Remember all the talk about the NPVIC? You know, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?
Sure you do. A bunch of dumbass states have signed on to this thing.
Here’s what it does: in the states that sign on, whoever wins the popular vote nationally, wins all the electoral votes in the participating states, regardless of how that state voted.
The idea is to make the Electoral College meaningless.
Why are they doing this? They’re still all pissed off over the 2000 election. Gore seems to have won the popular vote, although Bush won the majority of electoral votes. And they’ve had their panties in a wad ever since.
The Compact has been signed on by eight states and DC. Here’s a list of those states and their electoral votes:
- California (55)
- Hawaii (4)
- Illinois (20)
- Maryland (10)
- Massachusetts (11)
- New Jersey (14)
- Vermont (3)
- Washington (12)
- District of Columbia (3)
What do you notice about those states? Yep. That’s right. They’re all “blue states.”
Oh, and the bill is currently pending in New York (29) and Pennsylvania (20).
Now, here’s where it gets kinda interesting.
According to the latest Gallup poll, Romney is leading by 7 points nationally. According to the Real Clear Politics average, Romney is leading by a point. Either way, Romney wins the popular vote.
Now, according to the Real Clear Politics electoral map, currently Romney has the lead in electoral votes (excluding toss-ups), and, under the current system, leads 206-201.
If toss-ups stay where they are, Obama has enough electoral votes to win the election under the current system, 294-244.
But — and here’s the fun part — if the states that are part of the Compact were to go ahead and follow it now, Romney wins in a landslide, 376-162:
Oh, and if the two states where the bill is pending were to play along anyway, Romney wins by a larger margin, 425-113.
Told you that was the fun part.
There’s a lesson to be learned from this: liberals don’t think things through.
They joined in on this idea after the 2000 election because they can’t imagine that their silly candidate could actually lose the election. They didn’t like the rules under which Bush won, so they want to change the rules.
But, they didn’t see this coming.
Oh, and there are lots of other problems with the NPVIC, not the least of which is that many states don’t even count absentee ballots if there aren’t enough to change the outcome within the state. For instance, Gore’s popular vote lead in 2000 would shrink if the absentees in New York state had been counted. They weren’t, since there weren’t enough to sway the election in the state. And, since many absentees were military, they’d have swung for Bush.
Remember that whole mess in 2000 where those idiot Florida counties were trying to figure out what a hole in a piece of paper looked like? Remember Minnesota in 2008 stretching into Summer 2009? Look for that all over.
But, Democrats, and liberals in particular, don’t think about stuff like that. It complicates their neat little imaginary lives.
But in either case it results in no change in result. Since the party that would have benefited from this change would have gotten those states (and the non-state) anyway. And if Romney wins by squeeking it out, He still wins, whather or not the compact states add to the mess.
The other interesting question is how this would be implemented. How long will the compact states wait to tally the official popular vote before declaring their electoral college votes? In any really close contest (HINT: THEY ARE ALL GOING TO BE CLOSE CONTESTS) the leader will change several times as the votes are tallied. If they wait for the absentee ballots to come in and for recounts results it could be weeks before they award their votes.
Your point about the delay is valid, but I gotta disagree about “no change in result.” If the RCP average holds and each candidate takes each state in which he leads, Obama wins. See the second graphic. But if the NPVIC applies, Romney wins, because he leads in popular vote. So, yeah, it would change the outcome. Just not like the left wants.
Although it wasn’t created for that purpose, the compartmentalization effect of the electoral college is a very real benefit. A close race in 2000 in Florida stayed in Florida. If it had been a simple nationwide popular vote, that would have been the entire nation. Can you imagine the chaos that would have caused?
Ya’ll should read the compact as your missing one critical point. National Popular Vote does NOT take effect until states totaling 270 electoral votes join the compact. That is enough states to guarantee the presidency – a majority of the Electoral College. So the states that have past the National Popular Vote operate under their current state-by-state winner take all rule, until other states join the compact.
The net result — if the election were held today — Mitt Romney would win the popular vote and lose the election (according to RCP averages). For the record – I’m a conservative republican and a strict constructionist AND I support the National Popular Vote. Also, I’ve read it and know how it works and that it preserves the state power to award electors. Read it – you might like it.
I did read the part about it not taking effect until 270 votes are impacted. That’s the point if the title of the post: Quick, pass it before the election so it will go into effect and screw the left over.
I don’t like the Compact, but I find no Constitutional prohibition against it. Article 1, Section 10 may be read to require Congressional approval, but I’m not certain it does, given the context.
If the presidency were decide by popular vote then cats would win every time! Gouverneur Morris snuck in that 35-years-old rule just to keep us out – racist!
“Morris”, oh, the irony!
The Law of Unintended Consequences, biting Liberals in the ass since… forever.
You have to admit, that was pretty sneaky of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to travel backward in time and put the electoral college into the Constitution like that.
The electoral college system protects the small states more than a straight up popular vote would. And a popular vote could easily be a tie with nation wide vote recounts for weeks or months following an election. People say the electoral college is complicated, but honestly, it maks elections simpler and results faster.
Remember: we call them “states” for a reason. This country is a federal republic of individual sovereign states, not a country divided into provinces like most are in the world. Each state says which candidate they wish to elect. The national popular vote is good for polling, but is irrelevant in a federal republic like ours.
Keln: ~~~~~~
Liberals don’t want us to be a “nation of states” anymore. They want power consolidated in one place where they can practice statism and have full control: Washington D.C.
So, uh, what happened to us being so close to calling a Constitutional Convention?
The biggest change and the one no one is talking about is how illegal aliens are represented in their votes in the electoral college. in effect allowing them to vote for president just by being alive when the census for their state was counted. California would be worth fewer EC votes without the strangth of illegal aliens in their population.
The fix: The census should count everyone, but only citizens get counted for representation. Illegal aliens should be counted only for the purposes of knowing where to send the busses to pick them up.
And all the people said “Amen.”
“the compartmentalization effect of the electoral college is a very real benefit. A close race in 2000 in Florida stayed in Florida. If it had been a simple nationwide popular vote, that would have been the entire nation.”
The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state-by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 56 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination” prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their “final determination” six days before the Electoral College meets.
The idea that recounts will be likely and messy with National Popular Vote is distracting.
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush’s lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore’s nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 56 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination” prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their “final determination” six days before the Electoral College meets.
Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent.
The U.S. Constitution provides:
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agreement or compact with another state….”
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
“Read literally, the Compact Clause would require the States to obtain congressional approval before entering into any agreement among themselves, irrespective of form, subject, duration, or interest to the United States.
“The difficulties with such an interpretation were identified by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion for the Court in [the 1893 case] Virginia v. Tennessee. His conclusion [was] that the Clause could not be read literally [and this 1893 conclusion has been] approved in subsequent dicta.”
Specifically, the Court’s 1893 ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee stated:
“Looking at the clause in which the terms ‘compact’ or ‘agreement’ appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.”
The state power involved in the National Popular Vote compact is specified in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 the U.S. Constitution:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
In the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker (146 U.S. 1), the Court wrote:
“The appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States”
The National Popular Vote compact would not “encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States” because there is simply no federal power — much less federal supremacy — in the area of awarding of electoral votes in the first place.
With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. The National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.
The Electoral College is now the set of dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate. That is not what the Founders intended.
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
Presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don’t matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.
Kerry won more electoral votes than Bush (21 versus 19) in the 12 least-populous non-battleground states, despite the fact that Bush won 650,421 popular votes compared to Kerry’s 444,115 votes. The reason is that the red states are redder than the blue states are blue. If the boundaries of the 13 least-populous states had been drawn recently, there would be accusations that they were a Democratic gerrymander.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE –75%, ID -77%, ME – 77%, MT- 72%, NE – 74%, NH–69%, NE – 72%, NM – 76%, RI – 74%, SD- 71%, UT- 70%, VT – 75%, WV- 81%, and WY- 69%.
Of the 25 smallest states (with a total of 155 electoral votes) 18 received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. Of the seven smallest states with any post-convention visits, Only 4 of the smallest states – NH (12 events), NM (8), NV (12), and IA (7) – got the outsized attention of 39 of the 43 total events in the 25 smallest states. In contrast, Ohio (with only 20 electoral votes) was lavishly wooed with 62 of the total 300 post-convention campaign events in the whole country.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC wins the presidency.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and various members of Congress who later ran for Vice President and President such as then-Congressman George H.W. Bush, and then-Senator Bob Dole.
On June 7, 2011, the Republican-controlled New York Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 47–13 margin, with Republicans favoring the bill by 21–11. Republicans endorsed by the Conservative Party favored the bill 17–7.
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
It is a bipartisan effort of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to allow every state – and every voter – to have a say in the selection of our President, and not just the 15 Battle Ground States.
National Popular Vote is not a change that can be easily explained, nor the ramifications thought through in sound bites. It takes a keen political mind to understand just how much it can help . . . Republicans. . . . Opponents either have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea or don’t fully understand it. . . . We believe that the more exposure and discussion the reform has the more support that will build for it.”
Former Tennessee U.S. Senator and 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson(R), former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar (R), and former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) are co-champions of National Popular Vote.
National Popular Vote’s National Advisory Board includes former Senators Jake Garn (R–UT), and David Durenberger (R–MN) and former congressman John Buchanan (R–AL).
Saul Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party for five years and a former candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, supports the National Popular Vote plan as the fairest way to make sure every vote matters, and also as a way to help Conservative Republican candidates. This is not a partisan issue and the NPV plan would not help either party over the other.
Rich Bolen, a Constitutional scholar, attorney at law, and Republican Party Chairman for Lexington County, South Carolina, wrote:”A Conservative Case for National Popular Vote: Why I support a state-based plan to reform the Electoral College.”
Some other supporters who wrote forewords to “Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote ” http://www.every-vote-equal.com/ include:
Laura Brod served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2003 to 2010 and was the ranking Republican member of the Tax Committee. She was the Minnesota Public Sector Chair for ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and active in the Council of State Governments.
James Brulte served as Republican Leader of the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1996, California State Senator from 1996 to 2004, and Senate Republican leader from 2000 to 2004.
Ray Haynes served as the National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 2000. He served in the California State Senate from 1994 to 2002 and was elected to the Assembly in 1992 and 2002
Dean Murray is a member of the New York State Assembly. He was a Tea Party organizer before being elected to the Assembly as a Republican, Conservative Party member in February 2010. He was described by Fox News as the first Tea Party candidate elected to office in the United States.
Thomas L. Pearce served as a Michigan State Representative from 2005–2010 and was appointed Dean of the Republican Caucus. He has led several faith-based initiatives in Lansing.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%.
NationalPopularVote
Damn, but you’re long-winded.
And he doesn’t even have a blog of his own, Basil!
Unless you count her taking over this one…
Yeah, but he/she’s good!
This is the first serious discussion in a long time.
And we have you to thank!
I’m out of donuts.
Who was supposed to bring the donuts? Was it my turn?
By the way, I’m all for a serious discussion, but check the time-stamps. No way that was written in those gaps of time. Copy-paste job. Hell, if you got that much to say, Google and WordPress are giving away blogs.
It was Son of Bob’s. He’s got more than his fair share of them! And he’s practicing “winner take all!” Bloody Federalist. He’s always Right, you know.
Liberal Progressives have been trying to force us into a pure democracy since 1913.
The same(or similar) comments by Kohler appear all over the net(just select a paragraph and google it). Likely a spam-bot, rather than an actual, interested reader of IMAO? Segments of that appear in so many comments on so many pages, I don’t see how there is an actual person associated with that poster(some of those paragraphs appear to come straight from the “answering myths” page from the nationalpopularvote website).
I have to disagree on there being no constitutional issue with NPVIC(though I certainly leave room for the supreme court to rule wrong). Even assuming there is no explicit restriction on these agreements, the pure fact that the proponents are seeking to fundamentally change how elections turn-out, by agreement of only a simple majority of the states electoral votes, is enough to invalidate the effort. The constitution-defined electoral system was created under the assumption that electoral votes would be dependent upon the opinion of the states the votes are assigned to at the current moment. Same as an individual selling their vote undermines democracy, states deciding before-hand to pool their votes together and ignore the actual voters they represent is likewise a corruption of the defined system. Using California as an example: Letting other states decide how California applies its own votes is no more legitimate than if California decided to allow Canada a voice in our elections: the electoral votes were assigned to California, and California alone. If they want to fundamentally alter our election process, they must follow the Constitutional Amendment process; there is no alternative.
National Popular Vote has nothing to do with pure democracy. Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly. With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government in the periods between elections.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
[She wrote lots more stuff. Click here to view it. – B]
“The constitution does not provide that the appointment of electors shall be by popular vote, nor that the electors shall be voted for upon a general ticket [the winner-take-all rule] nor that the majority of those who exercise the elective franchise can alone choose the electors. It recognizes that the people act through their representatives in the legislature, and leaves it to the legislature exclusively to define the method of effecting the object. The framers of the constitution employed words in their natural sense; and, where they are plain and clear, resort to collateral aids to interpretation is unnecessary, and cannot be indulged in to narrow or enlarge the text. …
“In short, the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States
The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
Each state has independent power to award its electoral votes in the manner it sees fit, so it is difficult to see what “adverse effect” might be claimed from states awarding their electoral votes in a particular way. It is especially unclear what adverse “political” effect might be claimed, given that the National Popular Vote compact would treat votes cast in all 50 states and the District of Columbia equally. A vote cast in a compacting state is, in every way, equal to a vote cast in a non-compacting state. The National Popular Vote compact does not confer any advantage on states belonging to the compact as compared to non-compacting states. A vote cast in a compacting state would be, in every way, equal to a vote cast in a non-compacting state. The National Popular Vote compact certainly would not reduce the voice of voters in non-compacting states relative to the voice of voters in member states.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.
Kohler:
Of all the authors here at IMAO, I’m the one that waits the longest before banning and throwing into the spam queue or such. Your long comments have pushed my patience to the limit.
Hardy, extra thick, hickory smoked maple bacon for Basil!