How would candidates campaign everywhere?

If the national popular vote mattered, then obviously in the general election the major candidates would have an incentive to campaign everywhere for every likely voter for their party.

To envision how they would conduct their campaigns we can look to the primaries where the nominees are selected and to commercial retail. In both cases—whether a person is selling a personality coupled with policy promises (the primaries) or a company is selling computer chips or potato chips (retail)—we know that the goal is close the sale to as many people as possible. 

The first step is designing the product. A candidate, like a chip (hardware or chewy-ware, if that's an acceptable neologism), would have to suit the preferences of most people. To win a national popular vote a candidate would have to reflect the majority preferences on immigration (it's good); battling climate change (it's necessary); early child care subsidized by the government (important); better publicly funded infrastructure including high voltage power, high speed trains, and repaired roads (critical); limits on rounds per magazine in automatic weapons (of course); and a host of other topics. 

Second, the candidate like the retailer has to build a brand. The means of branding would be to reach a national audience. That would lead to advertising on television content that huge audiences watch, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. Currently 95% of all political advertising in the general election goes to local television in less than 10 states. We see in the critical early primaries, like Iowa, this same pattern within one state. But to build a national brand more than 5% would have to go to national advertising, such as on network shows. National branding would have to align with product-market fit; namely, the candidates' branding would have to appeal to the preferences of most people, instead of suiting niche audiences in a handful of states.

Third, just as Amazon delivers anything to anyone anywhere, candidates would deliver their messages to everyone. They would poll everyone in every town, which is feasible in the post-landline polling age we are now in. Their parties would offer to mail information, send out ballot applications virtually or by street mail, to everyone. The postal service would make more money; mail carriers would be part of the expansion of democracy to every precinct in the country. Social media advertising would go up in the aggregate, and would reach every demographic segment. It's important to note that the Internet does not care where you live. So using virtual mechanisms to reach everyone would certainly be part of national campaigning to win the national popular vote.

Fourth, television matters hugely, but in the current crabbed, confined system of competing only for swing votes in swing states, television advertising money in the general election goes to a handful of television stations. If the national vote mattered, middle and small sized television markets all over the country would get injections of political advertising. 

 Fifth, perhaps most interesting, local newspapers every four years would get a much needed injection of advertising. The cost of reaching their readers is relatively low and they offer a good way to present a candidacy. Newspapers in Mississippi and Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina, and all the other areas currently in the land of ignored for the presidential candidates would not only get political advertising but they also would get interviews with candidates. They would have to hire reporters! That alone would reverse at least in part the sad trend of the last two decades of shrinking local news coverage. 

Sixth, in big cities television advertising is too expensive. So in the top 10 media markets, social media would be used to reach voters in very large part. 

Overall the amount of money spent would go up, but the amount spent per person would go down. This would be a relief for the badgered and beleaguered voters in the swing states who justifiably feel they are bothered way too much by advertising in presidential elections. 


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ICYWTK

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Someone asked me the other day what I most disliked about the Electoral College system (that any state law can change). Huge is the fact that the system virtually forces the candidates to ignore the views of the vast majority of Americans. But here's the whole list of what disturbs your correspondent.

1. Makes the views of most Americans irrelevant to presidential candidates.  The Electoral College system creates swing states—they are accidents of demography, states where the balance of right and left leaning voters by happenstance is roughly equal. Most state populations tilt one way or the other. These are the ignored states, because the candidates know who will win the plurality. But more than 80% of Americans live in the land of the ignored. There strong majorities support more government action on infrastructure, shift to clean power, limitations of the size of magazines in assault weapons, the well-off paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the middle to lower income households, more government support of higher education so college doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and immigration reform to give clarity to millions of people about whether they can or cannot ever become citizens. The Electoral College system motivates the candidates to appeal to the views of the few and ignore the wishes of the many.

2. Bad for Black Americans. The framers of the Constitution designed the Electoral College to make sure that no abolitionist could become president. When Lincoln got elected in 1860, and the civil war ensued, in the aftermath the former Confederate states in the south adapted the system to make sure that all electors from their state represented white supremacists and no former slaves could ever send an elector to choose the president. To this very day that same system suppresses the relevance of African American votes in almost every election. This is why Barack Obama got zero electors from South Carolina to Texas—right across the heartland of the old Confederacy.

3. Unfair to women. The Electoral College is biased against women. More women vote than men. Women turned out a bigger majority for their preferred candidate than men did for theirs. But somehow the choice of males got elected in 2016 and 2000. Why? The Electoral College made the election turn not on the views of the whole country but only on the skinny margins of a handful of states where the views of women were felt a little less strongly than in the whole country. 

4. Treats legal immigrants as second class citizens. The Electoral College is biased against immigrant citizens even to the second generation. Most immigrants live in just five states—the states that are portals to the country. In all these five except Florida the candidates of both parties take the election results for granted, and so they ignore the wishes of immigrants. And in Florida the immigrants who matter most matter are Spanish speakers not from Mexico. No candidate could campaign about a wall or rail against immigration except for the unfairness of the Electoral College.

5. Throws shade on workers. The Electoral College is biased against workers who hold jobs located mostly in the 40 states that are taken for granted. Loggers and longshoremen for example are ignored while coal miners get lots of attention. Why? Coal miners live in swing states. The others don't. This unfairness exists only because every vote does not matter—hardly any votes matter except those in swing states.


Delaware Senate Passes Popular Vote Bill with Bipartisan Support

The Delaware Senate has passed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact 14-7, with all Democrats and two Republicans backing the bill.  The bill now moves to the Delaware House, with a vote likely next week. 

If presidential candidates have to compete for the popular vote to win, every vote will count. Whether you live in state that's big or small, red or blue, all votes will be counted the same.


Delaware and Maine Consider the National Popular Vote

Legislative committees in Delaware and Maine have referred the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact for a full vote.  If Delaware and Maine both pass the legislation, the Compact will have 188 votes.  Once states with 270 total electoral votes join the Compact, the states agree to pledge all of their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, guaranteeing that person will become the president.


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Right, Professor, Right

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In his book “No Property in Man,” historian Sean Wilentz writes of the Constitution’s Framers, “On July 20, the delegates gave their initial approval to what might have been the most decisive triumph on behalf of slavery of the entire convention….the creation of the Electoral College.” Page 70.

The Electoral College was conceived in the sin of slavery. No one now argues that slavery was anything other than a horrible proof of the depravity of human beings. Holding on to it was the single strongest motive of the southerners at the convention.

As Wilentz writes, “the convention divided between those more and those less impressed by the competence of popular rule,” but beyond doubt “southerners in both groups had an additional reason to oppose popular election of the president.”

What was that? And does it still lurk in the thinking of those who oppose direct election by national popular vote of the president? See, e.g., former Maine Governor Paul LePage, who oppose direct election because it would empower non-white voters.

Wilentz explains that because slaves would not be able to vote, “southerners were unlikely ever to win the presidency under a democratic system.”

Even today, more than 200 years later, African American voters in the south typically play little to no role in the general election of the president – because the electoral system systematically discards the votes for runners-up, which usually is where the non-white vote in the polarized south goes:

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To win the southern states’ agreement to vote for the constitution, Madison apportioned the electors according to total of the seats in the House, which gave weight to slaves on a three-fifths basis, and seats in the Senate, which gave weight to relatively underpopulated states (which came to include more slave states, like the nearly empty Florida and Arkansas). The unsurprising result, Wilentz explains, was that “four of the first six presidents of the United States were Virginia slaveholders.” He might have gone on to say that no president was anti-slavery until Abraham Lincoln in 1860. And Lincoln won only because the Democratic Party split between northern and southern factions.

The history of America is the history of race and the principal arguments for the Electoral College system today are, whether or not well-intentioned, all too clearly resonant of the views of the southern delegates in the 18th century and Governor LePage this week.


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FiveThirtyEight Takes a Look at the Popular Vote Movement

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The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is gaining momentum and getting attention. Political forecasting website  FiveThirtyEight notes that with the addition of Colorado, the first state to join the compact that is not solidly blue, the Compact has reached a huge milestone and is two-thirds of the way to the 270 votes needed to guarantee the president would have to win the popular vote.

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The FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast also covered the national popular vote movement, and discussed the ways that the Electoral College system distorts the way candidates campaign. 

In reality, the problem goes much further than campaign stops or advertising money.  The Electoral College system also warps the way that presidents seeking re-election govern—and the consequences are very real.


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Prominent Republicans Come out in Favor of the National Popular Vote

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Michael Steele, former Chair of the Republican National Committee, and Saul Anuzis, former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party, are urging their fellow Republicans to support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact in Delaware.  They note that:

Over the seven presidential elections since 1988, exactly 1,013,308 Delawareans have trekked to the polls to cast their popular votes for the Republican ticket. Yet their efforts have not produced one single GOP electoral vote. Because in election after election, Delaware delivered the majority of its popular vote – and under the “winner-take-all” system, all of its electoral votes – to the Democrat ticket.

…

Delaware Republicans need to be politically relevant again in every presidential election. A vote in Delaware should count as much toward electing a president as a vote in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, or any other state.

A system that makes candidates from both parties compete for all votes everywhere is the best thing for our country. It’s true that in recent elections, Republicans have been the beneficiaries of the Electoral College system.  But as Steele and Anuzis recognize, the next election could very easily go the other way. 


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Majority Rules

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Except when it comes to the presidency it doesn't.  You cannot expect people to run for president, or presidents to govern, according to the popular will when they do not get elected by winning the national vote and cannot get re-elected by pleasing most of the people most of the time. 

Maryland is considering a bill that allocates all its electors to the national vote winner if a Republican-leaning state does the same. This reaching across the aisle via legislation is a great way to produce the reform in the rules of running that can let the majority fairly, subject to constitutional protection of individual rights, get the policies and politics that are best for most people. 

Can anyone think of any good reason not to applaud Maryland's leadership? And why wouldn't Republican Governor Larry Hogan want to sign, in fact want to champion this bill? 


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How to Win the Presidency by Losing

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Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement that he is considering running for president as an independent did not go well.  A CNN poll showed that only 13% of Americans have a favorable opinion of him. 

However, thanks to the intricacies of the Electoral College, Schultz could end up becoming the president even if only a small percentage of the people vote for him. As Hugh Hewitt explains in the Washington Post, the 12th Amendment states that the House of Representatives will choose the president if no candidate gets 270 or more electoral votes.  If Schultz wins even one state, he could end up as a compromise candidate despite getting the fewest actual votes.

This scenario may be unlikely, but it demonstrates the very real problem of third-party candidates acting as spoilers who can thwart the will of the majority in our presidential elections. 


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Free Advice

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Huge credit to National Popular Vote, Inc., the non-profit that has pushed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact slowly but steadily for more than a decade, marching through states one by one. With the addition of Colorado’s nine electoral votes, the Compact is now two-thirds of the way to its goal—a fantastic achievement.

So where do we go from here? 

Based on public statements from its leaders, NPV Inc. does not think that it is likely that it will be able to achieve its reform in time for the 2020 election. But why wait? It's a good idea that is long overdue.  

Democratic governors hold office in 14 states that have not passed the Compact: in descending order of electors, PA 20, MI 16, NC 15, VA 13, MN 10, WI 10, LA 8, OR 7, KS 6, NV 6, NM 5, ME 4, DE 3, MT 3. Assuming that as with other states that enacted the Compact, a Democratic governor would sign, then in all these state legislatures NPV Inc. should find legislators who will introduce and advocate for the Compact. Is NPV Inc. pushing hard for legislation in all of those states?

So far, only blue states have joined the Compact. It would be terrific, arguably vital, to include Republican-leaning states in this reform. One way is the ingenious idea initiated by Maryland state senator Bill Ferguson. Maryland would award its electors to the national popular vote winner if a Republican-voting state with the same or more electors took the same action, effective for 2020, even if the Compact is not in effect by then. Maryland still would stay bound to the Compact, but this move would put to the Republican governor of the state, Larry Hogan, a pro-democracy initiative that presumably he would support. He then could find a Republican governor in a Republican-leaning state who would join him in creating a prize of electors available to the candidate who wins the national vote. 

Possibly neither major party candidate would think the prize big enough to campaign nationally. But the idea alone is worthwhile because it would be the first linkage of the national vote to an award of electors in the history of the United States. Perhaps more important, the Ferguson bill offers a Republican-leaning state a way to join hands with a Democratic-leaning state to move toward this reform. Although some of the representatives of NPV Inc. have been quoted in ways that suggest they don't expect Republican allies, it should be obvious that the goal of having the national vote pick the president ought to be discussed, debated, and embraced by most Americans in all states. Indeed, some prominent Republicans have recently come forward in support of reform because it’s the right thing for the country, regardless of party. Republicans should be part of such an important step forward for democracy.  


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Compact Making Progress

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As this article says, the national popular vote movement is continuing to move forward step by step. But this reform is not fast enough, for all the reasons stated in the article. It is not healthy for the country to have still another election where the winner of the national popular vote is not necessarily going to be the president, or to have only "blue states" banding together to seek reform. Most Americans in most states favor the national vote winner getting to be president.  


Maryland Bill Could Bring Us Closer to Choosing the President by Popular Vote

Maryland Senator Bill Ferguson has introduced a bill, SB 582, that “he hopes will speed up the move to a national popular vote if other states also adopt the idea.”  Under SB 582, Maryland’s 10 Electoral College votes would go to the winner of the national popular vote if a state that voted for the Republican candidate in the last election also pledges at least as many electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. 

The bill’s supporters hope that red and blue states will work together to pair up their votes to make it less and less likely that a president could be elected without winning the popular vote.  As Senator Ferguson explained:

This is about expediting Maryland moving toward the popular vote. It breaks the political logjam through a pairing strategy. All of those states that sign up for the pairing strategy will send their votes to the winner of the popular vote.

The Maryland bill is a complementary effort to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.  As attorney Jonathan Blake stated in his testimony in favor of the bill:

The Compact’s objective is to guarantee, after the Compact becomes effective, that the winner of the national popular vote become president, whereas SB 582 seeks to improve the chances that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president during the period until the Compact becomes effective.


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The Electoral College "Has Not Stood The Test Of Time"

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In an excellent piece in the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie explains that the Electoral College has almost never worked as it was intended, and states the case for making a change:

The history of the Electoral College from [1800 on] is of Americans working around the institution, grafting majoritarian norms and procedures onto the political process and hoping, every four years, for a sensible outcome. And on an almost regular schedule, it has done just the opposite.

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Americans worried about disadvantaging small states and rural areas in presidential elections should consider how our current system gives presidential candidates few reasons to campaign in states where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. For example, more people live in rural counties in California, New York and Illinois that are solidly red than live in Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and the Dakotas, which haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades. In a national contest for votes, Republicans have every reason to mobilize and build turnout in these areas. But in a fight for states, these rural minorities are irrelevant. The same is true of blue cities in red states, where Democratic votes are essentially wasted.

Candidates would campaign everywhere they might win votes, the way politicians already do in statewide races. Political parties would seek out supporters regardless of region. A Republican might seek votes in New England (more than a million Massachusetts voters backed Donald Trump in 2016) while a Democrat might do the same in the Deep South (twice as many people voted for Hillary Clinton in Louisiana as in New Mexico). This, in turn, might give nonvoters a reason to care about the process since in a truly national election, votes count.


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Former Governor LePage’s Racist Attack on the National Popular Vote

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Former governor of Maine Paul LePage stated that white people will become a “forgotten people” if the winner of the national popular vote became the president.  LePage went on to say that if the president were chosen by popular vote, “white people will not have anything to say. It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect.” 

This is not the first time LePage has made racist comments, including referring to ”people of color or people of Hispanic origin” as “the enemy” and  falsely claiming that “90 plus percent” of drug dealers in Maine are minorities, who “half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave.”

Maine is currently considering joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, under which all member states would pledge their electors to the winner of the national popular vote if states with 270 electoral votes join the Compact.   

If the Compact goes into effect, it will guarantee that all votes across the country would be counted equally, regardless of race. Under the current system, many African-American voters see their votes systematically disregarded, along with many other Americans who do not happen to live in swing states.


Testimony of Jon Blake in Support of Maryland Popular Vote Bill

Below is the testimony of Jonathan Blake on behalf of Making Every Vote Count before the Maryland Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee in support of SB 582. SB 582 will assign Maryland’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote if a state that voted for the Republican candidate in the last election also agrees to pledge as many or more electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Testimony of Jonathan Blake

In Support of SB 582

Presidential Election–Voting by Electors

Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee

February 28, 2019

My name is Jon Blake and, on a pro bono basis, I am testifying on behalf of Making Every Vote Count, a non-profit, bipartisan organization dedicated to reforming the country’s deeply defective and increasingly destructive presidential election system which falls far short of the country’s guiding principles like one-person-one vote and “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Blair Levin, a director of MEVC, is submitting written testimony explaining why MEVC strongly supports SB 582.  My testimony addresses the opposition to the bill led by Dr. John Koza, who as head of the National Popular Vote, spearheaded the successful effort in 2007 for Maryland, as the trailblazer among all states, to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact legislation.

I admire Dr. Koza for his championing presidential reform and the Compact concept that would achieve this reform.  MEVC also ardently supports and will continue to support the Compact.  MEVC has the same ultimate goals as Dr. Koza and the other groups he has marshalled to oppose SB 582--Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and Fair Vote. 

Their opposition is a terrible shame, unnecessary and based on a near total misunderstanding of SB 582 and MEVC’s support of it. 

  • Their opposition assumes that SB 582 and the Compact are rival proposals, whereas they are complementary and each would be effective for wholly different time stages in the reform process.

  • Their opposition assumes that the short-term objectives of SB 582 are the same as the Compact’s longer term objectives, and, therefore, it does not evaluate SB 582 against the desirable objectives it is trying to achieve.  The Compact’s objective is to guarantee, after the Compact becomes effective, that the winner of the national popular vote become president, whereas SB 582 seeks to improve the chances that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president during the period until the Compact becomes effective.  Toward that end, SB 582 would automatically become null and void when that occurs.

  • The opponents denigrate the new remedial ideas made possible by SB 582 even though the new Compact ideas and their supporters are in a situation similar to NPV’s when it launched its new ideas in Maryland in 2007.  We urge the opponents of SB 582 to understand it accurately, withdraw their opposition to it, and affirmatively support it. 

  • We can think of no significant movement in this country’s history that has not been advocated for, benefited from and succeeded without the support of different groups with different perspectives, different ideas and different strategies.  Addressing a serious, destructive, undemocratic, unfair and inequitable system for electing the entire nation’s leaders is and should be regarded as a major movement.  As in the case of other major movements, a multiplicity of voices should be similarly accommodated in its support. 

In sum, Making Every Vote Count strongly supports SB 582, and it also strongly supports the Compact.  It fully believes that, short of a Constitutional amendment, the Compact is the best, most reliable, legally binding way to remedy the damage-inflicting defect in the country’s current presidential election system.  But what is also needed are immediately-attainable measures to improve the system until the Compact becomes effective.  That is what SB 582 and MEVC are attempting to do in a novel and imaginative manner that invites support across political divisions. 

***

There follows MEVC’s responses to Dr. Koza’s 12 page letter and attachment to Senator Ferguson of February 12, 2019, on a point by point basis. 

1. SB 582 could inadvertently create a politically one-sided situation and Republican partisan advantage.

Point 1 of Dr. Koza’s memo mistakenly concludes “a Missouri-Maryland pairing under SB 582 would equally give both political parties 10 electoral votes worth of protection against being denied the Presidency after winning the national popular vote” (emphasis added)  It is difficult to understand this assertion other than that Dr. Koza intends the Democratic Party candidate to win if its candidate earns the most votes nationwide, but perhaps not when the Republican candidate earns the most votes.  But I do not believe Dr. Koza intends that meaning.  Instead, when either party wins the national popular vote, its candidate should win the presidency.  That’s the goal of the compact, Dr. Koza, SB 582, Senator Ferguson, and MEVC.  It is also the goal of Common Cause, League of Women Voters, and Fair Vote.  The primacy of the popular vote is the goal of all of us. 

Similarly the hypothetical Wisconsin-Maryland Trump example cited in Dr. Koza’s memo fails to show any defect in SB 582, because the example’s central premise is that President Trump has won the popular vote.  In fact, the example, shows that the proposed reform could achieve our common goal.

Note that in offering an invitation to red states to transcend narrow, political self-interest in order to reform the country’s current presidential election system that has destructive consequences for all states and almost all voters, SB 582 would encourage any combination of red states, with electoral college totaling 10 or more to pass similar contingent legislation (i.e., 7+3, 6+4, 5+5).  The offer is not limited to red states with 10 electoral votes.  Dr. Koza’s footnote 2 recognizes this point.  But it doesn’t appreciate that Maryland’s paired-state proposal could be triggered if a red state with more than Maryland’s 10 electoral votes allocated 10 of its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.  If desired, an amendment to SB 582 could clarify this point.

2. SB 582 would not guarantee the Presidency to the national popular vote winner – and, in fact, wouldn’t even come close to accomplishing that goal.

The premise of Dr. Koza’s argument is that red state Missouri’s and blue state Maryland’s 20 electors are not by themselves enough to guarantee that the candidate who earns the most popular votes across the country will become president.  True, but that is not the objective of SB 582.  It is also true that the Compact does not yet provide any guarantee because it is not yet effective.  In contrast, as soon as a red state(s) with 10 or more electoral votes allocates its electoral votes to trigger Maryland’s paired-state law, that law will become effective.  It won’t guarantee the election of the popular vote winner but it will increase the chances that the popular vote winner will become president. 

In addition, MEVC intends to pursue various strategies for red states to adopt reforms that would result in additional electoral votes being allocated to the national popular vote winner. 

3. SB 582 does not create any reason for presidential candidates to be bothered campaigning beyond the dozen or so closely divided battleground states – and, in fact, increases the already-excessive importance of the battleground states. 

The paired-state concept was first proposed this month.  It had to start somewhere, one state at a time, just as NPV started in 2007.  Maryland was that state for NPV then, and Senator Ferguson’s bill would mean that Maryland would take a different and important next step along the same path -- a step that is compatible with the Compact.

Dr. Koza’s comparison of what the Compact would achieve once and if it becomes effective with what the paired state proposal hopes to achieve now is like predicting the ultimate height of a month-old infant compared to the ultimate height of a 12 year-old.  (In this case, the month-old infant is the product of a two-year gestation period as MEVC criss-crossed the country and consulted with all manner of experts to craft a reform proposal that could partially ameliorate the problem right away until the Compact becomes effective.

Also, the paired-state strategy, whether it succeeds or fails, poses no threat to Dr. Koza’s efforts to persuade states to adopt the Compact legislation.  In fact, the paired-state effort will help address perhaps the most pressing challenge facing efforts to enact Presidential election reform – which is a combination of indifference and lack of awareness of (a) the damaging and steeply escalating consequences of the present system and (b) the fact that reform can come only from the states, as clearly mandated by Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. 

4. SB 582 would not make every vote equal throughout the United States, but would, even under the most optimistic assumptions, make a voter in Maryland worth only a small fraction (about 1/24) of a voter in a battleground state. 

The analysis above under points 2 and 3 applies with similar force to point 4.  The only standard Dr. Koza recognizes is whether a reform proposal achieves the ideal.  He ignores the value of a proposal that can achieve improvement for an interim period of uncertain duration.

5. SB 582 is based on an assumption that an unidentified Republican state with 10 electoral votes is ready and willing to join Maryland in this deal. 

There is no basis for this assertion.  Neither SB 582 nor MEVC assumes that a particular Republican state is “ready and willing” to enact legislation parallel with Maryland’s.  Moreover, it is not a “deal.”  It is based on Maryland’s and other states’ authority to enact legislation whose effectiveness depends on another state’s passing similar legislation.  Such “contingent legislation” is commonly and successfully used in a wide range of circumstances.  Maryland should use it here.

Dr. Koza’s use of the word “unidentified” in the context of the rest of this point 5 implies a secret, surreptitious, hidden arrangement.  MEVC knows of no such arrangement. If there were one, MEVC would hail it as an accomplishment and an additional reason to support paired-state legislation.  But it is also true that in its two-year long effort to develop a viable interim solution, MEVC has spoken to many experts, thought leaders and citizens in various parts of the country in a variety of demographic categories who expressed views that the paired strategy would be responsive to.  Taken at face value, as it should be, SB 582 offers an opportunity for red states to adopt similar legislation.  The circumstances are little different from those when Maryland adopted the Compact legislation in 2007.

If NPV could convince legislatures in states with enough electoral college votes to satisfy the trigger point for the Compact so as to become effective for the 2020 election, that would achieve the goal that MEVC, like its critics, strives for, and would lead to a happy resolution of today’s differences.  But the shared-state strategy was intended, and has been crafted, to respond to the questions:  what if the Compact doesn’t become effective for the 2020 or even the 2024 presidential election; what measures can be adopted in the next 15 to 18 months that could advance the likelihood that the candidate who earns the most votes nationwide will become president in 2020, 2024 or beyond.  SB 582 answers those questions. Dr. Koza’s criticisms, boil down to actively opposing any proposal that would improve the chances that the winner of the national popular vote will become president, but not guarantee it, until the Compact takes effect. 

MEVC asks the opponents of SB 582 to join it in supporting SB 582.  It is the right thing to do.


Democrats and Republicans Agree: Every Vote Should Count

Watch James Glassman, a Republican who served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy for George W. Bush, explain that Americans from across the political spectrum agree that the person who gets the most votes should become the president and that we don’t need a constitutional amendment to make it so.


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Workers Too

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In the same commission process that illuminated the bias against African-Americans, Alexis Herman pointed out that the primary process’s schedule “affects which voices within the party are the loudest, which issues are given the most prominence. Where, she asks, is the vote of the manufacturing worker?”

In 2005, the commission mitigated the bias created by putting Iowa and New Hampshire early by moving South Carolina and Nevada, with their very different demographic compositions, up close behind the early two.

This in Primary Politics by Elaine Kamarck at 80-81.

In the general election, the winner-take-all system is biased against the interests of every working group not in a key precinct in a battleground swing state. That includes almost every constituent of the AFL-CIO. Labor should insist in every state that at least some electors are allocated to the national winner. The Chamber of Commerce should have the same view. Every business not big in a swing state gets taken for granted in the general election. That is almost all of business.


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A History of the Electoral College

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In this video, Professor Richard Tedlow gives a fascinating history lesson on how and why the Electoral College came into existence. 

Professor Tedlow explains the Electoral College, as it currently operates, is out of line with what the Founders envisioned and what most Americans want.  He discusses the practical obstacles to holding a popular election at a time when transportation and communication infrastructure was so poor as well as the compromises necessary to get slave states to agree to the new Constitution. He dispels a few common myths about the Electoral College, including that it’s working the way our Founding Fathers intended and that it protects small states. 

Professor Tedlow also explains that we are not stuck with our current system, and we don’t need a constitutional amendment to make the changes we need.