National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

by bqe • 10 years ago

19 7 10 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

sharemywin• 10 years ago

pretty interesting. looks like this could be done at a state level.

D-Coder• 10 years ago

Yes, exactly. It does not require any Constitutional amendment (which would be difficult and time-consuming) to make the Electoral College almost identical to the popular vote.

pdq• 10 years ago

One of the benefits behind the electoral college is that it effectively forces candidates to visit smaller and more competitive states they would not otherwise campaign in. As different states become "swing" states, candidates go there, as they are winner-take-all.

In a popular vote, candidates would spend most of their time in large states like California, Texas, and New York.

alasdair_• 10 years ago

In a popular vote, candidates would spend most of their time in large states like California, Texas, and New York.

This does not bother me. If more people are there, then more time should be spent there.

oldgulph3• 10 years ago

The only states, of any size, that matter are competitive states.

Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory.

One analyst predicted two million voters in seven counties were going to determine who wins the presidency in 2016.

With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of three-quarters of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.

In the 2016 general election campaign The candidates concentrated 94% of their campaign events in 12 closely divided “battleground” states

In the 2012 general election campaign

38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.

More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states..

Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

Issues of importance to non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.

Charlie Cook reported in 2004: “Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”

Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009: “If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.

oldgulph3• 10 years ago

In a popular vote, candidates would spend a proportionate amount of their time in large states like California, Texas, and New York. In a nationwide election for President, candidates would campaign everywhere—big cities, medium-sized cities, and rural areas—in proportion to the number of votes, just as they now do in only a handful of battleground states.

A successful nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.

oldgulph3• 10 years ago

Now, a presidential candidate could lose while winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 states.

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with less than 22% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally: * Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267 * New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436 * Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634 * North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778 * California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560 * Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342 * New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826

To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

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