VA Bill Is Latest Effort by Democrats to Change Electoral College Taking Away Voice of Rural America

With current statewide winner-take-all laws, a presidential candidate could lose despite winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 smaller 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 candidate. In 2016, among the 11 largest states: 7 voted Republican(Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) and 4 voted Democratic (California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey). 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.

With National Popular Vote, it's not the size of any given state, it's the size of their "margin" that will matter. Under a national popular vote, the margin of your loss within a state matters as much as the size of your win.

 

The 8 smallest states (i.e., those with 3 electoral votes) together received only one of the nation’s 952 general-election campaign events in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections.

With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Pennsylvania and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn't be about winning a handful of battleground states.

Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.

Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 5 jurisdictions.

Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.

State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.

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 5.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), 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.

Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.

Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

 

Dude - every Democrat who has been voted into the White House in the last 100 years won BOTH the Electoral College vote AND the popular vote. It’s only been the last two Republican presidents who were unable to win both.

 

That’s ironic you wrote it that way as I am from Tennessee by birth and am now a Republican in Ca. I still vote because of down ticket matters and I live in an area where outside of President as far as EV’s go and US senators, everyone else that represents me from US house member to state senator, state assembly woman, to non partisan offices like city council county boards of supervisors, school boards, sheriff, etc are all Republicans

 

When I lived in CA it was interesting that y’all have your own super partisan line running through most of the state. The Republicans there are more right leaning than many of the Republicans from Tennessee.

Which is one of the largest issues I have with the EC, it disenfranchises huge populations in states that are overwhelmingly blue or red.

 

And once Democrats have imported enough immigrants into Texas, Conservatives will never win a presidential election ever again. Have a little patience...... you will get the 3rd world governance and corrupt socialism that you desire and it will last until we go full Venezuela and have to slaughter our pets for food. The only satisfaction I have is knowing that the corrupt globalist elites who did the demographic replacement will get the knife long before I do.

 

Why?.

 

The problem is that only blue states are signing that concept. So no red state is going to give up it’s electoral votes to the in state loser to the national cosmetic meaningless popular vote winner while blue states are committed to betraying their own popular vote winner to give their votes to us. Thanks. In your proposal had Hillary and Trump been reversed in the popular vote and that compact was in effect, California, New York, Colorado, and now Virginia would have handed the Presidency to Trump. What ever happened to that massive electoral college blue wall you all had from 1992 to 2012?

 

The electoral college may have made sense in the days when it took weeks for news to travel across our country,but today news is available to everyone virtually the minute it is made regardless of ones location within our fifty states.

 

NPV would ensure that candidates wouldn't need to bother visiting more than a handful of states and voters who don't live in those states wouldn't need to bother going to the polls. When do you predict that you will stop throwing your temper tantrum over losing an election you couldn't lose. The guy you claim to be an idiot outsmarted you geniuses. Throw off the hubris and lock up the wackos and you may well win an election.

Killary won the popular vote because Trump didn't hold rallies in CA, IL. or NY. Since electoral votes and not the popular vote count in Presidential elections. If he is forced to campaign in states he can't win, then he will be happy to crush whichever wacko you choose in both the electoral college and popular vote.

 

What percentage of our population EVER go to see any political candidate in person even if they are playing across the street from their house????Why bother when you can see it much better on TV as a rule.

 

In that case, and I agree with it, Trump still won 2016.

 

I have seen Nixon and Obama speak in person.

 

Should I be surprised at that? California and NYC/NJ don't get to decide for the other 47 states. You can't change the system just because you were sad over the election results. When democrats do win again, you won't see crybaby republicans trying to change the whole voting system or give drivers licenses to illegals and then saying "everyone with a license can vote"d
That is shady, disgusting, and UN-AMERICAN. Thankfully our four fathers could foresee this potential corruption (from either side) and implemented a system that is FAIR to the entire country.

 

Hell dude - Trump was crying about the Electoral College before he had to rely on it to win the election, so just stop with the pathetic excuses.
"The electoral college is a disaster for for a democracy" was his exact tweet.

 

Ah, really?

Trump didn't get your memo. Try Tweeting it instead.

 

it wouldn't be the first time he tweeted something lame

 

I

I’ve seen Reagan and Bush 41 in person and I’ve seen Dole and McCain in person during the primaries before they were the nominee

 

can you imagine the outrage if Obama lost the popular vote but still won... I can

 

Dems run up large majorities in NY and CA, but that’s just two states out of 50. The electoral college ensures elections are not decided by just two or three states.

 

Republicans are the ones running this country into debt with their endless wars and tax cuts for the rich

 

one vote should equal one vote, were all Americans

 

There are no national elections in the United States of America. All elections are by state or district. For President we only vote on which electors our state sends to the electoral college. Whether our slate of electors from our state wins by one vote or four million votes is totally meaningless.

 

never said there was, just said one vote should be one vote in the Presidential election

Trump lost the popular vote by millions and still won.. sad!

 

It doesn’t matter. Trump won the popular vote in 31 states to Hillary’s 20 including DC. The fact that Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by 100,000 votes between them combined and Hillary won about the same number of electoral votes in California by four million votes means absolutely nothing. Both campaigns knew the rules going in and democrats had a built in advantage in the EC, the big and tall blue wall. Trump campaigned more wisely and effectively than Clinton did.