OP-ED | National Popular Vote Compact: Empowering the Political Fringe
by John Hetherington | Jan 23, 2012 11:30am
(12) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
Almost certainly we will see a major push this year to have Connecticut join the so-called National Popular Vote compact. Under the terms of the compact, each subscribing state would agree to cast its electoral votes for the presidential candidate receiving the largest popular vote nationally regardless of the choice of that state’s voters.
Because it allows any candidate to win without gaining a majority or even a minimum percentage of the popular vote, the compact encourages splinter parties. There is far less incentive for extremists to rest their case in primary battles when they can be real players in the general election. Moreover, a splinter party might actually elect a president if the popular vote is split among a sufficient number of candidates.
Other proposals to elect our president directly would require a runoff unless a candidate receives a minimum. Some suggest 40% of the popular vote. The National Popular Vote requires no minimum and allows no runoff. So we can imagine a fringe candidate becoming president with a small fraction of the popular vote. That is a blow to moderation and raises the specter of a president with only a narrow base and entirely outside of mainstream politics.
Further, the National Popular Vote scheme poses an enormous set of operational problems. To carry out the compact, some official in each participating state would have the awesome charge of deciding who received the most votes in the entire United States. We are not told on what basis the decision would be made. In the event of a close or disputed election, the temptation for a partisan call is painfully apparent. There then follows the question of how a call could be challenged, which may well bring a different answer from state to state. A repeat of the 2000 uncertainty can be imaged, magnified by a possible need to recount in states all around the country and accompanied by litigation leading again to the Supreme Court.
The National Popular Vote compact works against both moderation in politics and certainty in elections. It deserves to be rejected.
State Rep. John Hetherington is an assistant minority leader in the House of Representatives.
(12) Comments
posted by: Susan Jane Bigelow | January 23, 2012 12:25pm
Rep. Hetherington, you say that NPV’s “first past the post” format, which gives the presidency to the candidate who wins more votes than any other, would lead to splinter parties and fringe candidates. Yet this is the system we use to elect just about every single other office in the country. We use it to elect governors, senators, representatives and mayors. It’s the system you yourself were elected under. Are you arguing that this system leads to fringe candidates and punishes moderates? I don’t see a lot of fringe groups or splinter parties with state rep. seats around here, do you?
Also, an elected official in each state already has the job of determining who has won an election—the secretary of the state. That’s what they do.
Lastly, in 2000 Al Gore clearly won the popular vote. If we’d been using this system, there wouldn’t have been the uncertainty and the questions about legitimacy Bush suffered through.
We should embrace National Popular Vote, as I’ve argued before. The electoral college is an antiquated, undemocratic system that doesn’t trust the people to make their own choices, and it should be abolished. I hope you and other legislators will consider adding Connecticut to the compact this year.
posted by: mvymvy | January 23, 2012 1:54pm
With the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state’s electoral votes.
Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation’s 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.
Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.— including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912, and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).
And, FYI, with the current system, it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency—that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
Americans do not view the absence of run-offs in the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time.
posted by: mvymvy | January 23, 2012 1:55pm
After more than 10,000 statewide elections in the past two hundred years, there is no evidence of any tendency toward a massive proliferation of third-party candidates in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by the office. No such tendency has emerged in other jurisdictions, such as congressional districts or state legislative districts. There is no evidence or reason to expect the emergence of some unique new political dynamic that would promote multiple candidacies if the President were elected in the same manner as every other elected official in the United States.
Based on historical evidence, there is far more fragmentation of the vote under the current state-by-state system of electing the President than in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the jurisdiction involved.
Under the current state-by-state system of electing the President (in which the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote wins all of the state’s electoral votes), minor-party candidates have significantly affected the outcome in six (40%) of the 15 presidential elections in the past 60 years (namely the 1948, 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections). The reason that the current system has encouraged so many minor-party candidates and so much fragmentation of the vote is that a presidential candidate with no hope of winning a plurality of the votes nationwide has 51 separate opportunities to shop around for particular states where he can affect electoral votes or where he might win outright. Thus, under the current system, segregationists such as Strom Thurmond (1948) or George Wallace (1968) won electoral votes in numerous Southern states, although they had no chance of receiving the most popular votes nationwide. In addition, candidates such as John Anderson (1980), Ross Perot (1992 and 1996), and Ralph Nader (2000) did not win a plurality of the popular vote in any state, but managed to affect the outcome by switching electoral votes in numerous particular states.
posted by: mvymvy | January 23, 2012 1:57pm
Current federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the “canvas”) in what is called a “Certificate of Ascertainment.” You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site.
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 approach, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination” prior to the meeting of the Electoral College.
posted by: mvymvy | January 23, 2012 1:59pm
A survey of Connecticut voters conducted on May 14–15, 2009 showed 74% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. Voters were asked:
“How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current Electoral College system?”
By political affiliation, support was 80% among Democrats, 67% among Republicans, and 71% among others.
By gender, support was 81% among women and 66% among men.
By age, support was 82% among 18-29 year olds, 69% among 30-45 year olds, 75% among 46-65 year olds, and 72% for those older than 65.
NationalPopularVote
posted by: Luther Weeks | January 23, 2012 3:23pm
Currently there is no official national popular vote number available in time for states to decide in time for when electors must be determined. The compact does not change that existing law. It would require changes to the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Accounting Act. Electors must be chosen by each state prior to the date when they are required to send in their official popular vote numbers. In fact, states are required to choose their electors six days before they vote and seven days before they send in the official popular vote numbers and electors to the Federal Government.
On the issue of 2000, nobody can be sure how many votes each candidate actually received since the reported numbers are not audited. Likely there are errors, that in most states do not matter except in states with close votes…except they all would with the popular vote.
Also, NPV advocates claim, probably correctly, that more and different voters would vote under the NPV. So, it is impossible to determine how many votes each candidate would have received in 2000 under a different system than the Electoral College that was in effect at the time.
There is no close-vote recount available for the national popular vote, especially since official numbers are not available in time for a recount; only some states have recount laws, which in any case, only apply to close votes within a state; in Gore v. Bush SCOTUS stopped the recount in FL because it was not uniform; Finally recall that many states use paperless touch screens impossible to audit or recount. (As questionable as the system is in some states, at least the Electoral College limits the effects of error and skullduggery to a few swing states.)
posted by: ACR | January 23, 2012 5:36pm
Susan Bigelow said:
“Lastly, in 2000 Al Gore clearly won the popular vote. If we’d been using this system, there wouldn’t have been the uncertainty and the questions about legitimacy Bush suffered through..”
No, instead we would have suffered through a presidency of someone unable to carry their own home state.
Let’s remember, had the inventor of the internet carried Tennessee, the results in Florida would have been of no consequence.
It’s fair to assume the people of his own state knew what they were doing, and they rejected Gores candidacy.
posted by: CitizenCT | January 23, 2012 10:20pm
Mr. Hetherington, you are absolutely correct. Popular vote would be a disaster for CT. The current system favors swing states. When CT votes for any democrat, what’s the point of campaigning here? If someday, due consideration was given to other candidates, CT could be relevant. However, under popular vote, no candidate would come here under any circumstance. The state is too small to move the popular vote needle. The “swing states” move to California and Texas under popular vote. At least under the current system, CT has a chance to be relevant.
posted by: mvymvy | January 23, 2012 11:43pm
We can clearly understand how the effects of error and skullduggery in one swing state can determine the presidency under the current system.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: “To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election—and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?”
posted by: mvymvy | January 24, 2012 12:45pm
A nationwide presidential campaign, with every vote 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. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every vote is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.
posted by: Luther Weeks | January 24, 2012 2:14pm
@MVYMVY whomever you are,
You make the same mistake as for Presidential candidate John Anderson and advisor to the NPV.org, when you say:
One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
Almost any grammar school student could figure out that one vote with the National Popular Vote Compact could mean ALL of the Electors of the states agreeing to the Compact - the whole election, decided by any single vote by error or fraud in any state.
Of course, one vote deciding the election is unlikely in either case, and more likely to decide the electors in a single state. However, 1) It would have to be a close election and that state would have to switch from one candidate to another, 2) That state would have to have enough electors to change to result, and 3) be one of those states without a good recount law.
On the other hand several significant errors, frauds, and disenfranchisements in several states favoring one side, would be less likely to change the result under the current electoral accounting system with the National Popular Vote Compact added, because the subset of those errors, frauds, and suppressions would only matter and need to be detected and corrected in the swing states.
I am glad we seem to agree that the current election system is subject to fraud. Perhaps you would join others working toward a safer more credible system. That should be a prerequisite for any change that makes the system more vulnerable to error, fraud, and court challenges.
posted by: MrSpartan | January 24, 2012 11:22pm
Your opposition to this nutty NPV scheme is well founded and well articulated, Rep Hetherington!
Check out and join the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/KeepOur50States for additional information.
Help preserve the American Federation of States - Stop the National Popular Vote effort!