“The National Popular Vote Interstate
Compact will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the
most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The
Compact ensures that every vote, in every state,
will matter in every presidential election. The Compact is a
state-based approach that preserves the Electoral College, state control of
elections, and the power of the states to control how the President is elected.
“The National Popular Vote bill has been enacted
by 16 jurisdictions possessing 196 electoral votes, including 4 small
states (DE, HI, RI, VT), 8 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, NJ, NM,
OR, WA), 3 big states (CA, IL, NY), and the District of Columbia. The
bill will take effect when enacted by states with 74 more electoral
votes. The bill has passed at least one chamber in 9 additional
states with 88 more electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK, VA).
A total of 3,408 state legislators from all 50 states have endorsed it.
“The shortcomings of the current system of
electing the President stem from ‘winner-take-all’ laws that have been enacted
by state legislatures in 48 states. These laws award all of a state’s electoral
votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state.
“Because of these state winner-take-all
statutes, presidential candidates have no reason to pay attention to the issues
of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone
conclusion. In 2012, all of the 253 general-election campaign events
were in just 12 states, and two-thirds were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida,
Virginia, and Iowa). Thirty-eight states were completely ignored.
“State winner-take-all statutes adversely affect governance.
‘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.
“Also, because of state winner-take-all statutes, five of our 45
Presidents have come into office without having won the most popular votes
nationwide. The 2000 and 2016 elections are the most recent examples of
elections in which a second-place candidate won the White House.
Near-misses are also common under the current state-by-state winner-take-all
method of awarding electoral votes. A shift of 59,393 votes in Ohio
in 2004 would have elected John Kerry despite President Bush’s nationwide lead
of over 3,000,000 votes.
“The U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1) gives the states
exclusive control over awarding their electoral votes: ‘Each State shall
appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of
Electors....’ The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is state
law. It is not in the U.S. Constitution. The winner-take-all rule was used
by only three states in 1789, and all three repealed it by 1800. It was
not until the 11th presidential election (1828) that even half
the states used winner-take-all laws.
“The National Popular Vote interstate compact will go into effect
when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is,
enough to elect a President (270 of 538). At that time, every voter in
the country will acquire a direct vote for a group of at least 270 presidential
electors supporting their choice for President. All of this group of 270+
presidential electors will be supporters of the candidate who received the most
popular votes in all 50 states and DC—thus making that candidate
President.
“In contrast, under the current system, a voter has a direct voice
in electing only the small number of presidential electors to which their state
is entitled. Under NPV, every voter directly elects 270+ electors.
Click here for a detailed
explanation of each sentence in the National Popular Vote
Interstate Compact Bill.
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.
ABA Legal Fact Check: Can the Electoral College be abolished?
ReplyDeleteThis spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. The National Archives reports that over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College – without any becoming law.
In part, that is because the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. But the Constitution and the courts have allowed the states some leeway to make changes to how their Electoral College representatives are chosen.
The current system for electing a U.S. president traces back to 1787. That’s when the Founding Fathers crafted a compromise between those who argued for the election of the president by a vote of Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. Debate renewed in 2016 after the election of the fifth U.S. president who won the presidency despite losing the popular vote.
The basis for the Electoral College is found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which spells out how the president shall be chosen. It gives each state “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct” electors equal to its representation in Congress. The Constitution originally stipulated that the top vote-getter chosen by these electors would become president and the individual with the second-most votes would be vice president.
But after the presidential election in 1800 resulted in an acrimonious tie vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804. It provides for separate votes for president and vice president and specified that those individuals must be from different states.
In the ensuing 215 years, the Electoral College system itself has changed little, although the popular vote has been rightfully guaranteed to millions more previously denied on the basis of race, gender and age. The presidential election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. In each state, electors meet after the presidential election on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December and cast their votes for president and vice president in separate ballots.
Most states have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all the votes of a state’s electors to the presidential candidate who obtains the most votes in that state. Maine and Nebraska, however, have enacted the congressional district method, which allocates one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each state-drawn district. A split of electoral votes has occurred once in each of these states...
Research by the National Association of Secretaries of State shows that 29 states and the District of Columbia require presidential electors, chosen through political party processes in each state, to cast their vote for the candidate they were selected by popular vote in that state to represent.
ReplyDeleteBut specifics vary. Some laws simply state that electors must vote for the candidate of the party they represent; others require electors to sign an oath or a pledge. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. In winner-take-all states, all electoral votes cast for the state are assigned to the candidate who gets the most electoral votes.
The Constitution is silent on whether states or the electors themselves ultimately can decide which candidate gets the electors’ vote, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed that issue in the handful of cases it has considered related to the Electoral College.
In 1892, the court upheld in McPherson v. Blacker that Congress can set the date nationally for the Electoral College to meet, but it also said that the states could determine how electors were apportioned and chosen. Sixty years later in Ray v. Blair, the court ruled the Constitution, including the 12th Amendment, does not “bar a political party from requiring” electors to sign a pledge to support the nominees of the national convention.
But the court has not tackled to what extent states can enforce such a pledge. Two closely watched cases arising from the 2016 electoral process, however, might provide the justices with an opportunity to do just that.
In August, a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled differently in a case raising similar issues. It said that the Colorado secretary of state erred in removing an elector who cast his vote for then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, even though Colorado law required electors to cast their votes for state-winner Hillary Clinton, a Democrat.
“The Constitution provides no express role for the states after appointment of its presidential electors,” the 10th Circuit panel said, adding, “Once appointed, (electors) are free to vote as they choose.”
It’s possible the Supreme Court will ultimately decide who gets to decide how individual electors vote. If that occurs, the court might provide states additional guidance on just how much leeway they have to impact the Electoral College vote that decides the presidency of the United States.
-AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION