Current and past presidential candidates with a public record of support for the National Popular Vote bill: Congressman John Anderson (R, I –ILL), Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee (R-I-D, -RI), Governor and former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean (D–VT), U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R–GA), Senator and Vice President Al Gore (D-TN), Ralph Nader, Governor Martin O’Malley (D-MD), Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and Senator Fred Thompson (R–TN).

 

Current and past presidential candidates who supported direct election of the President in the form of a constitutional amendment: George H.W. Bush (R-TX-1969), Jimmy Carter (D-GA-1977), Hillary Clinton (D-NY-2001), Bob Dole (R-KS-1969), Gerald Ford (R-MI-1969), and Richard Nixon (R-CA-1969).

In the 2012 general election, 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only 10 competitive states 2/3rds of the 2012 general-election campaign events (176 of 253) were in just 4 states (OH, FL, VA, IA). 38 small, medium, and large states were politically irrelevant.

 

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 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 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. 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.

 

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 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), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, in 2012 did not reach out to about 80% of the states and their voters. 10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. 80% of states’ votes were conceded by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. Candidates had no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they were safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

 

In 2004: “Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out . . . 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.”

There were only 10 battleground states 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:

“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

 

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections

 

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.

“Battleground” states receive 7% more federal grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.

 

The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It again changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.

 

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral 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.

 

States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.

 

Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained 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."

 

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).

Why couldn't we keep a modified electoral college by allocating each state's votes by congressional district rather than winner take all?

 

Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide

 

Maine and Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

 

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

 

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts. In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

 

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

 

Nationwide, there are now only 10 "battleground" districts that are expected to be competitive in the 2016 presidential election. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 80% of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 98% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally

 

The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to poll, visit, advertise, and organize in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. With the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, and organize in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind..

 

In Maine, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).

In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

77% of Maine voters support a national popular vote for President

 

In Nebraska, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska's reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.

In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote for President

 

Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any district or state or throughout the country.

 

Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

 

Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

 

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.

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), 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 have included 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) 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) 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).

Just mathematically how could the results differ so much using a congressional-district-based approach to distributing votes?

 

I'm not doubting you but I'm quite surprised it would be so far off of what the popular vote would be.

 

Are congressional districts within each state not generally equal in terms of head count/population?

In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts. In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

 

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Just mathematically how could the results differ so much using a congressional-district-based approach to distributing votes?

 

I'm not doubting you but I'm quite surprised it would be so far off of what the popular vote would be.

 

Are congressional districts within each state not generally equal in terms of head count/population?

 

You're ostensibly right, but the borders of the districts can be manipulated for political purposes. Here's a hypothetical to explain what I mean. You have a state with three districts and the population of the state is about 50-50 for each party. You can draw up the districts in such a way that you have two districts that are about 60-40 in favor of one party, leaving one district that's about 80-20 for the other party. So, even though the state is about 50-50, one party is almost guaranteed to win two of its three districts every election.

How did you figure that?

Paragraph from an Economist story (February '13):

 

"In the past month officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—all states that Mr. Obama won which happen to have Republican governors—have flirted with similar proposals. Reince Priebus, who heads the Republican National Committee, said that electoral-vote reapportionment was something that “states that have been consistently blue [ie, Democratic] that are fully controlled red [ie, Republican] ought to be looking at”. In 2012, if all the 50 states had apportioned their electoral votes as Nebraska and Maine did, Mr. Romney would have beaten Mr Obama by 276 to 262 despite having lost the popular vote by nearly four points."

 

 

Moving the goalposts | The Economist

By allowing a pure popular vote for a National election that is the definition of mob rule. There is a reason for electoral college and it has served it's purpose.

 

By allowing each state to have a voice actually allows more voters a voice. What if a state with a high population like California went 80% Democrat and we allowed a pure popular vote? The electoral college keeps each state soverign right to have a say in the office of the President.

 

If people get past this idea of a pure democracy which has never existed in this country they will realize why we have the electoral college.

 

You mean we aren't a socialist society now? That's all I have heard for almost 8 years is that we are a socialist society and now you are saying pure democracy is an idea we have never had? I'm so confused.

You mean we aren't a socialist society now? That's all I have heard for almost 8 years is that we are a socialist society and now you are saying pure democracy is an idea we have never had? I'm so confused.

 

Our government has socialist programs and we are heading down a path that is inclined by that philosophy.

 

But our government and it's decision makers are still set up as a Democratic Republic.