National Popular Vote
Every once in a while someone here expresses dissatisfaction over the way the electoral college works. There is a bill currently passed in four states and in some form of consideration is 43 others that addresses some concerns with the electoral college.
In a nutshell, the National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives a majority of the popular vote. This bill has been enacted into law in 4 states and has passed one or both houses of the legislature in 8 states and is in some stage of the process in 35 others.
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).
Some might say this is an end run around the Constitution, but actually it employs two provisions of the constitution - the right to determine how their electoral votes are allocated and the right to enter into contracts with other states.
The bill is law in Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii. The North Carolina House has also passed the bill. You can see which legislators in North Carolina support the bill at this link.
From my understanding, North Carolina's electoral college votes will be cast in the traditional method until the states that have enacted the NPV bill into law together account for the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency. Once that magic number is reached the new method kicks in.
One drawback is that candidates are required to compete in all 50 states. That's a drawback for them, but not so bad for us. A bonus is the increased grassroots activity this would inspire as those of us living in red or purple states realize that our hard work could finally pay off.
What do you think? What are your questions? Please join us this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. to chat with Dr. John Koza, the founder of the National Popular Vote organization and Matt Gross. You will find the live blog at this link.
- Betsy Muse's blog
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Change is scary
and you have to admit this is a big change. I had an opportunity to sit in on a conference call on this bill and came away feeling positive about it, but wary simply because it is such a huge change.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
What about S. 353
This was a great BNC thread on this subject if anyone needs background.
Allegedly, the NPV would force candidates to explore how to effectively campaign nationwide. But as campaigns are cursed with the problem of scarcity, I wonder what would really happen with the NPV.
One possible scenario - With limited resources, campaigns would have to max-out the vote in the most densely populated urban and suburban areas, relying on economies of scale to stretch their budgets. Campaign stops in small media markets and small towns wouldn't be cost effective. We'll see how effectively Obama competes in all 50 states, but not every campaign will be the generation-defining juggernaut that is the Obama campaign. Asking candidates to be publicly financed will be much harder. I would hate to see the election boil down to the Metro areas of NYC, LA, Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, and so on.
I talked to a few of this bill's supporters in the Senate last summer, but nobody's convinced me that it's better than S. 353. Electing Presidential Electors by Congressional District has its flaws - and I'd hate it if Obama won North Carolina but got less electoral votes because of a district plan - but I don't see the public making a wholesale change that quickly. Also, what if the NPV compact is passed, but the Constitution isn't changed before the first election for which the NPV compact would matter? And let's say there is a candidate, like Bush, that under the old rules would win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Then it becomes a court case, where the constitutionality of the NPV is called into question ...
I guess that's still my main question - how is the NPV bill currently in the Senate constitutional? I brought up that question before I was a presidential elector, BTW ;-)
Sam, are you available at 3:00?
It would be wonderful if you could be here to ask those questions and join the discussion. We are having a live-blog using CoverItLive. This could be a great chance to get those questions answered. I can post your question for you, but you've done more thinking on this than I have and will be better prepared for follow-up.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
I agree with you...
but it's Constitutional. I don't think it would meet the definition of a compact. The only argument would have to come from some state NOT following this to complain that their rights are being infringed (which is the point of this constitutional provision). But, as has been stated, it's clear that states can choose their presidential electors however the heck they want. Ah...the good ol' days when the state legislature just picked the electors and saved everyone the time and trouble of voting for President of the United States...I'm always amused that no one ever brings up the fact that there is no right to vote for president...
But I do support the proportional electoral vote allocation bill. I was very disappointed with the DNC and Dr. Dean (...I'm getting used to it, as this point) who stopped this bill in the state Senate the other year. Again, I understand their political reasons for doing so, but, when it comes to fair reflection of voters' intent, I could give a $@%^ about politics.
I also agree...anyone who sees the NPV as curing anything must live in a big city or a good media market. As someone who lives in the 8th District, I have neither! And I would also do a states-right argument (I know, I know...). For this argument, you either have to ride my brain train or take the bus (I know not everyone will go along with this). But the STATES elect the president, not the country. This is intentional in the Constitution and that federalism is a part of our governmental philosophy. I know we all want to say we are all one big happy country...but North Carolina is a sovereign state, with its own concerns, people, etc. NPV seems to say that we don't care how YOUR state votes, b/c you'll just vote like the entire country does. This is against the Constitution, which envisions the federal government being elected by the "less" powerful states...it's really another set of checks and balances b/t the federal and state governments. And I don't want the big cities of the rest of the country telling North Carolina how we should cast our electoral votes, and that's what NPV sounds like to me.
I know, I sound like such a conservative, don't I? But I do believe the Founders (of the country...not the Gamma Quadrant Star Trek:DS9 people...) got it right, and I'm not going to fiddle too much with things. But proportional voting, I think it has all the perceived benefits of NPV, maintains the state's unique identity, and makes us all purple.
Well, the live-blog will begin soon
and you can pose your questions. We all benefit by the answers.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
The text of the bill
It's an agreement and a compact.
I ♥ NC General Statute § 163‑211.
I like the electors by cong. district legislation but only with
a caveat or two.
This was close to passing last year (or was in 2006?) but it seems that our bill was giving impetus to a similar bill in Cali. The elector math for CA-NC going to cong. districts puts dems down about 15 electoral votes.
In theory, I am ok with NC going to cong. districts, but we must realize that this sort of thing has implications beyond our borders.
I would like to see all states make this change at once or some compromise worked out whereby blue states goes at the same time as an equally sized group of red states. (Geez, that reminded me of the MO. COmpromise.)
Person County Democrats
North Carolina in play this year
Just for transparency, I am on the boards of Democracy NC and Fair Vote NC but am not convinced about the national popular vote
With North Carolina becoming more and more of a battle ground state, why should we do this?
"jump in where you can and hang on"
Briscoe Darling to Sheriff Andy
Because the very idea of
Because the very idea of battleground states is disenfranchising to people in the states that aren't?
other forms of voting
Wouldn't other forms of voting accomplish the same thing without changing the constitution? ie: making sure one candidate gets over 50% of the vote.
"jump in where you can and hang on"
Briscoe Darling to Sheriff Andy
So sorry I missed this`
Been on conference calls and webcasts all day. I'll look forward to reading the whole thing once my dust settles.
I do not like the National Popular Vote Bill
not one little bit. Just think of who the writers of that bill are trying to outsmart. The current electoral system has agreed with the popular vote 53 out of 56 times; that's about 96%. NPV would completely undercut the identity of the United States of America. We are a collection of states unified by our Constitution, our common hopes and our shared beliefs in individualism but within an overarching community. That idea is demonstrated at every level of our society. It is not to be discarded lightly, certainly not as a belated reaction to 2000.
If we go to NPV, campaigns will be all about big urban centers. Charlotte might see a candidate if he/she has a few minutes to spare while commuting between Atlanta or Miami and the NE metroplex. It'll be tv ads ad nauseum for everyone else.
Electoral reform is necessary in many ways, but NPV should not be a part of it.
Person County Democrats
from the live blog . . .
from the live blog . . .
Keep in mind that the main media at the moment, namely TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
For example, in California, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and SF, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise we wouldn't have recently had governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwatznegger). A vote in Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.
If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics... any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a "big city" approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still 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 voters in Ohio.
The numbers of the Electoral College and urban vs rural
Let's look at the Electoral College. First, here's a nice little line(courtesy of Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com):
That's a graph of popular vs electoral vote on Nate Silver's simulations. It shows a relatively even line. Less than one electoral vote is the difference.
But let's look deeper at why states are red or blue.
More pretty pictures
Scroll down to the county-by-county maps. What do you see? A lot of red, with smatterings of blue. On the cartogram, the blue gets much bigger. So it would not be inaccurate to say that urban-vs-rural is the real red-blue divide. This means we can talk about urban-rural in fairly accurate terms by talking about red-blue maps.
One thing the Electoral College causes is an inflation of loosely-populated, rural states. But, then, why is the line so centered? Because a city can often overwhelm a state, and even though California has bands of red, all 55 of its electors go blue. You win California's urban centers, you win California. Rural California gets screwed, as does an urban center not big enough to influence its vote, like, say, the Triangle up until 2008.
This also shows why congressional delegation based electoral system is a very bad idea--it keeps the tip in favor of a rural system while destroying that in favor of an urban system.
I had trouble posting on the liveblog
Betsy, just thought you might want to know, for future liveblogs, my comments were seriously delayed on the "live" blog thus made it impossible to keep up in real time with the live chat.
Thanks though, for bringing this to us!
NCDem Amy on YouTube
One of the reasons
is that the questions have to be approved by a moderator. Initially I was waiting for Dr. Koza to arrive, so I didn't post the questions immediately. After the first couple, I tried to time the posting of the questions until after he had answered the previous question. Obviously, that didn't always work. I was attempting to have the answers immediately after the question it related to. Half the time, the question is directly after the answer because Dr. Koza was faster than I was or inadvertently skipped a question. This was our first interview with CIL, so we have some kinks to work out. We can have it flow more freely with less moderation when we're covering an event or election returns - that sort of thing. I really appreciate your questions. I'm intrigued by NPV, but not sold on it.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
Thanks for the explanation
I don't understand why our questions would be moderated before they are posted.
That kind of defeats the purpose of a live blog chat, where bloggers can directly communicate with guest bloggers, doncha think?
NCDem Amy on YouTube
It's just this type of program
We're trying it out based on a suggestion by Pam Spaulding. She uses this for her live blogs.
I initially balked at trying it because of the reason you stated, but others were excited about it and when we tried it during election returns and it worked so well we decided to try it for an interview style live blog. There is a way to set 10 people so that their comments aren't moderated, but you can imagine how that wouldn't work for this style interview. The answers might not be anywhere near the questions if things were flying in too fast. That's what's nice about the traditional method. The answers are usually directly under the questions.
We'll probably try this a few more times, but for most interview live blogs I think the traditional method may wind up working better. This program sure made the night of election returns a little more fun, though. We just needed to get into a rhythm of which of us would post the comments of those folks who arrived after the 10 unmoderated spots were taken. I personally think CIL will work better for event live-blogging and situations like election returns, etc. It might also work for some convention blogging in August.
Whether we use it for interviews or for events, we have to use it often enough to work out the kinks. Sorry your experience wasn't the best.
My take.
The Founding Fathers got it wrong on this one. The electoral college is, quite simply, a bloody moronic way to elect the leader of the executive branch. It's time to amend the Constitution to eliminate this grandly satanic behavior on our part.
Interestingly enough, I heard a number of Democrats whining about ending the Electoral College in the aftermath of the 2000. What substantive steps did they take to end it? Not one that I can count. Though I'm sure if the situation was reversed (i.e., Democrat was given the Presidency by the courts when the vote total was disputed in a state, while the Republican candidate won the popular vote), the same consequence would have occurred. Which begs the question:
Why do we only identify with candidates exclusively along party lines, in our grand schemes of grouping people into collectives and judging them by the group into which we assign them, rather than judging each candidate as an individual?
I'm really not expecting much of an answer to this question on this forum. But then again, I have been surprised before. Like on my 21st birthday. (Long story...)