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

The National Popular Vote bill is 73% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

It requires enacting states with 270 electoral votes to award their electoral votes to the winner of the most national popular votes.
All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.

 

5,187,019 Californians live in rural areas.
1,366,760 New Yorkers live in rural areas.

California and New York have a total of 24,243,000 registered voters.
15% of the total number of registered voters in the US (which is 153,066,000).

Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws for awarding electors, minority party voters in the states don’t matter.

California and New York state together would not dominate the choice of President under National Popular Vote because there is an equally populous group of Republican states (with 58 million people) that gave Trump a similar percentage of their vote (60%) and a similar popular-vote margin (6 million).

In 2016, New York state and California Democrats together cast 9.7% of the total national popular vote.

California & New York state account for 16.7% of the voting-eligible population

Alone, they could not determine the presidency.

In total New York state and California cast 16% of the total national popular vote

In total, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania cast 18% of the total national popular vote.
Trump won those states.

The vote margin in California and New York wouldn't have put Clinton over the top in the popular vote total without the additional 60 million votes she received in other states.

In 2004, 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.

New York state and California together cast 15.7% of the national popular vote in 2012.
About 62% Democratic in CA, and 64% in NY.

New York and California have 15.6% of Electoral College votes. Now that proportion is all reliably Democratic.

Under a popular-vote system CA and NY would have less weight than under the current system because their popular votes would be diluted among candidates.

 

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

“Swing States A Special Vulnerability In Achieving Election Security, DHS Says” – 3/21/18
"The reality is: Given our Electoral College and our current politics, national elections are decided in this country in a few precincts, in a few key swing states," former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson
The former secretary of DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen, echoed those comments

In 2000, 537 popular votes in Florida determined that the candidate who had 537,179 less national popular votes would win.

Less than 80,000 votes in 3 states in one region determined the 2016 election, where there was a lead of over 2,8oo,ooo popular votes nationwide.

According to Tony Fabrizio, pollster for the Trump campaign, the president’s narrow victory was due to 5 counties in 2 states (not CA or NY).

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in 1, 2, or 3 states would have elected a 2nd-place candidate in 6 of the 18 presidential elections

 

“ Let’s quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with [fewer] votes to win the White House. Republicans have long said that they believe in competition. Let both parties compete for votes across the nation and stop disenfranchising voters by geography. The winner should win.” – Stuart Stevens (Republican)

In Gallup polls since they started asking in 1944 until the 2016 election, only about 20% of the public 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 (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

When asked the simple question “Do you think the person who wins the most votes nationwide should become the president?” 74% of all Americans surveyed say yes.

Support for a national popular vote for President has been strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.

There are several scenarios in which a candidate could win the presidency in 2020 with fewer popular votes than their opponents. It could reduce turnout more, as more voters realize their votes do not matter.

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. It undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
The National Popular Vote bill was approved in 2016 by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

Since 2006, the bill has passed 40 state legislative chambers in 24 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 271 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Nevada (6).

The bill has been enacted by 16 small, medium, and large jurisdictions with 196 electoral votes – 73% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate with the most national popular votes.
When enacted by states with 270 electoral votes, it would change state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

 

Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .

Almost all small and medium-sized states and almost all western, southern, and northeastern states are totally ignored after the conventions.

Our presidential selection system shrinks the sphere of public debate to only a few thousand swing voters in a few states.

The only states that have received any campaign events and any significant ad money have been where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican.

This leads to a corrupt and toxic body politic.

 

Because of current state-by-state statewide winner-take-all laws for Electoral College votes, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution . . .

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
"The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,"
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.

Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.

In the 2016 general election campaign

Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).

Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country's population).

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).

In the 2008 campaign, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA).

In 2004, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in 9 states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.

 

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

Issues of importance to 38 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.”

When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

 

The 2020 Electoral College map you come up with, under the current system, if you count up the popular vote of the 2018 congressional races is the same exact map by which Obama defeated Mitt Romney in 2012, except with Ohio (1 going to Republicans. It would have equated to 314 electoral votes for Democrats and 224 for the GOP.

 

The solution to that is to have the Maine and Nebraska method for determining electoral votes nationalized. That doesn’t take amending the US constitution

 

It only has support in current blue states. Red states will never support it. We say leave system as is or nationalize the Maine and Nebraska model or amend the constitution and have no intention of negotiating that position