6th State To Enact Legislation to Establish A National Popular Vote to Elect President!

[Better Believe It]

Massachusetts Gov. Patrick to Sign Legislation that Will Reform Electoral College with National Popular Vote Plan

Advocates to hold telephone press briefing Wednesday at 1:30 to address common questions and misperceptions

BOSTON -- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick today is scheduled to sign into law legislation that would reform the electoral college system and establish a national popular vote once enough states have signed on. Advocates will hold a telephone press conference to answer questions and dispel misperceptions about the plan at 1:30 today.

Massachusetts is set to become the sixth state to join the interstate compact that would guarantee the presidency to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states, once a sufficient number of states have passed identical laws. The Bay State will add 12 electoral votes to the compact, which has already been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington, bringing the total number to 73, or 27 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the proposal.

“Massachusetts has moved the country one step closer to abandoning an outdated system that disenfranchises two-thirds of the country and four times in our history has elected the second-place candidate,” said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a lead advocate for the legislation in Massachusetts and elsewhere. “With a national popular vote, all votes in every state will be equally important.”

Advocates will host a briefing to address common questions and misperceptions of the proposal, as well as to highlight recent successes. Recent inaccuracies in media coverage will also be addressed.

What: Telephone Press Briefing

Who: John Koza, National Popular Vote chairman, Pam Wilmot, executive director, Common Cause Massachusetts, Republican Minnesota state Rep. Laura Brod, national popular vote co-sponsor.

Date: Wednesday, August 4

Time: 1:30 pm ET

Call-In Number: 1- [phone]

http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773613&ct=8569323


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NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: August 4, 2010 Contact: Pam Wilmot 617-426-9600
617-962-0034
Editorial Memorandum

(First section may also be run as an op-ed by Pam Wilmot, executive director of
Common Cause Massachusetts):

Massachusetts Joins Growing Effort to Elect the President Using
A National Popular Vote

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick today will sign legislation that will change the way the
country elects its President from the current state-by-state winner-take-all electoral college to a
direct National Popular Vote—once a sufficient number of states have passed identical legislation.

Massachusetts is the sixth state to join the compact following Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New
Jersey, and Washington. Massachusetts will add 12 electors, bringing the total number to 73, or 27
percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the plan.

Once in effect, states that have approved the compact will award their electors as a bloc to the
winner of the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, thereby guaranteeing the
presidency to the winner of the nationwide popular vote.

Under the current system, the presidential election is not decided by all of the American people.
Instead, it is determined by a handful of closely divided “battleground” states, such as Ohio and
Florida, make the decision for the rest of us. About 98 percent of all advertizing and candidate visits
in the presidential general election are done in just 15 states. Meanwhile, voters in more than twothirds
of the states, including regularly blue states such as Massachusetts and regularly red states
such as Texas, are ignored. No ads, no get-out-the-vote, no political campaigning. The Democratic
presidential candidate gets credit for Republican votes in blue states and vice versa in red states.

The consequences of this broken system are significant: voter participation rates are among the
lowest in the world, all sorts of partisan mischief runs rampant in battleground states, and of course
a candidate with fewer votes can be elected President. Four times in our 56 presidential elections the
candidate who placed second in the popular vote has won the highest office in the nation. In five of
the last 12 presidential elections, a switch of a handful of votes in one or two states would have
elected the candidate who did not receive the most popular votes nationwide.

National Popular Vote is a constitutional and practical way to implement nationwide popular
election of the President—a goal supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans (over 70
percent in Gallup polls, 72 percent in a recent poll of 800 likely Massachusetts voters).

No constitutional amendment is needed because the right to choose the manner in which electors are selected
is an exclusive state power under Article II of the Constitution. . Massachusetts, for example, has chosen
presidential electors in ten different ways over the years—including letting the state legislature decide
without any direct involvement by the people, by a combination of popular voting and legislative
appointment, by congressional district, and in recent years, on a statewide winner-take-all basis. Other states,
such as Maine and Nebraska, use the district approach.

National Popular Vote will make all votes equally important in the most significant election in the
world using powers that the Founding Fathers gave exclusively to the states. This critical reform is
long overdue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backgrounder

PROBLEMS WITH THE CURRENT SYSTEM OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS


Effectively disenfranchises voters in more than two-thirds of the states who do not live in
closely divided battleground states.


Presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or campaign in
states that they cannot possibly win or lose, and spend the vast majority of their advertising
money and campaign visits in just five very close states—57% in 2008 and over 70% in
2000 and 2004.


Voters in "spectator states" including Massachusetts, six of the nation's 10 most populous
states (California, Texas, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and North Carolina), and 12 of
the 13 least populous states (all but New Hampshire) have no real incentive to go to the polls
as their votes do not affect the outcome of the election.


The candidate who placed second in the popular vote was elected in 2000, 1888, 1876, and
1824. A shift of a handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place
candidate in five of the last 12 presidential elections.

WHY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE IS BETTER


The National Popular Vote would make all votes equal.


It would bring candidates or their surrogates to every state.


It would ensure that the candidate with the most popular votes wins.


It would give voters in all states, regardless of party affiliation, an incentive to vote in
presidential elections and would help build get out the vote efforts in all states.


It would increase voter engagement.


It would rid the nation of falsely polarized red and blue election night maps.


It would positively influence governing decisions in this era of perpetual campaigns.


HOW THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PROPOSAL WOULD WORK

States currently have the power to award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote,
although this would be disadvantageous to the state that did this unless it was joined simultaneously
by other states that represent a majority of electoral votes. Hence the National Popular Vote plan is
an interstate compact—a type of state law authorized by the U.S. Constitution that enables states to
enter into a legally enforceable contractual obligation to undertake agreed joint actions, that may
be delayed in implementation until a requisite number of states join in. There are more than a
thousand interstate compacts, and each state in the United States belongs to dozens of them.

Under the National Popular Vote plan, the compact would take effect only when identical
enabling legislation has been enacted by states collectively possessing a majority of the electoral
votes— that is 270 of the 538 electoral votes. Once effective, states could withdraw from the
compact at any time except during the six-month window between July 20 of an election year and
inauguration day (January 20). To determine the National Popular Vote winner, state election
officials would simply tally the nationwide vote for President based on each state’s official results.
Then, state elections officials in all states participating in the plan would award their electoral votes
to the presidential candidate who receives the largest number of popular votes in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia. The winner would receive all of the compacting states’ electoral votes
plus additional electoral votes from whatever non-compacting states happened to be carried by the
nationwide winner. Thus, in practice, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes
nationwide would typically receive about three-quarters of the electoral votes.

OTHER BENEFITS OF THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN


Finality: The supermajority of electors under the National Popular Vote plan would also
eliminate the possibility of a presidential election being thrown into the House of
Representatives (where each state would have one vote).


Accuracy and Security: With a single massive pool of 122,000,000 votes, there is less
opportunity for a close outcome or recount (and less incentive for fraud) with National
Popular Vote than with 51 separate smaller pools, where a few hundred popular votes can
decide the presidency. For example, President Bush was a decisive 3.5 million votes
ahead of John Kerry a majority of the electoral votes. Similarly, the disputed 2000
presidential election was an artificial crisis created by Bush's 537-vote lead in Florida in
an election in where Gore had a 537,179-vote lead nationwide (1,000 times greater). No
popular vote for has ever been within the margin of recount error (.1 percent ).

NATIONWIDE POPULAR ELECTION WILL GIVE A VOICE TO SMALL STATES

The least populous states get no advantage from the current system of electing presidential
candidates, nor are they controlled by a single political party. In fact, 12 of the 13 smallest states
are completely sidelined in presidential elections because they are politically non-competitive.
Small states are well aware of the illusory nature of their electoral bonus and have supported this
and previous attempts to change the system. The National Popular Vote compact has been already
been approved by many small state legislatures. In the 1960s, a group of small states led by
Delaware even sued New York (then a battleground state) in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that
New York's use of the winner-take-all method for choosing its electors effectively disenfranchised
voters in their states. The court affirmed the state of New York’s plenary and complete authority to
decide how to award its electors regardless of how it affected the other states.

NATIONAL POPULAR ELECTION MEANS A RURAL AND URBAN CAMPAIGN IN
ALL 50 STATES

Although it is sometimes conjectured that a national popular election would focus only on big cities,
it is clear that this would not be the case. Evidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign
would be run can be found by examining the way presidential candidates currently campaign inside
battleground states or Governors campaign in all states. Inside Ohio or Florida, the big cities do not
receive all the attention, and they certainly do not control the outcome. Because every vote is equal
inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large
towns. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other
campaign resources) demonstrate what every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in every state
already knows—namely that when every vote matters, the campaign must be run in every part of
the state (or in this case, country).

THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS CONSTITUTIONAL, PRACTICAL, AND
CONSISTENT WITH MANY PREVIOUS NATIONAL ELECTORAL ADVANCES

The selection of presidential electors is specifically and exclusively entrusted to the states by the
Constitution. As with other powers entrusted to the states, it is an application, not a circumvention,
of the Constitution when the states utilize those powers as they see fit. In contrast, other issues
related to the federal government are not exclusively entrusted to the states, and therefore the states
lack the power to alter them.

State leadership in the electoral process has long been an important part of our democratic system.
States are known as the “laboratories of democracy,” because through state leadership, the nation
can institute new reforms without going through the cumbersome and often politically impossible
process of amending the Constitution. While there has been no electoral compact to date, in
Oregon v. Mitchell, Justice Potter Stewart endorsed the concept of an electoral interstate compact.
Moreover, many changes in the voting process have occurred through state action without, or prior
to, a Constitutional amendment. For example, the Constitution originally required that Senators be
selected by state legislatures. Starting in 1907 many States created “advisory” elections for the
Senate. This de facto popular vote was later made official and obligatory on the states with the 17th
Amendment. Women, blacks, and people over the age of 18 were all permitted to vote in many
states, including in Federal elections, prior to their inclusion in the Constitution.

A POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT WOULD NOT LEAD TO A PROLIFERATION OF
CANDIATES AND WOULD INFACT DECREASE THE POWER OF THIRD PARTIES

The nation has over 200 years of experience in electing governors (and virtually every other office
in the country) under a system in which the winner of an election is the candidate who receives the
most popular votes. Popular election has not led to a proliferation of one-issue or minor party
candidates. In fact, plurality voting rewards the formation of broad coalitions (political parties) and
disadvantages one-issue candidacies. In the past 30 years only three minor party candidates and one
non-party candidate have won Governorships. These candidates had broad appeal and were
preferred by the most people in their states. Other democracies with ranked choice voting systems
and proportional representation (virtually all other democracies) promote the formation of multiple
parties and hence have many different candidates for their chief executive. Plurality voting
discourages such candidacies. Moreover, under today’s existing system of electing the President, no
state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than a plurality of the popular
votes in order to receive all of the state’s electoral votes.

Finally, the current system of electing a President gives small parties or single-issue candidates even
more power than a popular vote would. By winning a single medium-sized state, a candidate could
currently throw the entire election into the US House of Representatives where each state gets a
single vote for President. More frequently, a small party candidate affects the result in key swing
states as happened in the 2000 election. Although Ralph Nader got a miniscule portion of the
popular vote he was able to get enough votes in several states, most notably Florida, to tip the state
into the Red column and therefore swing an entire election. Nader has spoken about the importance
of third parties ability to “sting” major parties and therefore influence them. With a National
Popular Vote, that “sting” would be eliminated.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN
The National Popular Vote proposal is described in detail in the Every Vote Equal: A State-
Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote. The book, and other information,
is available to be read or downloaded, for free, at www.NationalPopularVote.com

http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/EDITMEMOMANPV.PDF

[Kalyke]

1. I hope this happens, but I doubt any red states or

borderline red states will join up.

Basically, you'd have to pray Virginia and Florida would do this - they're purple.

Otherwise, I'm having hard time seeing how we get to 270.

[KamaAina]

2. Indeed. I noticed a distinct lack of red states in that list.

:shrug:

[Roland99]

3. There's a much better solution....

Publicly. Funded. Campaigns.



At ALL levels of government.


No more private donations to any single candidate. No more corporate donations to any single candidate.

ALL donations go into a public campaign fund and disseminated to candidates.

[Better Believe It]

5. Will all candidates and parties be equally funded, included 3rd parties and independent candidates?

[Roland99]

6. Monies should be equally divided amongst candidates

imo.

[Better Believe It]

7. I agree with you but think it's highly unlikely the current two major parties will agree to that.

[Roland99]

8. Tragically, I think you're correct in that statement.

The two-party delusion run by the corporate overlords would never allow that to occur.

[AlabamaLibrul]

10. Neither one is the perfect solution. BOTH is.

Until we enact a national popular vote as the system for voting for a President (and getting some sort of paper trail into the records, even if it is a paper trail made by a computer), the idea of "one man, one vote" can't play out.

We never, NEVER would have had the disaster of the 2000 election if the popular vote was the method of choosing a President. It would have been a non-issue. Gore would have won. The Supremes wouldn't have gotten involved and rigged the election.

[Angry Dragon]

4. For years i questioned the value of electoral votes

[Better Believe It]

9. It's an undemocratic procedure.