representing the Senate members) go to the candidate who wins statewide. That would retain the full enfranchisement of the citizens of the state, would encourage candidates to compete for votes in every state, and significantly reduce (although admittedly not fully eliminate) the possibility of another Election 2000.
Tom: What you're missing is that if the National Popular Vote is in effect, then it doesn't matter which state people live in when they cast their votes. Why should it matter that you live in North Carolina when you're voting for the President of the United States?
The law only comes into effect when enough states support it that they can together make the Electoral College _completely irrelevant_. Nobody gets disenfranchised, because everyone's vote is part of the national popular vote, which would be the only vote that matters.
You're imagining something halfway in between, which would never happen because the law is written in an all-or-nothing way. Nobody's proposing to change the electoral votes of North Carolina if those votes could still swing the election in the electoral college.
It has always seemed unfair to me in Idaho that my vote doesn't count as much as someone in Ohio or California. This is just a shell of a democracy when we just don't count. Not only our vote doesn't count, but neither do our concerns. Who listens to us or cares what we think?
"Spectator" states is about it!
In this day and age, the popular votes are tallied up faster than the electoral vote. It would be a simple matter to simply go with that popular vote. There is no reason any more to have the Electoral College at all, it has long since served its purpose for being.
Maybe it would even encourage people to vote, if they know their vote is equal to someone in California, for instance. Why bother in the small states?
If we truely want the governmental races to be fair, then we not only need to get rid of the electorial college, we need to get rid of political parties as well. Why should a canidate get to ride into offfice on a partys platform. They should have to stand on their own merits instead. Then we would only need one election for president, The person who gets the most votes becomes president and the one with the second most votes become vice president. That way the people will choose both and too bad if they don't like each other. This would be the way to make the election truly the voice of the people and also reduce the costs of running. And if we had no partys then the government couldn't waste time blaming each other when things go wrong. No more it's the republians or demecrats fault, it's everybodys fault.
"The second and perhaps more pernicious problem with the Electoral College system is that it creates a situation in which the only votes that matter, from the perspective of candidates, are those in the few “battleground states” that could go either way. Candidates have little reason to campaign—and people little reason to vote—outside of those states."
This non sequitur is the ever-present proof that the NPV folks haven't a clue. I will give the author credit, though, for stating the point accurately by adding "from the perspective of the candidates." The trouble is, the perspective of the voter, not the perspective of the candidates, is what matters.
If I am a Republican in Utah, what possible interest do I have in whether the candidates woo me in the general election? The Republican will, by virtue of the primary system and his party affiliation, almost certainly stand for what I stand for. So why would I want him to have to waste his money convincing the 23 Democrats in the state to vote for him? My party will carry my state. How is my vote not counting?
As it happens, I am not a Utah Republican; I am a New York Republican. I live in a safely Blue state, so I could claim that my vote doesn't count, both because the State will give all of its electoral votes to the guy I oppose AND because the candidates won't woo me. But that's wrong. My vote does count; it just happens that I, like those Dems in Utah, am outvoted. My neighbors perceive that our state's interests are best served by a Democrat. So be it.
The swing state pathology NPVers make so much of is not the product of the Electoral College, whose principle role is to impose on the Presidency the same weighting as the bicameral legislature, but of the winner-take-all nature of the states' allocation of the electors they have. A case can be made for proportional awarding of each state's electors, but the people don't seem to want that. (But see, Nebraska and Maine.) They consistently allow their state legislators to favor the local majority party by giving that majority ALL of the state's electors. If you want to fix something, consider fixing THAT.
Meanwhile, I can't believe that the interstate compact idea will hold up past the first election in which any participating state realigns. As soon as a state legislature figures out that its party will lose in an NPV election, that state will withdraw from the compact. I'm not even sure the governor's approval is required under the Constitution, which assigns the elector thing to the state legislatures, not merely "the states," which would presumably require actual legislation to act.
This whole project is just an attempt to shift power from the farmers and ranchers to the cities. It's ok to argue for that if you're a city dweller who thinks his interests are best served by beggaring the people who will be alone with his food. But let's not dress the naked politics of the thing in spurious pseudophilosophical fig leaves.
How can anyone think the electoral college way of electing a President is fair? As shown in last night's election it was was called before all the votes were counted.
We the people should be able to elect the President. In 2000 the candidate who won the popular vote did not become President. There are people who refuse to vote because they know their vote won't count.
I still vote but it seems pointless.
I hope we have a national popular vote in 2012. This is change we can use.
Rob -
Spend some time with The Federalist. A State's interest is not terribly important, but a region's is.
The EC overweights agrarian interests because, by the nature of things, farming and ranching lead to low population density. Urbanites don't grasp that their career choices have landed them in high-density states, where they think that the number of people wanting something is the best measure of whether it should happen. But it isn't. We all need food, and the interests of farmers and consumers need to be balanced by a mechanism that adjusts for the wholly fortuitous population densities of their lifestyles. The Senate and its executive analog the EC do that.
I think Tom has a good argument for the Maine/Nebraska thing, but I'm not completely there yet, and I don't see how it happens in more rough-and-tumble jurisdictions where the majority legislative party sees eternal advantage in winner-take-all.
Direct election = Mob rule. this makes sense to an abstract mind about "fairness", but imagine if you will- the 2000 florida election mess times 50 states. Mass confusion followed by plenty of lawsuits.
In the 1996 elections, Bill Clinton did not have the popular vote, but the electoral college put "the rapist" back in the White House. The national popular vote movement has become the bastion of Socialists, and the undereducated. By trying to make things "fair", only chaos will rule and is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Its time the peoples voice is heard. Why should we go to the polls, stand in line for hours just to have the vote struck down by the elcctoral college. It is our rite as the legislators tell us to vote but yet it is in the end meaningless.
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