Here in Massachusetts, a poll taken just last week showed 72% support among likely voters — 86% among registered Democrats, 68% among unenrolleds, and 54% among Republicans.
Although Natioanl Popular Vote doesn’t necessarily help one party or the other, the Republicans in Massachusetts are strangely exercised about it. In other states, the proposal has been winning 30-40% support in the Republican caucus, but I will be surprised if we get a single Republican vote here. (Here’s a copy of last session’s roll call in the House — it passed in the Senate, as well, and the only reason it’s not law is the clock ran out before a final procedural vote on the last day of the session though Republican threats of a filibuster helped, too.)
Yet, as the 2000 and 2004 elections demonstrate, this is really not a partisan issue. While few can forget that Bush won the election after loosing by half a million votes in 2000, they fail to appreciate that Kerry came very close to winning in 2004 with a more considerable 3.5 million vote deficit. In fact, we’ve narrowly missed the ‘wrong winner’ in 5 of the last 12 elections. Because you can’t split electors into fractions, the congressional district solution, or proporational allocation by state, yeilds the same bad result. Additionally, many gerrymandered districts are solidly safe and you would see the same lackadaisical contest you see in ‘safe’ states today.
Katherine Harris is another reason to support National Popular Vote — when an election rides on a few hundered votes (or a few thousand, which as is more frequently the case) there is a tremendous incentive to play with the rules, or commit fraud, in order to alter the result.
Think of it this way — with the Electoral College, a margin of, say, 500 votes can result in 27 electoral votes in Florida, and about 10% of the total needed to win. Under a popular vote, 500 votes is exactly that — 500 votes and less than 0.0005% of the votes needed to win. Not even a drop in the bucket. And certainly not worth the risks.
But the real reason to support National Popular Vote is the bizarre way the system affects campaigning and governing. Candidates really only bother with the battleground states. Activists at Blue Mass and elsewhere didn’t call voters in state to persuade them to vote for Obama — they called folks in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, or went up to New Hampshire. Obama and McCain spent 98% of their ad money in just 15 states. States that 65% of us don’t live in. Even now, the vast majority of Obama’s travel is to swing states.
President Bush’s press secretary, Ari Fleisher, recently defended Obama’s travel schedule in the Washington Post saying “If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state and see their President more.” How crazy is that? Voters in Massachusetts should see their President just as frequently as the voters in swing states. National Popular Vote would make it so that each voter, regardless of where he or she lives, will be considered equally valuable at the height of Presidential campaign season — and after.
But there’s more at stake than whether or not Obama pays us a visit every now and again. According to a recent study by BU professor Andrew Reeves, “… a highly competitive state can expect to receive twice as many Presidential disaster declarations than an uncompetitive state, holding all else constant including the damage caused by the disaster…I find that these decisions have the intended electoral benefits — voters react and reward Presidents for Presidential disaster declarations. A President can expect a 1.7% increase in a statewide contest in return for a single Presidential disaster declaration.”
It is easy to think of far-fetched scenarios in an attempt to discredit this proposal, but there are good answers to all of them, not to mention most of these are possible — if not to a worse extent — under the current system.
One common objection is that Massachusetts would cast its electoral votes for the national popular vote winner instead of the winner in our state. Yes, that’s not only true but it’s precisely the point of the whole thing. One country, voting together, everyone on an equal footing. The Electoral College stays in place, but as a rubber stamp for the popular vote in all 50 states. And we will still have bragging rights if our state goes the other way. But we will also be relevant, and our voters will be courted, driven to the polls, and we will benefit from all the other trappings of a real campaign. We’ll have candidate visits, rallies, and those pesky ads (yeah, I know not necessarily a plus, except for the local broadcasters). And no more driving to New Hampshire for politicking except during primary season.We will also see our Presidents more once they’re in office. Our concerns will matter more. And hopefully, more people will realize that all elections — from the top all the way down — really do matter.
Thanks for discussing this issue. As you can tell, I think it’s really important. Please call your state representative and ask him or her to pass this critical reform. And I’ll be back with an update later.
…along with folks in Rhode Island, the Dakotas, Idaho, Texas, New York, and all the other non-battleground states. There’s one simple way to do it — award the presidency to the person who gets the most votes. CommonCause’s common-sense proposal will accomplish that goal, and that’s why MassVOTE is proud to support this bill!
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p>Avi Green
MassVOTE
NPV makes a state LESS relevant as it contains the possibility of actually overrriding the votes as cast by the electorate.
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p>The true solution is aportionmetn of electors, as Maine does, to make the Presidential vote more representational. At that, I COULD have been one of the three electors voting for Bush in 2004 without misrepresenting the votes as cast by the majority of the electorate.
Maine uses CDs. It’s the same problem as states, except that each CD has 1 EV instead of each state having num_CDs EVs.
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p>Only wait — the CD changes over time, and is drawn by partisans in many cases. State borders don’t change every 10 years.
Rep. Brownsberger sent out this op-ed in the wake of his ‘No’ vote during the 2008 House debate on the same bill. While I certainly understand all of the arguments for the bill, it is worth taking a look at the other side as well:
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I really respect Rep Will Brownsberger’s commitment to social economic and racial justice and that along with his hard work studying and research all fifteen sides of important issues of the day is commendable. I imagine him drawing a line down the middle of a yellow legal sized paper and listing all the pros and cons.
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p>He’s not always right about everything, and I think he’s wrong on this one because he might be giving too much weight to his list of all the bad things that might happen if the National Popular Vote campaign succeeds.
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p>Me, I’m always grateful when organizations I trust, like Common Cause, do a careful job for years and years studying and researching issues for me.
how can one not imagine the worst?
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p>In any case, it is not like there are only two options here.
He obviously has given this a helluva lot of thought and considered all the angles. My reasons for opposing NPV however are different to his.
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p>While I am attracted in principle to one-person one-vote, I tend to think that people who think the NPV system will lead to better elections are deluding themselves. When I picture a full on national election, I picture a massive media campaign fuelled by ever growing campaign money, driving the worst excesses of our current system to even greater levels. Candidates would fight the election over the air ways as no single area, constituency or district matters more than any others. It becomes lowest common denominator politics.
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p>It would change the entire nature of presidential campaigns, would diminish the standing of minority groups, who have deeper concentrations in certain states (many of which swing) and would distance the candidates from local issues that often matter most to people. I like when candidates have to pitch in
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p>We’re a massive and diverse country and that diversity is reflected, however imperfectly, in the diverse nature of our regions and states. 310 million and growing. I think only India is a larger democratic nation and they use a parliamentary system that picks its Govt based on who wins the most districts. The entails regional variety and politics being relevant to people in a diverse country. We have never been and today should not be a strictly majoritarian democracy when it comes to electing our president.
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p>I don’t think if 101 million people voted for the Republican and 100 million voted for our candidate I’d feel any better than if our guy/gal lost Ohio and the EC but won the popular vote.
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p>And I think NPV is really wrongheaded to impose while operating under an EC system. Given that campaigns are run state-by-state judging who wins and who loses by the popular vote makes no sense whatsoever. The race would be fought differently under different systems. Maybe if every state did it, but that is not going to be the case with NPV given states can pull out, etc.. If you want to change the system try to do it properly through a constitutional amendment. I know that would be really difficult, but NPV commits our state to committing electors based on a flawed conclusion. Of if you want more reflective votes, dole em out by percentage of state votes or by congressional district.
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p>As a Mass resident, I also don’t like the idea of our state’s electors picking someone that our voters didn’t prefer. Why should a candidate that get’s rocked in Mass get all our votes. I am certain that I’d be pissed off if Mass gave its votes to a Republican it didn’t choose because they won the national vote and in doing so denied an EC victory to the candidate that won the state election.
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p>I know NPV sounds like a simple solution. But politics is never so simple. Be careful what you wish for. After Bush v Gore I can hear the sentiment. But our democracy is old and resilient for a reason. It can always use reform and sometimes I wish it could change faster. We may think Massachusetts is ignored now because its blue bias, but that may not always be the case. I think we could be making a big mistake here. How about a study committee?
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I live in Brownsberger’s district and I will be happy to cast my vote for him this next election. I was disappointed in his pro-drug war stances and his pro-development stance on the Maple Forest and did not vote for him in the past election, but that was an incredibly thoughtful and articulate rational opposition to the NPV. It was incredibly well reasoned and laid out and nuanced and is a breath of fresh air from the stale soundbite politics I am used to.
I might write him to tell him I appreciate his reasoning and I think this press release is very convincing to those on the fence.
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p>I oppose NPV for many of the same reasons. While it technically does not violate the Constitution I view it as an end run around the Constitution. If the people of this country really hate the Electoral College than they should use the existing amendment structure to get the Congress and 2/3rds of the states to agree to the change. Both of my Congressmen (Jesse Jackson Jr. in Chicago and Capuano back home) co-sponsored such an amendment to get rid of the electoral college and have even found some Republican supporters. At the time I wanted the 04 outcome to be Kerry winning via the electoral college since it might have created a bipartisan shift against the electoral college. This is the proper way to do it.
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p>The NPV is a poorly thought out idea, and I for one do not think it is a good idea to replace one undemocratic and complicated system with another undemocratic and complicated system, one that is actually inferior for a lot of reasons. I favor the initial compromise the founders came up with regarding the electoral college and I actually think it ends up working out. Remember it is the states that are exercising their votes and the people in them, not the nation as a whole. This is an important distinction. Secondly even a true national popular vote via amendment might not be agreeable. It would require an even more expensive campaign, media blitzing, kill any grassroots campaigning, and result with the populous states overwhelming everyone else. The Senate and the EC work in part because they give voices and votes to the smaller states and let them have their share. I also think modifying the EC to be based around congressional districts will make many ‘safe states’ competitive including New York, Texas, and California. Introducing IRV in a congressional district for a Presidential election would be a lot easier to manage and would also make the election fairer. But huzzah to Brownsberger for defending our country and making an educated and principled stand in the face of popular opposition.
Although I somewhat disagree with a couple things. First, you say:
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p>I don’t think it’s nearly as important as a distinction as it was at the time of ratification. The key switch occurred when electors went from being prominent statesmen with the duty of representing the best interests of their states (and able to actually discuss the matter in the “college”), to becoming arms of the national parties with little or no actual discretion. In contemporary times, the American people certainly see the president (and I think rightly) as representing the nation as a whole and not simply the result of states exercising their votes. Basing the election on the national vote, rather than the votes of the now irrelevant presidential electors, makes much more sense in the modern era.
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p>Second, you express concern that the NPV “would require an even more expensive campaign, media blitzing, kill any grassroots campaigning, and result with the populous states overwhelming everyone else.” I agree that this would still be the case under NPV, but isn’t clear that this has happened already under the current system? (with the possible exception of the early presidential primaries, which still reflect classic retail politics to some degree). I think that development is independent of the electoral system, and has to do with other factors (including the nationalization of policy and the party system, media technology, and greater campaign professionalization).
I will concede that in many respects the states no longer compel electors the way they used and your other points regarding my analysis about states and not people electing the president. I am no Rand Paul libertarian, but in many ways I do wish state rights and the individuality of states was more important to government than simply a federal identity. I mean we are still a federal government with state sized subdivisions for a reason, a federation and not a unitary state. I think Congressmen and Senators still spend the bulk of their time representing the interests of their state and less time on national issues with a few exceptions in the leadership. But I digress and I do concede our conceptions have evolved from this perhaps antiquated principle I stick to. Remember now I am still not a big 17th amendment fan either but that’s a whole other story.
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p>As for your point about grassroots campaigning I would still argue there is significant retail and grassroots politics in presidential elections at the general election level that would not exist if NPV or some other reform abolished the EC. I did doorknocking in specific precincts for Obama in Indiana that was identical to the kind of campaigning I did for him in Iowa, and local organizations set up shop and kept track of every vote. I doubt you had door to door volunteers for GOTV purposes in MA or South Dakota. Swing states do require that person to person contact and personal requests for votes. And many of the things candidates do in IA and NH they do in swing states, go door to door, hold outdoor free rallies, barnstorm, give speeches, etc. They wouldn’t be campaigning in states otherwise or taking questions from voters in forums etc. and that would be a loss. It would be a big media race conducted from Washington or New York and there would be even less interaction between candidates and voters.
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p>I like my moderate reform where states adopt the ME/NE model,making swing districts rather than swing states the key prize will open up a lot of states to competition, more accurately reflect the ideological composition of those states, and bring even more intimate grassroots style of campaigning by making the presidential election even more localized. Nationalizing it would have the opposite effect. Also it would be easier to adopt a fairer system like IRV at the district level than the state level. Furthermore it connects the voters to ‘their’ elector much like ‘their’ Congressmen and makes the selection more personal, more intimate, and would increase turnout. I think nationalizing the campaign even further would depress turnout.
Representative Brownsberger offers — as usual — a very thoughtful analysis.
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p>The issue of small states and big states is an important one. Many people mistakenly believe that the Electoral College protects states with small populations and ensures ‘geographical broad victory,’ as Representative Brownsberger mentions. In practice, this just doesn’t happen. Of the dozen-or-so smallest states, New Hampshire is the only one that is consistently in play.
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p>He also mentions the procedure for a tie — a process in which each state delegation is allowed a single vote. This provision, which has been largely theoretical, is not only dangerous but also undemocratic. It seems as though it’s more appropriate for us to have an actual popular election then let congress pick a president on our behalf due to a hiccup in an antiquated system. With the National Popular Vote, this tie scenario becomes obsolete.
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p>(If you really want a scare, you can read more about what happens if the U.S. House is unable to pick a candidate — it goes to the U.S. Senate to choose the president from the vice presidential candidates.)
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p>In regard to the argument on turnout, it is true that all states experience the highest participation in presidential elections — even in spectator states. But even so, there are many, many people who still don’t vote in Massachusetts because they know that their vote just doesn’t matter here. We have learned that voting is an addictive behavior — if people feel their voice doesn’t matter in the most important election in the world, what incentive do they have to become interested in down-ticket races?
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p>National Popular Vote would eliminate the incentive for fraud in presidential elections as Pam mentions above:
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p>What’s more, almost all the allegations of voter fraud that were made in 2008 were proven to be baseless. As it stands, we just haven’t seen any large-scale fraud perpetuated. And if that were to change, it would be much, much easier to alter the results of an election with the current system than with a National Popular Vote.
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p>Every significant voting reform has started at the state level, and this is no exception. 72% of Massachusetts residents would prefer direct election of the president. This is a practical, popular reform and the Massachusetts legislature should ensure it’s enacted as soon as possible.
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p>Not exactly, for two reasons.
1. It’s still technically possible to tie on actual votes counted, though admittedly the probability is so low that we might as well call it zero.
2. It’s certainly possible for the NPV outcome to be within a half a percent… as it was in 2000, or even 0.1% as it was in 1960. I’d expect the number of close elections to increase as communications, technology, and the ‘science’ of political science advance. In the case of a super close outcome, what do we do? National recount? That begs for tremendous fraud opportunities. Currently, we only need a recount if both (a) that state is sufficiently close, and (b) the EV margin is less than the value of the state. If that happens (and it can), the scope of the recount is limited to a single state.
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p>In a theoretical world, democracy is great. Everybody votes based on good information and thought, and those votes are tabulated with infinite precision. In America though, none of these things are true. There’s tremendous gamesmanship with turnout, there’s tremendous dishonesty with information, and votes are decidedly not counted with infinite precision. Given that reality, it’s not at all clear that having the House choose is a particularly bad plan. Heck, the scientist in me might even suggest that the House should choose if the popular vote spread is within, say, one percent — since election winners that close are chosen by random or badly behaving events, not democracy.
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p>No, no it wouldn’t. That’s just plain backwards. Fraud scales quite nicely. 500 votes in a Florida election is extremely unlikely to be helpful — not only does the election have to be sufficiently close in Florida, but it would also have to be sufficiently close in EVs. With a NPV, the value of a 500 vote fraud is far easier to quantify… and can be implemented not just in FL, but also in NY and MA and ME and VT and MN and CA and HI and MN. And, it need not be the 500 vote variety — but the 5,000 or 50,000 vote variety. You could easily swing 1 vote out of every 100 from the D to the R in California and the exit polling would never notice it… but you’d have swung 100,000 votes in the NPV. With the EC system, that’s worthless in CA. With NPV, that’s worth 100k votes.
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p>You mean other than the voter roles being purged? Other than the Chicago voting schemes? Other than widespread but small-scale gamesmanship w.r.t. voting locations, ballot formations, poll times, number of machines in each location, etc? One doesn’t need to use legal fraud to have an inappropriate impact… but currently, folks in more than half the states simply have no incentive to do so. That changes with NPV.
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p>Furthermore, the claim that it would be “much, much easier to alter the results of an election with the current system than with [NPV]” doesn’t add up. Sure, the percentage impact of fraud in a single state is larger than for national, but the benefit is less likely to have an impact, because it requires a close outcome in that state and close EVs. With NPV, throwing your POTUS candidate an extra 5,000 votes from Washington are worth 5k votes, even if neither Washington nor any other state’s popular vote is within 3% of a tie. With the EV system, those 5k votes are worthless.
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p>Next time you have that poll, remind them that the Republican state lege makes rules on voter eligibility, that the Republican governor appoints a number of election officials, and that Republican Secretary of the State of Texas is responsible for a fair election, and that the incumbent POTUS in 84, 88, 92, 04, and 08 a Republican) appoints a number of Federal election officials… and that the totals that Texas reports would be binding for the NPV. Then see what that number is.
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p>72% prefer NPV, but I’d bet a significant portion of those haven’t considered the very messy details therein, and in fact largely assume that the Feds control the election (eligibility, voter rolls, machines, polling locations, and counting).
But your concerns are addressed in this document.
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p>For starters:
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p>And lots more!
As a math geek, my eyebrow raised at the “for starters”.
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p>So I read the pdf of 10.3. Then I tried to read the article the pdf cites — and it’s not available. It’s also stated far too strongly… it’s based on a survey of statewide elections, which NPV is distinctly not.
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p>This is actually a hard question to answer. You’ve got to find elections in individual states which have the dynamics of a POTUS election. Maybe governor is a good approximation; I don’t know. Senator? Doubtful.
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p>My question is: what’s the recount threshold? How rare an event was 1960 in an NPV world? How about 2000? It’s really hard to know, since POTUS candidates currently maximize their probability of earning 50%+1 EVs, not maximizing EVs, and certainly not maximizing share in the popular vote.
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p>I have no idea what the odds of necessary national recount would be, but I am extremely skeptical of the blockquote, both because (a) it’s far too precise (and without error bars, (b) because I can’t read the underlying analysis cited by the report, and (c) because I’m skeptical that the samples they used are appropriate or map to a POTUS NPV analysis.
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p>Later on in 10.3, there’s two logical gaps…
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p>1. there would also be, almost inevitably… No. There’s nothing inevitable about the necessity for a state recount if the NPV is close. Nothing at all.
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p>2. Thus, such an election would also be controversial under the current system. While correlated, tight EV margins and tight NPV margins aren’t simultaneous events. If the PV of a state is close but the DV count is not, there’s certainly no controversy now. Why, it happens in just about every election. Nobody cared that McCain carried Missouri by 0.14% because the 11 EVs weren’t enough to change the outcome. This is a key component that many NPV proponents ignore…
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p>The last bit of that section is worthwhile. It states
and I agree completely. However, in each given state, there is a single uniform rule about voter eligibility, polling criteria, ballot access, etc. etc. You give me uniform rules and enforcement on these kinds of issues nationally, and you’ve got a fair comparison.
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p>I can’t control what the other 49 (well, 50) groups do w.r.t. their voting stuff. I can’t be sure that they’re on the up-and-up. The current situation is no better, except that the ‘damage’ those states can do is limited by their number of EVs. With NPV and the current 51 sets of rules and regs, the limit of their damage is much broader.
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p>It’s not one person, one vote. A convicted felon, in prison, can vote in Maine. A convicted felon, out free and clear for decades, can’t vote in Virginia. In Massachusetts, you’ve got to register 19 days early; in Minnesota you can register same-day. In Kentucky, you’ve got to vote by 6pm lest you’re out in the cold; in Oregon there are no voting places at all, vote-by-mail’s the game. In some states, the SecO’State purges the voter file of blacks just before a presidential election (Harris).
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p>Until the rules for the elections in all 50 states are fair and administered fairly, I’m just not interested in NPV. There’s little incentive for a thug or hack in Texas or New York to mess with presidential vote tallies — the EVs in those states are a given. But, with NPV, every stolen or fraudulent vote counts!
But the problems you note seem like an even bigger problem under the current system. Because the votes in some states (the battleground states) are magnified, every stolen/fraudulent vote counts even more in those states.
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p>For example, you note that a few of the swing states have the ridiculous (and unconstitutional, in my opinion) policy of restricting the vote from felons who have already served their sentence. In the country as a whole, the number of people affected by this is a drop in the bucket. In the few states where this policy is in place, however — like Virginia and Florida — excluding these voters can swing 100% of the state’s electoral votes and quite possibly the election. Because the impact of excluding these votes would be reduced if it was the national popular vote rather than the electoral votes that mattered, this problem would seem less severe, not more, under the NPV system.
Swing states tend to be moderate. They tend to have moderate politicians — if only because a more extreme law requires the majority party of the lower chamber, upper chamber, and governor’s office to be the same. States where the EVs are a foregone conclusion tend to have more extreme laws on the books, precisely because the electorate is heavily skewed to one side or the other. These are like Massachusetts and Texas and Wyoming and Hawai’i and so forth.
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p>My claim is that the states with the most extreme voting laws, regulations, and enforcements tend to be states where the EV is a foregone conclusion.
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p>It turns out that VA and FL are exceptions. VA only recently became swingy — between 1983 and 2007 they had exactly 6 years of Dem senator and 42 years of GOP senator. Prior to BHO, the last Dem presidential candidate who got VA’s EVs was LBJ. While the local (state) politics in VA have bounced between Dem populism (90s) and GOP theocracy (00s), it’s always had a crime and punishment feel, thereby perhaps explaining the extremely-tough-on-felon-vote stance. As for Florida, well Florida is an enigma wrapped in a riddle for all sorts of reasons.
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p>However, for the most part, it would seem that the swingy states tend to have pretty moderate, low controversy voting setups — contrast that with places like Chicago or Georgia.
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p>Bottom line: I think that NPV makes voter fraud more valuable, more distributed, and more likely to occur in places where the authorities have less of a, ahem, history of cracking down on fraud perpetrated for the political party in power in that area.
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p>I’m not opposed to NPV — but I do think that we need to clean up the 50 states’ election protocols first. Whether this is done state by state as part of NPV or whether it’s done with federal law or with Constitutional amendments, I don’t know. I do know that our aggregate election system is woeful from a systems engineering perspective, as it violates ethical standards, non-partisan standards, is remarkably prone to small-scale shenanigans both real and imagined, and is terribly insecure. The Electoral College, coincidentally, minimizes the potential damage precisely because it limits the voting locations where the vote is statistically likely to make a difference, thereby making it easier for the candidates and third party groups to monitor those locations for problems.
Even if you assume that ‘spectator’ states have laws that are less moderate than our current ‘swing’ states, this will be less of a concern with a single block of several hundred million votes nationwide. There will always be variances from state to state, but the National Popular Vote system will downplay their effect on the presidential elections, not exacerbate it. And, in the instance when race does become close in a state with extreme election laws, we’ll be thankful we did something to prevent them from taking the rest of us along for a ride.
but you provide no persuasive argument. In fact, you provide no argument at all.
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p>I’ve made an argument as to why I think NPV will be problematic given the current and historical behavior of folks involved in elections in both liberal and conservative strongholds, and those problems will be exacerbated because those locations have no incentive to swing votes now since their EVs are a given, but will have an incentive to swing ’em with NPV.
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p>You’ve offered no argument to the contrary, just, well… you’ve offered nothing but empty promises.
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p>Why do you believe that NPV will downplay the effect of foul play, instead of exacerbating or inentivizing it?
As the Brennan Center indicates, most allegations of foul play are baseless. As such, it’s highly unlikely that voter fraud has had any significant impact in the past within the Electoral College system. If it were to occur within the context of a national popular vote, it’s impact would be even more negligible.
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p>The national popular vote total in past presidential elections has never approached the margin of error. It would take a large-scale, systematic corruption of multiple state’s voting systems to threaten the results’ validity. I suppose anything is possible, but a conspiracy like this is incredibly remote. There’s much greater incentive now for foul play to be concentrated in a single state where the stakes can be amplified by the winner-takes-all system.
As the Brennan Center indicates, most allegations of foul play are baseless.
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p>Under the current system, perhaps. NPV creates entirely new opportunties for foul play.
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p>Suppose Texas reports in the 2016 election that one billion votes have been cast in that state for George Bush III: what do we do then?
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p>It doesn’t even have to be foul play in the sense of illegality. Suppose that Texas duly enacts a law decreeing that every voter in that state gets to cast one hundred billion votes for president. What do we do when Texas accurately and legally reports that fifty quadrillion votes have been cast in that state for George Bush III?
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p>Of course, all those things are addressed on the NPV web page:
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p>”10.3.5 … In short, no state has any power to judge the presidential election returns of any other state under either the National Popular Vote compact or the current system.”
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p>Whoops.
But I’m not sure I buy the notion that “the states with the most extreme voting laws, regulations, and enforcements tend to be states where the EV is a foregone conclusion.”
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p>Is it really true, for example, that voter fraud would be easier to conduct in Massachusetts or Delaware as opposed to Ohio or Missouri? I’m just not sure that that’s true from an empirical standpoint.
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p>As far as the swing states create moderate laws idea, I’m not sure that’s necessarily true either. Back to the disenfranchisement of freed felons issue (which is one of the “most extreme” electoral laws on the books, in my opinion), these laws are concentrated in the South, where there is a mix of swing (VA, FL) and non-swing (KY, AL) states with strong felon disenfranchisement laws. It seems that a state’s propensity to have these laws on the books has more to do with them being in the South, rather than being moderate because they are swing-y.
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p>On the other hand, the two states that allow all felons to vote — Vermont and Maine — are not swing states at all. Again, though, the presence of these laws probably has more to do with the fact that the rates of incarceration are quite low in these states.
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p>I’ve used the felon disenfranchisement issue as an example, but even outside of this issue area I don’t see any reason to believe that swing states = moderate electoral laws while non-competitive states = extreme electoral laws.
This is mainly a procedural rather than substantive question, but one concern I have is in regards the constitutionality of the proposal.The bill states that the NPV goes into effect after enough states adopt it to form a majority of electoral votes. However, wouldn’t Congress have to approve this first (just as a bill, not a constitutional amendment)? Article I, Section 10 states:
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(emphasis added)
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p>I know that states also retain the power to choose their own electors, but at the least this seems like a potential constitutional problem since this is undoubtedly “a compact with another state.” At the very least, it would seem exceedingly likely that this would be litigated for quite some time. Unfortunately, I’d have to think actually getting congressional approval is unlikely because of Senators from the smaller states blocking it.
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p>As far as the substance, I think this NPV proposal is the only practical way to dispense with the Electoral College, which was flawed from the beginning (and even though it was amended soon after ratification…it’s still flawed). The underlying policy is good, but my main concern is with this is that potential constitutional problem, which may be fatal or at least quite problematic.
I hadn’t yet seen this objection, which to this non-lawyer seems like a legitimate concern.
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p>I disagree which just which Senators would block it though — I’d expect the senators from FL, NM, WI, IA, OR, NH, MN, MO, OH, NV, TN, PA, ME, MI, AR, WA, AZ, WV, LA, VA, CO, VT to be more likely to oppose it. These were the 22 closest states, in order, in the 2000 election. I use that one because it was so remarkably close; these are the states which know they’re going to get attention in the close elections. Sure, if you’re lower on that list and smaller, you’ll get less attention (VT, WV, AR, ME), but the point still stands. It’s not about being small: AK, MT, ND, SD, WY, ID, HI, DE, RI, VT, ME, and DC all have 3 or 4 EVs and get little attention currently. Likewise, it’s not just about being big: candidates spend little time trying to get voters in CA, TX, IL, GA, NY, or MA — and, in the 90s and 00s pre ’08 they also didn’t have to work for the EVs in IN, VA, or NC.
This issue is addressed starting on page 439 of the book Every Vote Equal. It states, and elaborates on, the following premise:
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p>The section is only a few pages long, and well worth reading for those with concerns about this particular issue. Many — if not all — of the other concerns can be answered in this chapter of the book, as well.
That overall the current “swing” states would be the most opposed to the plan. I looked at the list of states that have had at least one legislative house pass it so far, and there’s a mix of large and small states. However, there are a couple of somewhat swing-y states on list, such as Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon. It seems like it’s more a blue-state red-state divide at this point.
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p>In the future, though, I would think it likely that swing states would want to maintain their edge while I’d expect states like New York and California to jump all over this.
In regard to the issue of congressional consent.
That’s interesting. I still think it’s an open question, but the pro-NPV side does have a strong argument on the compacts question.
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p>By the way, do you know why non-competitive large states like New York and Texas haven’t enacted this yet? I would expect they (along with CA and others) would love this proposal. New York, for example, gets almost no attention during the presidential election season (other than fund-raising), but would be much more of a player under the NPV system.
First, having a national popular vote for President, while it would make small, sparsely populated states more involved in the race, the most effort is still going to be concentrated in the heavily populated states and cities, where the votes are. The President will be the President of people, not acres as the past few elections have been.
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p>Second, while it was a nice wish to have been able to cast a vote for Bush in 2004 had MA used proportional allocation of electoral votes, what would the result have been in 2000 when Bush lost the popular vote to Gore? History might have been significantly different, with no question of ’04 for Bush. If any such analysis has been made, I don’t recall it.
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p>I’m not so sure your conclusion is right. I’d expect Dem candidates to begin at city centers and work outward toward the suburbs. I’d expect GOP candidates to do the reverse — to start in rural areas and move in toward the cities from all sides. Sure, the Dem has a physical advantage in that a single event can hold more people “within the region of interest” but it’s not that straightforward. Both D and R POTUS candidates go to the cities and the state fairs in swing states; why wouldn’t they continue to do just that, albeit over more states?
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p>The ‘burbs are expansive and oh-so-swingy. That’s where I’d expect lots of turf wars to take place, be it in the suburbs of Chicago or the suburbs of San Antonio.
The micro targeting you describe would not take place – it would be more macro level bombardment on the air ways, and using as much free media as possible.
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p>I agreed with Tip O’Neill that all politics is local. We would lose that with NPV.
Every elected national government has the same issue, except it’s parliament seats not EC votes. In any system like this, it’s possible to get a majority of parliament seats/EC votes and lose the popular vote. We’ve done it 4 out of 50 some elections. Not an insignificant “failure” rate.
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p>That said, this is like adding ever more epicycles to Ptolemy’s earth centered model of the universe. Or putting more Bondo on the beater. If the EC is crap, junk it. I know the likelihood of that isn’t good. But still, more epicycles?
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p>A couple of things bother me.
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p>One, is that this doesn’t eliminate battleground states. It just creates different ones. North Dakota is still North Dakota, great state, but politically still small and insignificant. We’ll see more campaigning, presumably, but NH, ME, RI, VT? Small states have fewer EC’s because they have fewer voters.
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p>Campaigns are going to go where the votes are, places like NY, California, Texas, Florida, etc. I still think campaigns end up focusing on 15-20 states and ignore the rest. Same as now.
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p>The “George Wallace” Scenario bothers me, too. Someone grabbing a huge margin in a single region and winning with a small plurality in a multiple candidate race. We have had significant third party and independent candidates a few times. How does this address the possibility of someone winning with 30-35% of the vote? Does that matter?
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p>Just asking.
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People who think NPV is some silver bullet to improve democracy are deluding themselves. It will just change the nature of the campaign, and I fear for the worst. More money, less localised, less on the ground and more on the airways.
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p>As you point out, if we wanted an NPV system we would need to either have a runoff or the alternative vote system where people’s second preferences are apportioned to other candidates until someone has 50%. Otherwise, we risk picking a president with less of a mandate than under the current system.
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p>I think you’ve put your finger on perhaps the best contemporary argument for the Electoral College. Unlike with the popular vote, where it is very difficult to get a true mandate (because even 55% of the vote is a “landslide”), it is quite possible to get such a significant percentage of the Electoral College that it becomes very clear who the American people have chosen as their next President.
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p>I’m generally a critic of the Electoral College, since it was flawed from the beginning (which the Framers soon realized themselves) and because the original reasons for it are now moot or at least significantly minimized. Still, I think the “mandate-creating effect” that the EC has is quite valuable, and at least should be taken into account.
Even swing states aren’t swing states. It’s not as if attention is equally lavished in Florida: It’s the Tampa-Orlando corridor. Miami doesn’t get huge attention. Neither does Colorado Springs.
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p>Granted, areas with many undecided/unenrolled voters that lie in current swing states may be targeted more often, but do you really think NPV will make Cambride or the Dallas suburbs worthwhile for candidates?
OK, a state can withdraw until Election Year June. But what if a state withdraws over the summer, or in October? Or in late November, for that matter?
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p>We have seen our own legislature change the rules for filling a vacant Senate seat, in 2004, and then again last year, for patently naked political reasons. If our honorable General Court had an opportunity to swing a presidential election away from a Republican and back to a Democrat by withdrawing from the pact, it would do so.
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p>How can the other states enforce it? Would they get a mandamus directing how the state’s electors should vote? Bush v Gore approaches having the federal government assume control of a state’s electoral process, but that would be a lousy precedent to rely on.