Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote Article IMembership Any State of the United States and the District of Columbia may become a member of this agreement by enacting this agreement. Article IIRight of the People in Member States to Vote for President and Vice President Each member state shall conduct a statewide popular election for President and Vice President of the United States. I read the article twice and it still doesn't make sense to me. Read it @ http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/misc/888wordcompact.php and give me your thoughts on it.
This is dangerous. The Electoral College was created to give a buffer between the states and the federal governments so the states elected the President. It was a key component of Federalism. The idea was it would be a system of checks and balanced to ensure states rights were respected and the federal government didn't grow too big. The 17th Amendment, before its repeal, held the same principle. Do this and mark my words, all a candidate will do is promise the most to the most people to get elected, more so than they do now since all they need to do is get more votes. That's it. And more than ever corporations and the wealthy who will benefit from such promises will spend money to help that person who is promising the most win. Our government will be auctioned off overnight to the highest bidder, more so than it already is now. Yes, it goes on now, but this would make it so much worse. The Founders understood the pitfalls of democracy. That's why the made us a republic. This would create more of a society that they feared. We were warned that democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. As soon as the majority figures out it can vote itself money from the treasure it will always vote for the candidate promising the most of that money and the result is that democracies, much like Rome, always collapse under loose fiscal policy (along with unsustainable empire building). What comes next? With the economy collapsed, and along with it the backbone of any economy (the currency), the money supply will hit a period of hyperinflation. People will burn it to stay warm and use stacks of it to buy bread just like what happened in the Wiemar Republic after WWI. At some point someone will look for someone to fix the problem out of desperation and generally turn to a despotic figure. That's what happened with a guy named Hitler. I'm not saying all this will happen if we switch from the EC to a national popular vote -- I think we're heading in this direction regardless -- but such a repeal would certainly help us along the road to serfdom.
It is an unconstitutional Compact waiting for standing to be litigated the first time a state casts its electors in opposition to the voters in that state.
One major problem with this idea, which is poorly answered and not even rebutted on the site, is the fact that every state has different ballot access rules. The idea is that everyone is voting on a single race for the Presidency (rather than 50 different races for Presidential electors), but that's not the case. Not all states will provide the same ballot, therefore not all people will have the same choices for President. Sure, some 3rd-party or independent candidates may be allowed as a write-in, but that's almost the same as not running for office (Mickey Mouse probably beats out a few candidates a year). So regardless of the normal challenges that 3rd-party and independent candidates face, generally notoriety, I would say it's [practically] impossible for one to win the entire contest if they do not appear on the ballot. This plan only serves to benefit and strengthen the two-party system by decreasing competition and further legitimizing the eventual outcome between a giant (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and a turd sandwich.
The U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections . The fact is that 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 and requires each state to treat as "conclusive" each other state's "final determination" of its vote for President. Third-party presidential candidates who had substantial support (such as John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996) got on the ballot in all 50 states, and third-party candidates with low-single-digit support succeeded in getting onto the ballot in almost every state
What's unconstitutional about it? 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. National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. 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 constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state's electoral votes.
The Republic is not in any danger from National Popular Vote. National Popular Vote has nothing to do with pure democracy. Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directlyWith National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government. 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). Adolf Hitler did not come to power in Germany as a result of a national popular vote. The National Popular Vote compact does not abolish the office of presidential elector or the Electoral College. Thus, there would be no change in whatever protection the current Electoral College system might provide in terms of preventing a demagogue from coming to power in the United States. However, there is no reason to think that the Electoral College would prevent a demagogue from being elected President of the United States, regardless of whether presidential electors are elected on the basis of the state-by-state winner-take-all rule or the nationwide popular vote. The electors now are 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). - - - Updated - - - Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and 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. 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 virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent or past closely divided Battleground states: CO 68%, FL 78%, IA --75%, MI 73%, MO 70%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, NC 74%, OH 70%, PA 78%, VA 74%, and WI 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK 70%, DC 76%, DE 75%, ID 77%, ME 77%, MT 72%, NE 74%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, OK 81%, RI 74%, SD 71%, UT 70%, VT 75%, WV 81%, and WY 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR 80%, KY- 80%, MS 77%, MO 70%, NC 74%, OK 81%, SC 71%, TN 83%, VA 74%, and WV 81%; and in other states polled: AZ 67%, CA 70%, CT 74%, MA 73%, MN 75%, NY 79%, OR 76%, and WA 77%. The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, and large 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
Thanks for the copy and paste from the website making the argument in favor of this initiative Unfortunately, I disagree with the website on most points, but since instead of making our own arguments we're copying and pasting the arguments of others, here's one from Curtis Gans at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/curtis-gans/national-popular-vote_b_1189390.html
The current presidential election system makes a repeat of 2000 more likely, not less likely. All you need is a thin and contested margin in a single state with enough electoral votes to make a difference. It's much less likely that the national vote will be close enough that voting irregularities in a single area will swing enough net votes to make a difference. If we'd had National Popular Vote in 2000, a recount in Florida would not have been an issue. The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting. The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida. Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote. The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes. We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires. “It’s an arsonist itching to burn down the whole neighborhood by torching a single house.” Hertzberg Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes. The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections. No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count. The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.
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. National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate). And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone 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). In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states. In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country. If presidential campaigns now did not ignore more than 200,000,000 of 300,000,000 Americans, one would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80% of the country that is currently ignored by presidential campaigns. - - - Updated - - - A nationwide presidential campaign, 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) 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. 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 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. - - - Updated - - - With the current system of electing the President, none of the states requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's or district’s electoral votes. Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement. If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no massive proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote. Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.-- including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912 and 1916), Truman (1948 ), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968 ), and Clinton (1992 and 1996). Americans do not view the absence of run-offs in the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time. And, FYI, with the current system of awarding electoral votes by state winner-take-all (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in 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.
In 2012, the presidential campaigns only cared about 9 swing states. The number and population of battleground states is shrinking. States' partisanship is hardening. 19 states (including California with 55 electoral votes) with a total of 242 electoral votes, have voted Democratic, 1992-2012 13 states with 102 electoral votes have voted Republican, 1992-2012 Some states have not been been competitive for more than a half-century and most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position. In a study before the 2012 election: • 41 States Won by Same Party, 2000-2008 • 32 States Won by Same Party, 1992-2008 • 13 States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2008 • 19 States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2008 • 9 Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988 • 15 GOP States Not Swing State since 1988
"Awarding electoral votes by a proportional or congressional district method fails to promote majority rule, greater competitiveness or voter equality. Pursued at a state level, both reforms dramatically increase incentives for partisan machinations. If done nationally, the congressional district system has a sharp partisan tilt toward the Republican Party, while 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 states interest and that of the national interest, both alternatives fall far short of the National Popular Vote plan . . ." - FairVote
States are not required to hold elections for President, but when they do hold elections for President, you will see arguments stemming from the equal protection clause. The SCOTUS has lots of cases dealing with voting rights. I am not aware of any current binding case that says "Well since it is not in the Constitution otherwise, it is ok to disenfranchise people."
My thanks to all for making this a most interesting and informative thread. I've always been on the fence about the Elector College and this basic strengthens my conception that the Founders had the right idea. I think we need to repeal those laws that changed the selection of the presidents and the senators. Leave voting for members of the House to local and state matters where it belongs. One thing it would do away with is all those boring campaign adds we're forced to watch for months and years on end. Already, there's not an empty lot or fence anywhere in the Las Vegas Valley that isn't riddle with campaign placards.
Say, for example, Utah votes 85% for the Republican. This system renders their vote irrelevant and awards their electoral votes to the other candidate, who happened to win a narrow plurality of the nationwide popular vote. I completely oppose this system.
