A Popular President: Making Progress With The National Popular Vote

When Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist’s gavel struck in Bush v. Gore, the United States went into uproar. The court had just declared George W. Bush the victor of Florida’s electoral votes, and thus the presidency. For the fourth time in history — and first time since 1888 — the president had lost the popular vote, this time by a margin of about 500,000 votes.

And thus began a nationwide movement.

Largely in response to Bush’s victory and the decreasing number of swing states, grassroots-backed political organizations have launched an assault on the Electoral College. A coalition led by the organization National Popular Vote (NPV) has pushed the United States closer than ever to using the popular vote to choose the president. But despite the media’s failure to cover this burgeoning movement, these groups may soon tectonically reshape American politics — and for the better.

The NPV provides a method that circumvents the constitutional amendment process — and self-interested states — using a strategy called the “Interstate Compact.” Instead of lobbying Congress to pass a constitutional amendment, the NPV goes directly to state legislatures. Enlisting legislators and governors sympathetic to the cause, NPV lobbies states to pass laws agreeing to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This is within the purview of the states, as they can internally decide their electors and make them sign contracts pledging not to stray.

Before any state gives its votes to the winner of the national popular vote, states representing half the Electoral College (270 votes) must agree to the deal. If this were to occur, enough states would allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote that the Electoral College will be rendered ineffective. The winner of the national popular vote would win a ticket straight to the White House.

Quietly, and without much fanfare from the media, 11 states — big and small, liberal and conservative — with a total of 136 electoral votes have signed onto the Interstate Compact. In other words, the movement is more than halfway there. With more support, the movement could obliterate the Electoral College, which has become a threat to democratic principles.

The Electoral College is an outdated tool that distorts the political leanings of most Americans. When the Founders created the system, it had two main goals: to create a republican system that empowered the elite to make the “correct” executive choices, and to ensure that the president reflects the preferences of a plurality of states. The former of these goals has become almost entirely irrelevant today because faithless electors are extremely rare. Though electors are supposed to retain the discretion to vote for the candidate of their choice, save for a few inconsequential strays, the state’s electors nearly always reflect the outcomes from their respective states.

On the other hand, the effort to empower states has worked to the detriment of the rest of the country. The Electoral College has created a system in which 12 states wield incredible power over presidential races. Though in the past, many states were considered up for grabs, the Obama and Romney campaigns spent all of their post-convention events in “battleground states.” Two-thirds of these events were held in four states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.

In addition, the Electoral College significantly overpowers voters in states with low populations. It is possible for a presidential candidate to win an election with about 22 percent of the popular vote. Such an occurrence would be unlikely (a candidate would need to win Wyoming and Washington, D.C.), but the possibility itself clearly demonstrates how the Electoral College distorts the value of voters based on geography.

Meanwhile, voters in so-called “safe-states”— from Texans to Californians to North Dakotans — received no attention from the two main candidates. For example, appealing to voters in Utah is a waste of time for Democrats and Republicans, since the state’s electoral votes are all but destined to go to the Republican candidate.

This problem, specific to the Electoral College, decreases voter turnout. Since many states are all but guaranteed to send all their electoral votes to one candidate, voters in the minority have little reason to show up. All their state’s electoral votes will go to the other candidate, regardless of their vote. Moreover, the supporters of the highly favored candidate also have less incentive to go the polls. Increasing the margin of victory in their home state won’t help the candidate; the race will be decided in a battleground state somewhere else in the country.

The decrease in turnout is harmful for democracy in two ways. First, it leads to disenchantment with the political system as a whole, and decreases accountability in turn. But more simply, the decrease in turnout is inimical to a representative democracy. If a presidential election is supposed to reflect the views of the nation at large, certain voters can’t be worth less than others.

A national popular vote would mitigate these issues by empowering voters in all states to have equal say in the elections. Candidates would have to taper their views to more closely mirror the opinions of citizens everywhere, not just in battleground states. The chance of a greater say in presidential elections is clearly appealing to many Americans. A recent Gallup poll indicated that 62 percent of Americans favor a national popular vote, as opposed to 35 percent who support the Electoral College. And since the point of a democracy is to afford its citizens equal representation, a national popular vote is the obvious solution.

Given the power that the Electoral College vests extra power in voters from certain states, it seems unlikely that three-fourths of states would ever willingly get rid of the system by ratifying a constitutional amendment. Any amendment is a tough sell in such a polarized country, and furthermore, the battleground states that possess an inordinate amount of power because of the Electoral College are unlikely to support any change.

But NPV has made significant headway on what seems like an intractable issue. If the movement can gain 134 more electoral votes, then the Electoral College will effectively cease to exist. Bills have been introduced in every state in the country, and the Interstate Compact has passed at least one body of the legislature in 21 states.

The first and most important consequence of a national popular vote is that mainstream positions and issues become more palatable to candidates, while niche issues become less popular. Current issues like gay marriage, marijuana legalization and immigration reform in particular would receive greater attention because of their support from voters in metropolitan areas that have been frozen out by the Electoral College.

Candidates will have incentives to alter their views to appeal to moderate voters in previously uncompetitive states. For example, after the first debate in the 2012 election, Mitt Romney gained 8 percent in the polls against Barack Obama in the state of California. Had the national popular vote been in place, that would have represented a huge opportunity for a Republican candidate. To put the numbers in perspective, Mitt Romney would’ve been on the receiving end of an approximately one million-vote swing — enough to erase the Gore’s margin of victory over Bush. But because Obama still led Romney by 14 percent in the state, nobody paid much attention. Meanwhile, candidates from both sides spent millions of dollars attempting to win the extra 100,000 votes that would determine who would win all of Florida’s electoral votes.

This also means that with a national popular vote, parties will have to more closely mirror the opinions of the electorate in general. In other words, Mitt Romney would have had every reason to campaign in one of the most liberal states in the Union to galvanize the state’s conservatives and moderates.

The national popular vote is not without its drawbacks. Increasing impact of voters from across the nation would also likely lead to an increase in campaign spending. Since voter turnout in heavily populated districts would become an important part of campaigning, candidates require massive donations in order to finance advertising campaigns in expensive media markets. In addition, the need to campaign in 50 battleground states could require presidential candidates to raise much more money.

Whether this influx of campaign contributions would increase corruption is unclear. The intuitive and likely answer is that it would. Even still, the benefits of broadening the base of voters will mean that fewer nationally unpopular issues that have huge support in battleground states — like ethanol subsidies or closing military bases — will cease to receive so much attention. So there’s a tradeoff: candidates will have to spend more time fundraising and thus cater to donors more, but other special interests that have unfairly influenced policy will start to fade.

The future of NPV and the Interstate Compact lies in state legislatures across the nation. Prominent conservatives have come out against the proposal, arguing that NPV should not attempt to change the Electoral College without an amendment. This opposition may also be influenced by the fact that a national popular vote would likely cause candidates to become more moderate — not exactly a bonus for groups like the Heritage Foundation. With this opposition, it may be a challenge for NPV to secure the next 134 electoral votes needed.

That being said, Rhode Island’s recent approval of the Interstate Compact is a good sign for the movement. Rhode Island possesses extra representation under the Electoral College, and yet it still moved toward a national popular vote. If other states follow suit, and the media recognizes the possibility that the popular vote may become a reality, a bloodbath will ensue. Perhaps the ultimate irony of this whole situation is that in order for the NPV to come to fruition, it must become popular in its own right.