Hawaii enacts National Popular Vote bill — 19% of the way to 270

[FlyingSquirrel]

Note: This was an email I received from nationalpopularvote.com

(Once this bill is enacted in states totalling 270 EV's, there will be no more Electoral College - or if there is, it will be completely irrelevant because the states passing this will allocate ALL of their electors based on the winner of the National popular vote - not by the winner of the popular vote in their particular state.)

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The Hawaii legislature yesterday enacted the National Popular Vote bill by overriding the veto of Governor Linda Lingle. Only 7 legislators supported the governor's veto. The Vote in the House was 36–3 and the vote in the Senate was 20–4. The action in Hawaii follows last week's passage of the bill by both houses of the Vermont legislature.

The National Popular Vote bill has now been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes—19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

The bill has passed 17 state legislative chambers in the U.S. (one-sixth of the total), including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Vermont.

The bill is currently endorsed by 1,005 state legislators—440 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 565 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.



Small States are Especially Disadvantaged by Current System

It is sometimes asserted that the current system of electing the President helps the nation's least populous states. It is also sometimes asserted that the small states confer a partisan advantage on one political party. In fact, neither statement is true.

The small states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are politically non-competitive in presidential elections. Twelve of the 13 smallest states are politically non-competitive, and these 12 states are almost totally ignored by presidential candidates. On the other hand, New Hampshire receives immense attention in the November general election because it is a closely divided "battleground" state.

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.

The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court. Delaware and the other plaintiff states argued that New York's use of the winner-take-all rule effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a closely divided "battleground" state (as it was in the 1950's and 1960's) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive small states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming—both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.

[BOHICA06]

1. Only if those 270 are electing the same candidate...

If they are split 190 to 80, then the electoral college is still in play.

[FlyingSquirrel]

3. No, that's not how it works.

The states will allocate their electors solely based on who wins the national popular vote. The intent of the bill is to make the electoral college obsolete. It kicks in once enough states have ratified it to where they control over half the electoral votes. Once it kicks in, each state that has passed the bill into law will allocate their electoral votes based on the popular vote winner. What would be the point of passing the bill if the electoral college was still in play? Why would it be called National Popular Vote?

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1-Sentence Description
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).


3-Sentence Description
Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).


1-Page Description
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).

The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes—19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect. The bill has passed 17 state legislative chambers (one-sixth of the total), including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Vermont.

The bill is currently endorsed by 1,005 state legislators—440 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 565 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

The shortcomings of the current system stem from the winner-take-all rule that awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state.

Under the winner-take-all rule, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the concerns of voters of states that they cannot possibly win or lose. This means that voters in two thirds of the states are effectively disenfranchised in presidential elections because candidates concentrate their attention on a small handful of “battleground” states. In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in just five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in just 16 states.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 votes would have elected Kerry in 2004, even though President Bush was ahead by 3,500,000 votes nationwide.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding of their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election. Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) award electoral votes by congressional districts—a reminder that a federal constitutional amendment is not required to change the way the President is elected.

The National Popular Vote bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill is enacted in a group of states possessing 270 or more electoral votes, all of the electoral votes from those states would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Sacramento Bee, Common Cause and Fair Vote.

70% of the public has long supported nationwide election of the president.

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama—the first Republican elected to represent Birmingham), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).

Additional information is available in the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote and at www.NationalPopularVote.com.

[hedgehog]

2. The way the compact works, the states that have signed on have enacted

legislation requiring their electors to go with the winner of the popular vote nationally regardless of the winner in the individual state. The compact is triggered only when enough states have signed on.

[Aloha Spirit]

4. very interesting.... thanks!!

[Oregone]

5. This is so stupid.

Proportional electoral vote allocation I can agree with, but this is absurd.

[FlyingSquirrel]

6. Well apparently about 70% of the country disagrees.

[Oregone]

7. An appeal to popularity always falls short of sufficient proof of an argument

90% of people wanted to go to war with Iraq...so it was ok to do so?

[FlyingSquirrel]

9. Difference is....

this is being deliberately passed in the legislatures of state after state. And you've apparently not read the arguments for it (posted above in reply #3) or if you did, you prefer to just respond with one-liners rather than an actual cogent response to each of the arguments presented.

[Oregone]

15. Look, I know the argument for it. Here is an argument against abiding by any sort of popular vote...

Lets imagine a fantasy election where turnout was, across the board, 50% in every single state. Well, how about almost every state...

Lets imagine that Washington, no fault of their own, had a massive ice storm and fog, and only saw 10% turnout (although majorly democratic, as proportional to normal). Well, it would be clear that the will of the people is somewhat supressed when they cannot make it to a voting station.

Now imagine California, no fault of the people residing there, undergoing massive complications on election day due to voter rolls being purged (across the board) by Republican dirty tricks, which supressed the areas turnout level to 10%. Obviously, when people were sent home packing from their voting stations, the will of the people was definately supressed.

Then imagine Oregon, no fault of their own, had a single visit by each candidate (and no primary visit due to their place in the primary process), and only 10% of the people were motivated to show for either candidate. Well, the people's preference of candidates may of just not been expressed fully (although proportionally), due to the candidates neglect or busy schedules.

Now imagine Vermont, no fault of the Vermont residents, coming up short of ballots (across the board), which only allowed a good 10% turnout among the masses of newly registered voters.

Now imagine New York, no fault of their own, victims of massive robo-calls suggesting incorrect voting dates/procedures, which supressed the vote to 10% among the people who were smart enough to the polls...

Imagine inaccessable voting stations, faulty machines, irregular registration practices, irregular weather patterns, unfortunate campaigning strategies, media suppression in some other states....



So, now, people still come out in Oregon/Washington/California/New York/Vermont and vote on an average of 60%/40% democratic leaning. But the problem is, in these coincidently democratic states, uncontrollable/irregular/stupid circumstances greatly supressed their contribution to the popular vote. Now, we cannot scientifically predict what the outcome is otherwise, but we can make a conjecture that that if the turnout was 50% in these states, it would have been proportional to the 10% turnout (60/40). But instead, these democratic leaning states only have 20% of the impact they would have otherwise, greatly shifting the national "popular vote" in favor of the Republican candidate (and subverting the true will of the people who may of wanted a vote, but did not have the opportunity to do so). The Republicans would be greatly awarded targeting democratic leaning areas with dirty tricks to make something like this happen....

Further, not only is the popular vote subject to being manipulated by irregular circumstances, but the States, themselves as an entity, become disenfranchised (remember this is a representative democracy, not a pure democracy). Under this fantasy scenerio, a huge state like California would have as much "say" as a state a tenth the size, due to a dirty trick. Now, this dirty trick will not effect how they allocate their congressmen, but yet, it will affect their say in who is to run the country?

The fact of the matter is that many factors can supress turnout and, although they proportionally expressed their will, many factors can make it where they cannot quantifiably express their will (ex. 60 people out of a 100 want to vote democratic, but only 30 are able to, while only 20 were able to vote republican). In such cases, the will of the people is not counted in the popular vote, and the will of the State is not given its proportional say.

Of course, I admit, you cannot extrapolate the "will of the people" from a suppressed turnout, but on average, across all states undergoing problems, it is likely it is proportional to the expressed vote.

And now enter the electoral college. This is what it trys to solvee. Each state (or rather, grouping of people) has their will proportionally equalized to correct irregularities and also to ensure the State, as an entity, has a say in the process proportional to their size (not their turnout). But of course, winner-take-all is foolish for a variety of reasoins...

But for another method with electoral votes: assume there are 100 electoral votes in some state, but absurd circumstances ensured only 200 people voted democratic and 100 people voted republican, wouldn't it make sense to assume that this proportion was the will of the people in this region and the democrat should get 66 electoral votes and the republican should get the rest? Wouldn't awarding the delegates proportionally to the expressed vote correct for voter suppression, while still somewhat accurately expressing the voters will? Wouldn't it be foolish, in this example, to just chalk up 200 votes for the democrat and 100 for the republican (nationwide), when something nefarious behind the scenes caused this massive turnout.

There are too many inconsistencies, irregularities, uncontrollable circumstances across all these regions and states to assume that the turnout isn't supressed unfairly in certain places, which affects the popular vote. Shouldn't we be smart enough in this day and age to try and find methods (As they attempted to do back then, but incorrectly) to fix and work around these problems nationwide? I mean, even something like weather can greatly influence elections in this proposed voting system, and that seems wrong that the voters will can be regionally suppressed by something like that.

By the way...I used to be for this until I put some more thought into it.

[KamaAina]

8. So what happens if we vote Dem, and we will,

but McClown somehow manages to Diebold snag a razor-thin margin in the popular vote?

In that instance, our overwhelmingly Dem legislature just screwed Obama out of four electoral votes, from his original home, no less. :eyes:

What if, in particular, McClown's hypothetical margin comes from running up huge margins in a few big, Red states like Texas? And we would have won the Electoral College but for this? :scared:

[FlyingSquirrel]

10. It won't pass by this November.

And once it does pass, the candidates will campaign much differently.

[KamaAina]

11. Well, okay, substitute Jeb! or whoever for McClown

I still don't see how this could possibly ever benefit anybody but a repuke. For that to happen, we'd have to vote repuke in a year where the Dem won the popular vote. Like they say in the NY Lottery commercials, "Hey, it could happen!" :P

[FlyingSquirrel]

12. How about when Gore won the popular vote and Bush squeaked it out

with the help of some hijinks and the Supreme Court, of course..

But election fraud such as they committed (and will probably continue to commit) is much easier to do when you only have to make it happen in a few states.

[KamaAina]

13. In that case, our electors would have voted Dem either way

since our state voted for Gore. So, no gain for Dems.

Yeah, I know, I'm nothing but a partisan hack. But it was not always so. Blame St. Ronnie of Raygun and his successors for what has befallen me.

[FlyingSquirrel]

14. No gain for Dems in your state, maybe

But since Gore won the popular vote by over half a million, he would have been elected.