National Popular Vote? By Nan Trout (Posted May 13, 2009)
The Oregon House of Representative has passed HB2588, a bill to join the national compact to guarantee a national popular vote for President. Rep. Peter Buckley recently supported the measure, which is a truly grassroots effort to find a way for states with a combined electoral vote majority (270 votes) to guarantee that the winner of the popular vote becomes president. Link to fact sheet
As soon as the House passed that bill the blogoshpere was on it! The pros and cons were aired on the liberal Blue Oregon blog www.blueoregon.org , where the notion is not yet a done deal.
The objections are both political … Many states have either corrupt election officials or trouble with recounts and there is no national standard for organizing elections ... There is nothing in the agreement that prevents a state from backing out of its commitment after the election is held and before the Electoral College (E.C.) meets... The voters in a state would have a fit if the winner of their popular vote didn’t get the state’s electoral votes... Occasionally, the loser of the popular vote is awarded the Presidency by the E.C.
and philosophical... This proposal by-passes the constitutional amendment process... Under the Constitution we are a close confederation of states, each of which have separate elections after which each selects Electors who act as the states’ presentatives in casting their votes in the E.C.
On the other hand, those who favor this effort have their own philosophical viewpoint: The only way a president can be legitimate according to democratic principles is to win the popular vote of the entire country, and to campaign across the land, not in just the “swing” states. As the Pledge of Allegiance says, we are ‘one nation’, not just a loose confederation of 50 states.
On April 28, 2009 Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed her state's National Popular Vote Compact. Thus our northern neighbor joins Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey as early states committed to this reform. Between them they command 61 electoral votes or 23%of the number needed to bring this compact into being.
Politically, nothing at all will change until enough states join the compact to assure their electoral votes represent precisely a majority of the American voters. Their electoral votes will simply be pooled to represent the actual popular result as determined in the polling booths across the nation.
Only the votes for President in the general election are incorporated in this plan. The compact will not relate to the primary elections throughout the several states. Nor will either the Congressional or Senate elections be affected. The trigger for all this reform activity, of course, is the 2000 election, when the loser of the popular vote was awarded the Presidency in the Electoral College.