Popular Vote Partisanship

posted by Josh Goodman

You'll never guess what's standing in the way of efforts to select the president using the popular vote: partisan politics.

Last year, a few states started considering the idea of forming an interstate compact where they would all award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner (but only if enough states joined for the compact states to be able to decide who wins the Electoral College). This looked like a clever way for states to effectively kill the Electoral College without federal approval.

This year, the idea has been introduced in 46 legislatures, but don't expect the red and blue maps to disappear anytime soon. The obstacle is that, though many Democrats support the idea, almost all Republicans oppose it.

So far, the North Dakota House, Montana Senate and Colorado Senate have voted on the popular vote plan. The bills were rejected in Montana and North Dakota, despite support from the vast majority of Democrats, because a grand total of five Republicans voted for the legislation. In Colorado the bill passed, but without a single Republican vote. Democrats don't have nearly enough power in state governments to get this effort off the ground without help from Republicans.

Why has the popular vote become a partisan topic?

Partisanship never needs a reason, but in this case there are two. The obvious one is that the 2000 presidential election turned Democrats against the Electoral College.

Less obvious: The 31 states carried by Bush in '04 averaged 9.2 electoral votes. Kerry's 19 states and Washington, D.C. averaged 12.6 electoral votes. Since the Electoral College gives greater weight to smaller states (even the least populous states start with three votes), current state voting patterns give Republicans an advantage, one they don't intend to relinquish.

Still, the popular vote isn't an issue that only can be viewed through a partisan lens. If states were really serving their individual self-interest, populous states that aren't competitive in presidential elections -- California, New York and Texas -- would get on board. Those states, despite all their people, serve only as fundraising hubs in presidential politics today.

On the other hand, small states, especially small swing states (New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and, yes, Colorado) lose power with the popular vote. Even the populous swing states -- Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan -- wouldn't be as influential if votes in all 50 states counted equally. Therefore, if each state focuses on its own interest, this idea isn't going anywhere.

So what perspective would get the compact rolling? Legislatures and governors would have to embrace the irony of states getting to decide how the head of the federal government is picked (a finger in the eye for REAL ID, NCLB and every other federal mandate?) and ignore the irony that their decision would effectively remove states as relevant units in the presidential selection process.

Comments

[Richard Winger]

The Hawaii Senate has passed the plan (SB 1956) and it got a few Republican votes. And it would have passed in the Montana Senate if 6 Democrats hadn't voted against it.

[Rob Richie]

Goodman's post showcases the importance of heightened debate over this exciting proposal, as he is quite in error that the current system boosts small states. His misleading numbers miss the fact that a swing big population state is far more important than a swing small population state -- an understanding the small population states had in the 1960s. The real divide is the political apartheid enshrined by the current system: a shrinking number of swing states that matter, and the large majority of states of all types that mean absolutely nothing to the presidential campaigns. (For data supporting that point, see FairVote's "Presidential Election Inequality" report at www.fairvote.org/president )

The fact is that over time both parties have an equal chance to win a national popular vote and an equal chance to win under the Electoral College. They've split the national popular vote in the last: 1) two elections; 2) six elections; 3) eight elections; 4) twelve elections; 5) sixteen elections; 6) 22 elections; 7) 26 elections. The only one of those elections with a "wrong way winner" was 2000, but Democrats had similarly good chances to do so, including 2004 (when Kerry would have won with a swing of less than 60,000 votes in Ohio) and 1960 (when Kennedy's popular vote win easily could have been reversed).

Partisans obviously will make their calculations, as sanctimonious words about the right to vote and democracy far too typically finish behind outcome-based gamesmanship. But even partisans will listen to the public when they must, and opponents of a national popular vote are on the very short stick of a 70%-30% public opinion divide that covers all categories of states.

As this debate swells in the coming months and years, the current partisan division (not as severe as presented, as Republicans are key backers in several states) will lessen as more attention is focused on the policy choice presented here -- e.g., the current dysfunctional status quo or a national popular vote supported by an overwhelmiung majority of Americans and based on the principle that the weight of every vote should be equal when electing are only national office.

To track the debate and know why we are about to go through our last state-by-state vote for president, visit: www.nationalpopularvote.com

[Tom S]

Before getting too excited about this, consider unintended consequences. It is too easy to say the problem is the elctoral college so do away with it.

If we ever have a close election based on popular vote, you open all 50 states to recounts, etc. Instead of one Florida or Ohio you have 50 +.

[Democracy Advocate]

Tom, we are several times more likely to have a controversial recount decide our elections under the 50-state system then when all of our votes count equally.

For this extremely remote chance that we actually may need to have to learn count our votes right with great precision -- which isn't a bad idea anyway --you suggest leaving in place a system that establish such incredible inequality? Abraham Lincoln had it right when he said that government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Let's let the people pick our president.